America was “discovered” during the era of exploration. Western civilization had become fascinated with finding the last frontier. While the Fourth of July is meant to be a holiday to celebrate our independence as a country it seemed fitting to spend my holiday in one of the last frontiers: A cave. There are few places left on Earth that have not been explored yet. The great underground is one of those few. In the spirit of exploration we cavers seek to find places no one else has ever seen. There is nothing like the rush of seeing a place that may have never been seen by a human before. America was already inhabited when we discovered it, but caves often are completely untouched (especially those that are hypogene in nature).
A neat dissolutional stream “chute” in Marble Cave of Sequoia National Park July 4, 2011
The cave I visited today was a commercial cave and not a new discovery for me, but less than 100 years ago it was a new frontier for someone. Crystal cave was discovered by Alex Medley and Cassius Weber in 1918. Today it is located within the boundaries of Sequoia National Park. Formed in a beautiful gray and white marble it has around 2.5 miles of passage. Since the marble bedding has a high dip angle the cave isn’t extensive laterally.
The marble in a stream bed within Crystal Cave Sequoia National Park July 4, 2011
They have been making a lot of efforts to return Crystal cave to a more natural state. The park has been replacing lighting with new ones that will help prevent the growth of algae and other organisms that are not natural to the cave environment. The tour involves a nice hike down a fair amount of stairs that you will need to climb back up so I don’t recommend it for anyone unable to traverse a significant amount of incline.
Crystal Cave Entrance July 4, 2011
The cave gate is pretty interesting, designed to look like a spider web. The tour will vary depending on the guide you get, but all are interesting. A member of my grotto back home, Chouteau Grotto, was actually working the day I visited although I wasn’t assigned to his tour. Such a small world when you are a caver!
While I had spent the last couple days visiting caves and natural wonders of inland California it was time for me to make like the explorers of the 15th century and head West. Time to head back to the area of my birth and visit some family. I need the three S’s: Sun, Sand and Sea.
Today was going to be a detour from the carefully planned itinerary I had developed for this trip. It has been over 50 days since I started this journey and there is one important thing to understand about road trips: The plan is secondary to the journey. If you take a vacation your agenda should be created as a tool in case you fail to find adventure. Something to guide your trip rather than dictate it. I was now armed with the information of local lava tubes and a magnetic pull towards the famous crater lake. Neither were on my itinerary, but both are certainly part of this journey of a lifetime.
Using the hand drawn map provided to me by the hotel manager I headed along a high desert gravel road towards my first lava tube of the day. Off-roading trails were abundant in this area and I took my fair share of them along the way. In my attempt to avoid people for the day, driving around a truck parked in front of a hill, I managed to put myself on the other side of a makeshift shooting range. The view was beautiful as the wine blew through the dried grass, and the sun was warm and welcoming after spending so many days in the cool northwest. I spent a good amount of time sitting on my Jeep’s hood taking in the sunlight, but the gun fire prompted me to move on. Turns out in avoiding company I had failed to pay attention to the fact they were target shooting and I was on the wrong end of the line of fire. I drove out here to see lava tubes, anyways.
Me in front of Skeleteon Cave June 29, 2011
Boyd cave was the first lava tube I found along the dusty dirt road. The cave, surveyed in 1969, has only 1880 feet worth of passage. The subway tunnel-like passages are pretty typical of a lava tube and Boyd’s was no exception. In contrast to the limestone caves I consider home these were bland and boring. I stopped at Skeleton Cave, another lava tube, but did not go in. It was gated and access is by permit only. I didn’t feel like I was missing out on much.
I mean no offense towards the cavers of the lava tube persuasion, but speleothems are kind of my passion. Not only do the lava tubes I have seen thus far lack any significant decorations (although I hear there are a few lava tubes capped by limestone that do have speleothem development. I have not had the pleasure of visiting these yet) but the passages are too predictable. Caving, for me, is a curious adventure with twists, turns, and a wonderment at the chaotic and complex nature of a cavern’s path. Why water chose to follow one joint instead of another has always been a curiosity of mine. The lava tube is so straight forward that it reminds me of a man made subterranean tunnel, and thus lacks the fantasy of a wild cave.
Entrance to Skeleton Cave, June 29, 2011. Oregon.
