The Hamilton Valley bunkhouses
The Hamilton Valley fieldhouse
A shady porch out back
Looking down into Hamilton Valley
Art Palmer, hard at work inside the fieldhouse
A section of an amazingly detailed map of the historic section of Mammoth Cave
The Rules of the House
Hamilton Valley is well-stocked with wild turkey.
Looking up at the fieldhouse from Hamilton Valley
The Historic Entrance to Mammoth Cave
The "Corkscrew"
Jenny Lind's armchair, in Gothic Avenue
Descending into Gratz Avenue
The Devil's Cooling Tub
The Pool of Clitorius, which has nothing to do with anatomy. It's a reference to Ovid's "Metamorphoses" XV.322.
A sketch of General Jackson
Some old dippers
Annetta's Dome
Hopping the wall back onto the developed section of Gothic Avenue
A prefabricated plaque left in Gothic Avenue. Who were the D.O.K.K.?
After lunch, entering the Violet City Entrance
The overripe tomato in Violet City
Blackall Avenue leaves the trail that way.
The Blue Spring Branch is an easy climb up here.
Some historic litter in the Blue Spring Branch
The gypsum is heavily stained black, and thick chunks of it have flaked off the ceiling.
"Hey, I found some money in this old tin cup!"
Someone dug out a long dirt shaft off of Blackall Avenue for no apparent reason. I'm sitting at the end of it, looking evil.
Looking across Wright's Rotunda
It's so far that this is as much as our biggest flashlight covers.
An ancient log, thousands of years old
An empty box of flashbulbs, not quite so old
Stephen Bishop originally went by Stephen Gorin, after his owner.
Nearby is John Nelson, a guide from the early 20th century.
And Stephen Bishop's name signed by someone else. Stephen only used block printing in his signatures.
The flaked-off gypsum on the ceiling looks like a skull.
Inside one of the tuberculosis huts along the path
We found a "turtle" near Giant's Coffin.
Lost John's former glass coffin
The wall is stacked high with stones, discarded after being washed clean of saltpeter-bearing dirt.
"Do Not Enter" at the edge of the Discovery Tour's area
We go through anyway, to find experimental mushroom beds.
And Bunker Hill
And more washed-clean rocks on the way to Olive's Bower
The Sentinel, in Olive's Bower
Those brown things hanging down are actually the roots of trees on the surface!
The cave seems to pinch off here.
A sign warns us, but it's too late.
But the door is locked! We can't get out! (Stan had the key)
Sunday morning, Stan points out a few things in Hackett Hollow.
Hackett dug out many holes, trying to find new cave.
Proctor Cave
The entryway to Proctor
Looking down into the first room, we see an old Mason jar on the far ledge.
Some draperies
Looking down into a pit
We can walk around the first pit, but not the second.
There are handholds to climb down, but it starts to get really muddy after this. That's the strap of the camera in the foreground.
Looking across the pit
More draperies
A very short crawl ends in a pit looking way down into the blackness.
I'm checking out the crawl with the pit in the previous picture.
A way down
Definitely off the developed tourist trail
Art Palmer goes ahead
A pool at the bottom of...
... quite a shaft!
Someone took out the stairs.
Stan (in the center) holds court in the Bottle Room.
Why is it called the "Bottle Room"?
Way down below, Richard Zopf checks out some history he remembers.
In the upper-left you can see survey station M1. The M-survey leads out to the eventual connection up into the rest of the Flint-Mammoth system.
Richard instead looks into the C survey.
I climbed up to this dome and looked back down for the picture.
An area has been dug out towards a shaft complex.
An old book?
Looking across a shaft
My lamp barely illuminates the bottom.
Crossing a plank in the E survey
The crawl on the right doesn't go much of anywhere, Brian says.
A tensor product?
This path up near the entrance seems to stop, but maybe someone could crawl around the side of that post.
Emerging back the way we came
Lunch near the site of Bell's Tavern
Will Crowther's map of Proctor Cave from 1975.
A cave near Bell's Tavern. The tavern drilled wells down to the water in this cave.
