Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
A glimpse of the 390-mile-long Mammoth Cave
9.
Mammoth Cave National Park
Follow signs to the East Entrance of Mammoth Cave National Park, where some 4,000
years ago woodland Indians discovered the fern-draped mouth of Mammoth Cave. Ex-
ploring its mazelike depths with flaming torches held high above their heads, they must
have been astonished by the gigantic chambers whose ceilings sparkle with delicate white
gypsum crystals. What must have amazed the Indians most of all was the cavern's sheer
enormity: rooms as large as modern-day concert halls and wide corridors that go on under-
ground for miles and miles.
Little did these Indians know that they were the first to explore one of the most ex-
tensive cave systems in the world. (Its charted passages meander more than 390 miles in
darkness beneath the forest-covered hills, and countless others remain unexplored.) Some-
time around the birth of Christ, for reasons that experts have yet to determine, the Indians
abandonedMammothCave,anditfellintoobscurityuntil1797.Then,accordingtolegend,
a lone hunter tracking a wounded bear he had shot stumbled across the cool, damp open-
ing. After this serendipitous discovery, stories spread around the globe about the behemoth
natural caverns, and soon its corridors were filled with exclamations of wonder called out
by curious visitors. Weddings were held in the cave's enormous, high-ceilinged rooms, as
were fancy balls.
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