Hey, just so you know ... this post is now about 13 years and 10 months old. Please keep that in mind as it very well may contain broken links and/or outdated information.

We got up early this morning thanks to a particularly loud chirping bird in the woods outside of out cabin. Ah, nature!

We had breakfast in the cabin with our friends and their kids and then met up with the other family in our group. It was supposed to be four families in total (8 adults and 8 kids) but at the last minute one of our friends had a work emergency and was unable to join us for the unofficial reunion (all of us adults, except for one, went to college together). So it was just 6 adults and 6 kids, which is still a pretty big group. After taking a group photo and then changing into some cooler clothes, we took a nice walk on one of the nature trails near the Visitor Center. Soon, it was 10am and time for my caving expedition.

Now, 15 years ago after we graduated from college, my two college buddies and I had gone on a senior road trip from Ohio to Florida and back. That trip culminated with a stop at Mammoth Cave where we did the Wild Cave Tour: a six-hour underground crawl through areas of the cave the general (walking) public doesn’t get to see. It involves helmets, lights, tight spaces, dirt, water, mud, and lots of crawling. It was an amazing experience. For years we had been planning on doing it again as a mini-reunion. We weren’t able to get it planned for our 10-year reunion, but now 15 years later we were finally going to crawl the tunnels of Mammoth Cave again. Unfortunately, my third buddy was the one who was unable to make it at the last minute. So my other friend and I were excited to be going on the tour, but sad at the same time that our trio was incomplete.

We met our guides Heather and Josh at the Visitor Center, along with the 11 other people who were going on the tour with us. That was quite a shock, as the last time we had done the crawl it was just the three of us, one other person, and our guide. It was interesting to be in a larger group. We were bussed from the Visitor’s Center over to some barracks where were suited up in coveralls and were equipped with our helmets, lights, gloves, and fanny packs. The only thing we had to bring was hiking boots. Due to a recent outbreak of white  nose syndrome (a disease killing bat populations in other caves around the country), no outside equipment was allowed. Once we were all dressed, it was time for another bus ride to the Carmichael Entrance.

Here’s the list of the places and formations I remember going through on the crawl:

Carmichael Entrance (in), Dismal Hollow, Split Rock, Bare Hole, Birth Canal, Snowball Room (lunch!), Pinson’s Pass, Lantern Room, Cathedral Domes, No-Name Pass, Tiger Lily, Cheese Grater, Otter Slide, Hooter Alley, Fox Avenue, Star Trek Room, Compass Needle, Frozen Niagra, Frozen Niagra Entrance (out!)

I had brought along a disposable camera to get some photos, but unfortunately the winding mechanism broke after just 10 pictures. But at least I was able get a few shots early on in the tour:

We did crawls, canyon walks, slides, and hikes. At one point we even had to walk through chest deep cold water (which we actually voted to do)! We all made it out, though, six hours and five miles later: cold, wet, tired, and amazed. Josh and Heather were fantastic guides.

After getting back to the barracks and having our boots disinfected (for WNS), my buddy and I walked back to the cabin to meet up with our families, get showered, and generally cleaned up. While we were crawling, the families had done a few of the more normal walking tours in the cave and my daughter had completed the Junior Ranger activities to earn a cool badge. The third family of our group had left while we were underground (we had said our goodbyes before going on the crawl), so the rest of us (now 4 adults and 3 kids) drove to Bowling Green for dinner. After eating, we were going to head over to Chaney’s Dairy Barn for dessert only to discover it had closed at 5 (something that was starting to become a pattern on our trip). We had promised the kids ice cream, though, and luckily there was a Bruster’s around the corner from the restaurant so we had to “settle” for that.

We drove back to the cabin at Mammoth Cave to get the kids to bed and then turned in for the night. We’ve got our longest drive tomorrow: all the way to Minnesota.