The warmth of the high desert plains reminded me it was time to head towards to golden coast. Oregon’s volcanic history sculpted the terrain I was driving through, fields of pumice and lava flows. The northwest is a vulcanologist ideal vacation spot, full of volcanic wonders. There was still another place of interest to visit on today’s impromptu journey: Crater Lake.
I stopped to get gas again and if there is one thing you need to know about journeying through Oregon in your vehicle it is this: You aren’t allowed to pump your own gas. Yesterday I thought the gas station attendant was just being nice, and today I learned it is against the law to pump your own gasoline. Travelers be aware: full service only in Oregon.
The Pumice Desert near Crater Lake in Orgeon. June 29, 2011
On the approach to Crater Lake I drove through the pumice desert. Almost 8000 years ago Mt. Mazama erupted, forming crater lake and this desert of pumice that is nearly 100 feet thick. Vegetation has been slow to return in this area since the lack of nutrients don’t allow for a suitable growing environment. Today the pumice desert was covered lightly in snow, and as I headed up the winding road to the top of Crater lake the snow was even deeper. Throughout this trip I have been reminded that the entire continent received a large amount of winter precipitation, but it never ceased to amaze me how much snow was still here. It is the end of June and as I head up to Crater Lake National Park the RV in front of me is SHORTER than the snow piled along the sides of the plowed road.
Snow pack on road up to Crater Lake June 29, 2011
The weather was misty, and foggy. When I arrived at the top of Crater Lake I could see nothing. The water that everyone claims is so blue and clear, some of the deepest water in the country, was hidden behind the thick blanket of fog. I spent a short period of time there, then retreated back down to a warmer area.
Mt. Thielsen, Lightening Rod of the Cascades June 29, 2011
I drove past the Mt. Thielsen, the lightening rod of the Cascades. This former volcano’s core attracts lighting strikes so often that the rock atop the summit is actually melted. I arrived at my hotel and decided to get some rest. Tomorrow I would be back on the coast, gazing at the beautiful Pacific. While the geologist in me was fascinated with the volcanism of the Cascades nothing could compare with the tranquility brought to me by the crashing waves of the Pacific. Maybe it was because I was born next to this ocean’s breeze, but nothing ever feels more like home.
The foggy view of Crater Lake June 29, 2011.
The tunnel to the bathroom at Crater Lake (meant to keep snow out) June 29, 2011
The damp, earthy smell. The cool, slow moving air. The lights struggling, and failing, to reach into all corners of this limestone underworld. Caves are familiar territory, it feels like home. The tour guide giving the stereotypical “Do Not Touch” speech, the explanation of the twilight zone, a touch rock to “get it out of your system”, and the story of how the cave was discovered. All of these things are in a cave tour, uniting all the caves into a broad category. One of my favorite parts is when the tour guide shows all the visitors what the “Natural Cave Light” looks like, when people gaspy and children hold on tightly to their parents.
To the untrained eye, all caves are the same. They are all damp, dark environments that descend into the Earth’s depths. Of course they all have similarities, they are all called caves for a reason, but every cave is different. They have different levels of speleothem development, different types of passages, different types of limestone or dolomite, and more. Even within the same cave there can be several different broad categories of passageway, and Mammoth Cave is a great example of this.
Mammoth Cave’s passages can be divided into three main types: The large, oval shaped passages developed in the phreatic zone, the large, more angular passages developed in the vadose zone, and the tall, canyon-like passages developed during times of fast-flowing water, often confined by natural jointing in the limestone. On the Grand Avenue tour of the Mammoth Cave you get to see all three.
Gypsum flowers in Mammoth Cave, in one of the vadose-zone developed passages. June 4, 2011
One thing I had read about, and have studied pictures and specimens of, but never seen in person were gypsum flowers. These crystals “grew” abundantly in the passages that develop in the phreatic zone (The phreatic zone is termed the “unsaturated” zone, the area of the cave that was developed with some airspace still present. These passages tend to have rougher edges, since the water cut downwards as it flowed through these passages). Gypsum crystals, and their more ornate, developed flowers, form best in dry areas of the cave. The passages formed in the phreatic are usually perfect for this, since the water has, over time, found a new passageway deep beneath this one and left it “high and dry”. The crystals grow relatively fast (geologically speaking), as I saw many instances where someone had carved their name into the cave ceiling and the crystals have begun to grow in these cracks, the former graffiti artist’s name forever in the cave as the crystals adorn the scrawl.
