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Thirty years ago I spent three months as a USGS intern as part of a team taking depth readings on explored portions of caves.
What makes Mammoth so cool is the huge size of the passages. But, I don’t think I’d have been nearly as impressed if I’d not spend three months mostly crawling through the tiny passageways that comprise the vast majority of most caves.
Wyandott cave once ran a 12 hour 2 person + 2 guide tour into the tighter areas. If they’re still running that tour then I highly recommend it. At the time, it was damned near impossible to ever see a cave in that way unless you had a friend already hooked into the spelunking community.
Damn, very cool, thanks so much for elaborating!
I went to The Caves of Han and had a blast, and also went to some smaller natural caves. We have some divers in the family and I was well aware about the dangers and difficulties of exploring caves(systems) like this. Walking around on pathways with railings, lights and every comfort you need for walking through a cave, it sometimes felt surreal or weirdly conflicting.
I did some guided underwater caving myself in coastal reefs in Egypt. There was a point where you had turn up from horizontal, slightly left, and about 45degrees back upward where you came from, with only the light you make with the divers light. This tunnel was just large enough to fit you with divers equipment, so basically a human sized hamstertube. and even though our guide was fantastic and dive prep was 10/10, that was intense.
Cave exploring is super cool and very very dangerous and risky and unpractical, so it’s not hard to feel great awe when you see some caves like this ‘conquered’, knowing the effort it must have taken :-) .
I did some guided underwater caving myself in coastal reefs in Egypt.
I’ve been in tight caves, skydived and may soon buy an ultralight, climb without a rope (class 3ish) with fatal fall exposure, etc. I’ve managed to stay alive because of heavy risk assessment and mitigation efforts.
Cave diving is a whole different category of risk. I’d never attempt it. As a hobby it’s certain death. Please say something about this in your post above.
so it’s not hard to feel great awe when you see some caves like this ‘conquered’, knowing the effort it must have taken :-)
Mammoth Cave isn’t “conquered” – not by a long shot! They explored eight more miles of it for the first time just three years ago (and have apparently added six more without making the news since then, since the total is now 426), and estimate there may be another 600 miles yet unexplored.
Oh, ok grue, but I said “caves like this” and there are tours through the Mammoth caves. So what would you suggest I call it? Partly tamed?
So what would you suggest I call it? Partly tamed?
Seems reasonable!
Yeah, but most of those 600 miles are just a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Sounds like an adventure!
Perhaps the 3-day-no-poop challenge guy was one of these cave explorers?
Mammoth used to have wild cave tours as well, no idea if that’s changed during the pandemic though.
ActionAdventureTwins on YouTube has fantastically anxiety inducing cave exploration videos.
The first recommended video when I searched for them was this one. Very cool, and confirmed for me that even though I don’t have claustrophobia, cave diving is definitely not for me.
What they don’t always touch on is how long they are in those caves for. They will be in the caves for 5+ hours, with a couple hours where one guy is solo and squeezing through areas with no hope of rescue if he gets stuck.
I am certain one of them is going to die in a cave after he went off alone and was crushed as he crawls under a breaking off flake or drowns when he gets turned around underwater. They don’t have any sort of gas detectors either and have ignored serious signs that they are not in an area with breathable air.
Reminds me of the time I visited Penns Cave in PA. It was cool. It’s traversed by boat and part of the tour now is about how much damage running the tours over the century damaged the cave. It’s kinda meta.
My favorite part is when they show you “the chimes” and talk about how tours used to tap them to make a spectacular noise during the tour and how they took millions of years to form but now they’re all broken because we are all dumb monkeys.
I’ve been there, it’s absolutely amazing if you can appreciate the context.
Last time I went it felt like Disney land or some shit, soooo many loud and obnoxious kids
No phones, very little people, and nature? Sign me the fuck up!
Even better is that it has a deep dark abyss to crawl into!
Maybe it’ll teleport us back to the normal days of civilization!
Where life expectancy was dependent on whether or not you had access to leeches and pure luck!
You’re finally awake!
oh shit your mom lives in the cave?
I’m guessing the disappointed visitors are probably also “Disney adults.”
That sounds very specific…
I used to live in a part of Utah where many of the women and children have basically only ever left Utah to go to Disneyland. Everything that could be considered a vacation destination got compared to Disneyland.
Sorry, but no thanks. If I wanted to see a disappointment I’d just get a mirror.
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Thank you for that, it was my first time
👀 did not let me down
Dad?
When you go, stop at the shitty dinosaur park right by there. Tons of hilariously bad dinosaur statues.
Heck yes! It’s well worth the price and time. Takes a good hour to walk the whole park and really marvel at how bad some of the statues are.
10/10. No notes.
Yeah! Been to this cave and we stopped by the dinosaur place while we were there since it was just too tempting. Fun little diversion and the statues are… They’re something all right lmao
If you’re in the mood to have a laugh at other people’s bad reviews, check out the Your Stupid Opinions podcast. They have covered at least one other national park that someone reviewed as “mid” as well as a ton of other hilariously bad reviews that range anywhere from sex toys to local psychics. I always enjoy passing the time on my way to work with these guys. Small town murder is also really good by them, haven’t checked out the crime in sports one yet though.
Total bullshit, didnt see a single mammoth!
Increasing success through lowering expectations
I credit my family trip to Mammoth Caves for why I love the outdoors. After a morning cave tour we hiked above ground, getting way too close to sinkholes and completely getting lost. I’m still amazed that my otherwise not outdoorsy family went along with it, and that none of us fell into the bottomless pits that we were marvelling over.
I went there, spent three days on various tours, it was fantastic!
If you’re on Instagram check out NationalParkDisservice he basically makes and posts this type of content
Same with “Subpar Parks!”
Been there, loved it.
We have regret at home.