The ruins of Bell's Tavern
The old hearth of Bell's Tavern
An historical marker
Not quite the old train to Mammoth Cave
In Diamond Caverns, we went down Sand Crawl. I'm not sure what the "Beetle Farm" is here for.
Coming out to the rocky part of sand crawl
The cave looks like this until I hit a wall with a low crawl continuing onwards.
Sand Cave
The overhang of Sand Cave
Under this brush is the filled-in shaft that was drilled to try and rescue Floyd Collins.
The welded grate covers the entrance to Sand Cave.
Coates Cave
Dogwood Cave
Climbing around a giant breakdown block
The fungus-covered corpse of a fawn
What are these markings? Or are they markings at all?
The "markings" in a slightly different light
Zach and Brian are a long way down.
Zach looks up at the waterfall.
Zach investigates a possible lead, right up near the flat ceiling.
We're gong to Ganter Cave today. Here's a map.
A spring at the top of Sal Hollow, flowing out from the Haney limestone
Ganter blue hole
Norman peers into the welded-shut Mary Parker Cave.
Glen unlocks Ganter Cave's grate.
My camera was on the wrong setting, so I had to use some heavy enhancement on the pictures. These are the Pillars of Hercules in Reception Hall.
Norman indicates a signature on the wall.
A monument in the Monument Room
Heading off down Ganter Avenue
Looking down into Mayme's Pit
Another pit view, with broken wood down below
Norman pauses halfway up Dinosaur Domes.
Glen and Stan are way down below.
Some draperies near the top of Dinosaur Domes
Zach peers into a passage below. I decide to push it.
This is as far as I can go, but I'm told it can come out about halfway down the dome area.
Earl Adwell's signature
At Jumbles Crawlway, I decided to push on, and nobody else came. Here are some nice soda straws on the ceiling.
My single light is inadequate on this camera setting. This is a perfectly still pool.
A fifteen-foot column where a stalactite has reached a stalagmite
This goes up to a room and dead-ends.
Looking down into the Panic Crawl. I'm about to turn around and make my way back through the Basement Bypass to come up on the group from behind.
Refilling my CamelBak
There's some seal from the Department of the Interior on the outside of the cave.
Ashley shows evidence of the trip. Ganter is wetter and muddier than most of Mammoth.
Floyd Collins' house
The cave manager's hut, where CRF cavers would stay during trips into Crystal Cave
The ice storm in January knocked this tree right over, including several smaller trees nearby.
Outside the first door to Crystal Cave
Stan struggles to unlock the second door to Crystal Cave
The entrance hallway has been cleared out.
Moving deeper into the cave
The Grand Canyon
The flat place in the middle is where Floyd Collins' coffin was placed on display.
Helictites growing out of gypsum
Signatures of Ruth Thomas and Luther Miller
Signatures of Sam Sorver and Mary Thomas
More old Lucky Strike packages
Another huge canyon passage
Floyd Collins' Christmas Tree sits on the ledge.
Some local miscreants broke in and broke up much of the gypsum to try and sell. This is part of a restoration effort.
The bare rock on the right used to be covered with gypsum.
More broken gypsum crust
A huge chunk had bulged away from the wall here.
Entering the Scotchman's Trap
Descending into the canyon and heading right. To the left is (not surprisingly) Left Of The Trap, which leads to within 20 feet of Sides Cave, which has its entrance on Stan Sides' farm.
The old Crystal Cave expeditions let you know what you were in for down here.
Three of us made it as far as Z33 before turning back to avoid the S-curve. This is the Z27 station, which was later resurveyed as C36.
I'm coming back out of the Scotchman's Trap, and I'm soaked already.
Bill Austin tried digging through here to make a shortcut to X-pit in the lower levels.
Some of the remaining formations in the helictite route
More broken helictites
These helictite clusters are more intact.
This whole bunch is in pretty good shape.
But a little further back they're broken again.
Not helictites -- a glass flask and the C23 survey marker
Someone was conducting radon tests back here, just before the passage becomes a crawl.
The Carmichael Entrance, where we begin Wednesday's trek
A monument to England in Croghan Avenue
Signatures in Croghan Avenue
The Maelstrom is very hard to light.