Gypsum crystals depositing in the crevices of someone's name. June 4, 2011 in Mammoth Cave.
The snowball dining room in Mammoth Cave actually has a cafeteria, where people are encouraged to buy (overpriced) lunches to fuel them for the rest of the journey. The snowball dining room is so named because it has gypsum growing in “balls” on the ceilings and walls, making it look like someone has thrown snowballs around in the room. The bathrooms in here use artificial walls, but a natural cave ceiling that just happened to be the perfect height tops off the room.
The bathrooms, deep within the cave, in the snowball dining room of Mammoth Cave, Kentucky.
The next area you will travel through on the Grand Avenue tour are narrow, tall, winding passages that make you feel like you are wandering around the bottom of a steep canyon. The area, much like the rest of Mammoth Cave, doesn’t have a whole lot of speleothem development. It does have a few areas where water is flowing, and a deposit called Martha’s Vineyard, and a few stalactities and flowstone. For the most part, this area is dry.
Martha's Vineyard in Mammoth Cave. June 4, 2011
After the canyon-like passages you will entire an area that is very similar to the Mammoth Passages tour: The big, rounded, open passageways that were formed in the phreatic zone (the phreatic zone is that which is completely underwater, and the passageways indicate this by the way they are rounded, oval shaped- showing that the entire passageway was smoothed by water erosion from top to bottom).
At the very end of the 4.5 hour tour, which gives you a very good workout as you climb up and down hundreds of stairs and steep hills, you enter one of the areas that is rare in the Mammoth Cave system: The well-developed speleothems. This area of the cave is located against a valley, where the sandstone cap is no longer present since it was taken away by erosion. This allows more water to percolate through the limestone, saturated with dissolved calcite, and redepositing on the ceilings, walls and floors.
Mammoth Cave Speleothems on the Grand Avenue tour. June 4, 2011
The Mammoth Cave Grand Avenue tour ends by exiting through a revolving door, used to help preserve the high humidity that is present in this last portion of the cave. While you have just spent 4.5 hours underground, it is hard to believe you have only seen a very small percentage of the cave. There are hundreds of miles of passageway closed to the public, and perhaps even more miles that have yet to be discovered.
The revolving humidity lock door at Mammoth Cave, Kentucky. June 4, 2011
Caves are the ultimate “last frontier”, one of the few places on Earth that have yet to be discovered in whole. Each one of these is unique, and you never know what you are going to discover. I intend to collect as much cave experience as possible, which means checking on cave off my list at a time. Everytime I enter a cave I learn something new about them, see something I have never seen specifically before. The subtle differences are beginning to be more stark to my ever-training eye. I can’t wait to see more.
Tomorrow I head back home for a few days, then I will be heading on my Western loop. I can’t wait to see what the caves of the West have to offer me. I have been to 8 caves thus far on this trip…and I have many more planned, and probably many more unplanned, to visit.
Stay tuned!
Nicole
Stylolites in the phreatic-developed passageway. Mammoth Cave, Kentucky June 4, 2011Carbon-covere gypsum crystals in the snowball dining room of Mammoth Cave. June 4, 2011My Mammoth Cave National Park campsite. June 4, 2011
All over the world children watch their Disney movies and visions of theme parks dance in their heads. Bicyclers dream of the Tour de France, gamblers dream of Las Vegas, and mountain climbers dream of Mount Everest. Mammoth Cave of Kentucky is a lot like the Disney World of the caver. The longest cave in the world, and numerous books and stories of the exploration of the never-ending Mammoth Caverns has kept many cavers dreaming of the underworld.
Today I awoke in Lexington, Kentucky to tour the University of Kentucky, my 3rd stop in my list of potential graduate schools to visit. The University is conveniently located in the midst of Kentucky karst, the library (which holds the record for the largest book endowment of all public universities in the nation) even sits atop two sinkholes which required special foundation design so that it could achieve the feat. The U of K seems to be the perfect size: being both large enough to offer ample facilities (and has a growing geology department), yet small enough that the graduate program still affords a family-like atmosphere. Everyone was friendly, and caving is a serious sport in the area.
