Parts 1 & 2 - Oasis of Fun & Mammoth Cave Nat'l Park

The first stop of the Great Trip as the Oasis of Fun in Atlanta, GA. I got to play several favorite games, including Uruk, Through the Ages and Masters of Venice, which is a new favorite and was a particularly satisfying play even though I didn't win. It was wonderful, as always, to see old friends and meet new ones.

After Oasis, I stopped off at Six Flags to get my season pass, as it had to be done there and I'll need it for future stops. Then on the road for 4.5 hours and 300 miles to Bowling Green, Kentucky, where I'm writing from now. I worked for a bit, then got some much needed sleep before heading up to the Wild Cave Tour in Mammoth Cave Nat'l Park, which a few years ago had been a pretty traumatic experience for some friends but I was really looking forward to it.

I did a similar "real caving" guided tour at the Waitomo Caves in New Zealand back in '01 and absolutely loved it. That expedition involved rappelling down 2 different 100+ foot high waterfalls and some really tight crawls, one even through water. So I'd really looked forward to the tour at Mammoth Cave and it didn't disappoint.

There were only 5 of us in the group, plus 2 guides, Heather and Gabe. Best of all, the other 4 were equally gung ho to go the toughest route and crawl the smallest spaces. We started out simply enough, but quickly came to the area known as Bare Hole. Heather showed us how to get through it and made it look easy, but it helped that she's 5'0" and weighs a buck-oh-five soaking wet. Then it was through a variety of passages with names like Kathleen's Crawl and Birth Canal (with included Fallopian Tubes). Many times we were on our hands and knees crawling along, and sometimes even on our bellies, trench crawling or just pulling ourselves through. There were passages that were only half again as tall as your body as you laid completely flat.

After lunch they showed us the smallest hole that guests were allowed to crawl through, and Brett (the only other guy among us paying customers) and I were the only ones to have a go at getting through it. It was so small that if you didn't turn your head sideways, you'd get stuck before even getting started. I actually had to breathe out completely to get my chest small enough to squeeze through comfortably. Inside the little room on the other side someone had left a baby-blue telephone behind. I don't know if it was some inside joke among the rangers or what, but it made me laugh. Getting out of that small hole was tougher than getting in (proving it's easier to get into trouble than out of it) because it was uphill, but with a little help I managed it.

Then we headed over to Pinson's Pass. Here Gabe took a few minutes to work out exactly what the best way was to squeeze through. He'd only recently come back to MC and it had been over half a year since doing this stretch of the cave, and a while for Heather as well. They were really indulging the group's wish for the parts of the tour that many groups never tried. Eventually he worked out where to put your hands, feet and butt and at what part you had to support your weight on your arms and slowly drop a foot or so to get to the next footholds, then twist around and face the other way and do something similar to get down to the next level. All of this had to be done above what was about a thirty foot drop. It was a bit unnerving, but we all made it through with no troubles. From there it was a long and difficult "canyon walk" which is where you have a foot on the wall on either side of the canyon underneath you.

At that point the cave system began to open up a good bit as we got to Cathedral Dome and then Creighton's Dome. There were very few stalactites as the MC system is a very dry system in most places. Then we came to the Lion's Head which was another challenging route like Pinson's Pass. It led to another long canyon walk, then the Otter Slide, which was best navigated by sliding on your butt, and Hooter Alley, which was a small crawlspace with a some breast shaped stalagmites that gave it its name. Much of the last 1.5 hours of the trip was through large passages with high ceilings and narrow trail through the rock, but all upright walking and we kept a good pace. Just when it had all been going easy for quite a while, we reached what's called "threading the needle". This was a very steep climb through, around and over rocks and snaking into small crevices. It was some serious rock climbing! This was my favorite part of the trek, and easily the most exhausting. It was a half-hour of almost continuous climbing. We made the trek from Star Trek Room to the Compass Needle in 33 minutes, which according to Heather was 2 minutes faster than a group of 3 Marines did it last year. Maybe she was just being nice. The climb covered about 150 feet vertical distance, in parts going literally straight up as we had to lift ourselves through holes to the next level of the trail. We were all breathing hard when we made the final egress into the last dome.

All in all we spent almost 6 hours in the caves and covered a little over 6 miles. And now I'm feeling every bit of it. I absolutely loved the trip and would certainly love to do it again, but there are side-effects. My shoulder and leg muscles ache when I move, and my elbows and knees are raw. I have a few scrapes and bruises, but not as many as I expected. I can certainly tell that it was a hard 6 hours of physical exertion. But it was an awesome time - I wish I could have gotten some pictures, but a camera would never have survived the adventure.

Tomorrow I head up to Cincinnati and Part 3 will be on Wednesday when I do the first (of at least 4) roller coaster parks, that being King's Island.