The University of Kentucky. June 3, 2011
I ate dinner the night before at Thai Orchid Cafe, where I enjoyed some very yummy peanut chicken. I chose the restaurant because of it’s decoration: orchids galore. It made me feel a little homesick for my own orchids that I have left in the care of my loving sister back home in Missouri. I enjoyed lunch today with some of the geology graduate students where I was able to get a true sense of what the campus was like, and tips on what to look for when seeking a graduate school. I love this opportunity because it gives me the chance to find out what graduate students wish they knew before they entered graduate school and gives me a lot to think about. All in all, I loved the University of Kentucky. Even the quirky robots that make deliveries in the medical building, where the cafeteria is located.
The Univerisity of Kentucky delivery robot. June 3, 2011
After my pleasant visit with the University of Kentucky I headed towards my theme park: The Mammoth Cave National Park. It was a palatable drive from Lexington, and has some great camping facilities (even if you do have to use those silly little tokens to take a shower, each token costs about $2.50 and lasts 10 minutes). The camp store is well stocked, both with products and helpful staff, and located a short walk from the camp. Everything is located within a short walk from the campsite. In fact, once I parked my Jeep at the campsite when I arrived, it didn’t move until two days later when I left the area.
The Mammoth Cave National Park camp store's new sign. June 3, 2011
Arriving later in the afternoon, I had time to take a shorter tour and, planning on taking the long tour the next day that encompassed almost every other tour (exempting the Wild cave tour) I was left with the Mammoth Passages tour. The tour enters through a natural entrance (a short walk from the visitor center, which for me included an encounter with a 2′ copperhead that decided to wander into the trail. The guide expertly kept the snake to the side with his hat after I pointed the snake out, and had everyone walk around before allowing the snake to continue across the walking path).
Looking back out the natural entrance of Mammoth Passages tour at Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky. June 3, 2011
The Mammoth Passages tour shows you what a majority of the longest cave in the world looks like: Huge, oval shaped passages with no speleothem development. The caves were named for this feature, having passages of an abnormally large size. While the cave is lacking in speleothem development, it makes up for in size many times over. It was used, as many caves are, by the natives between 4000 and 2000 years ago, when they left moccasins and other indications of human activity. Later the cave was used as a Salt-Petre mine during the war of 1812, over 400,000 lbs of calcium nitrate being extracted from the cave. After the war it had many uses such as a tuberculosis quarantine area, a church, a mushroom farm, and of course tourism, of which it is still used for today.
Moccasins in the Mammoth Passages tour of Mammoth Cave. Kentucky, June 3, 2011
I found the tour guide, as with most of the National Park run caves, to be very informative and fairly accurate in their description of the geology and the history. The kind of tour I appreciate, not only for my own knowledge, but for the education of the general public who are often mislead by private cave tour guides who are encouraged to elaborate upon their stories. My guide today was wonderful, a man who only works during the summer as he is retired.
The black cherry preserves and biscuits at Mammoth Cave Hotel Restaurant. June 3, 2011
Afterward I enjoyed a fried chicken dinner (it seemed appropriate for Kentucky) at the Mammoth Cave Hotel Restaurant, which included biscuits with black cherry preserves. Everything was wonderful, the biscuits with preserves so exceptionally good that I could have made a meal out of them alone. The prices weren’t bad either, comparable to your local Applebees price point. The campsite was large and amenable, and everyone I met on staff was helpful and friendly.
Shower tokens at Mammoth Cave N.P. June 3, 2011
Tomorrow I will be spending more time in my “Disney Land”. While I do prefer to focus on speleothem development and this cave has very little it is certainly a big playground for the caver side of me. Besides, it is important to understand what features cause a cavern to lack speleothem development to further the understanding of what causes speleothem density in other caverns.
Tomorrow I will be hiking for 4.5 hours, underground, on the Grand Avenue tour that takes me through 4 miles of underground bliss, and shows me the three different “faces” that Mammoth Cave has to offer. I’ll let you know how it went tomorrow.
Until then-
Nicole
Mammoth Passages tour entrance. Mammoth Cave N.P. June 3, 2011Mammoth Cave has been a tourist destination for over a hundred years, this train used to transport guests. June 3, 2011Thai Orchid Cafe in Lexington, KY. I ate there June 2, 2011.
When you are truly passionate about something people take notice. Everyone that you know, and some you don’t, supply you with more information about the subject of your heart and the knowledge and experience simply snowballs. A wonderful effect of passion, because each day brings something new. In planning my trip I decided a visit to my friends in Canada was a must on my schedule. Shortly after organizing the dates my friends told me of a place to visit that I simply couldn’t refuse. Nestled in the Ottawa Valley of Ontario laid in wait something I had yet to experience: My first Canadian cave.
The "Canadian Passport" mark. (lol)Renfrew, Ontario's Historic Swinging Bridge (Restored in 1983). May 28, 2011
Canada is a whole new animal for me, and this was my first visit. I was very excited about earning another stamp in my passport, but was disappointed to find that they don’t stamp it when you are crossing via vehicle. The universe didn’t seem to think that was vefry fitting for my picture-taking, thoroughly documenting ways of travel and I heard a loud shot as something hit my windshield only a few miles past the border. Something had slammed into my windshield (that I just recently replaced this year, I might add) creating a rather remarkable shape: A double “C” on the passenger side. My Jeep had, rather unfortunately, been branded with my trip to Canada.
Odi's King Burgers in Renfrew, Ontario. May 28, 2011Poutine and a cheeseburger from Odi's in Renfrew, Ontario. May 28, 2011
All four of us (or rather 3 and a half since one was an adorable 2 year old) then headed into town where I was to partake of some local cusine before we headed to the caves. We dined at Odi’s King Burger in Renfrew, enjoying some Poutine. Poutine is a french dish, consisting of french fries covered in gravy and cheese. If you ask me, I think it was like a fried version of mashed potatoes and gravy. Delicious.
The Bonnechere Caves of Ontario, Canada. May 28, 2011The Bonnechere Caves. May 28, 2011 in Ontario.
Bonnechere Cave is located north of Algonquin park and is located in fossil-abundant Ordovician limestone. The cave consists of passages, with no large rooms to speak of, and has very little ornamentation. I would place the very sparse speleothem development at less than 1%. This is quite obviously due to the nature of the cave since it has been mostly filled with rushing water in recent geologic times. The limestone of the cave may be older than some, but the constant rushing water that filled the caverns did not allow redeposition to occur in any large manner. The cave passageways are incredibly interesting. They very methodically follow prominant jointing in the cave’s home formation. It seems to be located all within the same formation, the limestone being all of the same type, but I have yet to complete the research to know which limestone this is.
The roaring waters of Bonnechere River in Ontario. May 28, 2011
The Bonnechere river roars past the cave and into one of the natural entrances carved by melting glacial waters. The entrance is best viewed from the other side of the river, where you can stand on the remnants of an old bridge. The water was pretty high today, this area of Canada suffering from the same high waters that much of America is suffering from this Spring.
Teh Bonnechere River, and it's namesake Cave's entrance. May 28, 2011 in Ontario.
My visit to this area of Canada was fantastic, especially since I was able to spend it with such wonderful and accomodating friends. Spending time with them and their son reminded me again how precious spending time with friends can be. I loved every minute of it, and it even made me think a second about having kids of my own. The passion of cave geology calls, however….someday in the distant future I suppose. For right now I have many great friends with cute kids to play with and enjoy (then send them back to their parents when they get grumpy! Ha ha!~)
Tomorrow I was to head off on my own again. I was going to miss spending time with my friends, but I had something pretty majestic to ease the pain: Niagara Falls. I’ll see you there, if I survive the barrel drop (j/k).
-Nicole
The Bonnechere River, rushing past the wild, abundantly blooming lilac bushes of Ontario. May 28, 2011Some of the proliferous fossils that adorn Bonnechere Caves in Ontario. May 28, 2011Could it be...cephalapoda? Why are you in the Bonnechere Caves? Oh...it's Ordovician? Of course you would hang out here. May 28, 2011Some of the very sparse speleothem development present in Bonnechere. I have seen these many times, and I have named them "lizard backs". May 28, 2011 Ontario, Canada.Emerging from the Bonnechere Caves to the trail. May 28, 2011 Ontario