More signatures in Croghan Avenue
Two glass flasks left in Croghan Avenue
Stan and Nicole look for the way up through the breakdown.
Big cave back here
We circled around the narrow edge of Florence Williams' Pit.
We're going up over this rubble.
X16 is now "Shawnee's Armchair".
Nicole is about to descend into the Turtle Hurdles.
Looking back up the Turtle Hurdles
Nicole found an arrow to follow.
Nicole, down in Belfry Avenue, from the end of the Turtle Hurdles
The mud surface has dried to the point that it's flaking up.
We're going to canyon across chert ledges over ponded water.
Don't fall in!
A little fossil snail
This pond is actually pretty deep.
We have to use this tiny ledge as a foothold.
The water above has cut out a few circular holes.
Some interesting formations on the underside of a ledge
Squeezing through "big walking cave" (as Stan said) towards Felicia's Dome
Undisturbed cave popcorn on the wall behind the breakdown
Something's down through this last squeeze
Felicia's Dome (and Pit)!
With my new camera (and no flash) I can see that this dome goes *way* up.
A note outside Bishop's Domes, named after Ed Bishop's son. Oddly, these are on the Kämper map, as is Felicia's dome, and there's just a straightforward walk between them, but that walk is *not* on the Kämper map!
Nicole finds her way into the pit first.
Nicole and Mary scramble up the domes.
The top of Bishop's Dome
A fossilized horn coral
The underside of this ledge has a really neat texture. The next week in Speleology I learned that this is a limestone paste.
A china cup, all the way down here
How self-aware
A Hanson signature
Helictites in Helictite Hall
More Helictites, just outside Black Stone Avenue
Stan sent us to Galloway's Dome. I was the only one to quite make it, because...
You have to crawl through here to get to Galloway's Dome. It's shorter top-to-bottom than my helmet is front-to-back. Those are my packs in the distance, which I had to remove to make it through.
Two stacked chert nodules, one of which has been broken into. Stan calls them "Horta Eggs" (after the Star Trek Room), so evidently this one has hatched.
Nicole and I hold up in Belfrey Avenue for people to catch up.
This arrow marks the turn onto Opossum Avenue.
Another fossil, with Nicole's finger for scale
More deep pools
Another arrow marks the turn towards Neptune's Cups.
Nicole, beside a John Nelson signature
The first of the rimstone dams along the "Hurdle Race".
Neptune's Cups
Nicole and Mary in front of Neptune's Cups. I think the light from the side washed them out.
More of the Hurdle Race
A chert outcropping in the ceiling
Continuing up into Stevenson Avenue
H.C. Stevenson's signature, carved into the mud wall beside the path
Amazingly, this signature is still clear after a century and a half, and many floods above this level.
Water pours down into a pool in Cascade Hall.
The water continues down in the channel towards the bottom. Stan and Mary slide down the huge breakdown block above.
The soft, silty floor here is dry, but shows the ripples of water that has spilled down this slope during floods.
Old tourist handrail near Echo River
A cave crayfish
An eyeless cave fish
The 1972 connection from Flint Ridge came through right here.
Some of the old tourist trail infrastructure. We're turning back towards Silliman Avenue.
It's a bit dark, but I'm standing right near the Roaring River.
Walking up into the Infernal Regions towards Silliman Avenue. It was named after the same Professor Benjamin Silliman as Silliman College back at Yale was.
An old transformer sits unused. Some future cave restoration project will actually remove these.
Serpent Alley leaves here and ends up on Ganter Avenue.
Old bottles up in the Valley-Way Side-Cut, likely used to bring kerosene down this way
"James & Mary" near Cutliffe's Way
The V16 survey marker sits beside an old roll of toilet paper, since there used to be pit toilets for the tour at this point.
Not luckies this time!
"Tucker's Canopy", marked on an overhang
Have a nice day!
An ad for Hoofland's Tonic
A nearby hole, now called Hoofland's Avenue
1960s-era Royal Crown Cola cans
The Buttonhole, one branch of which leads to Hoofland's Avenue
Nicole pokes a little way into the Buttonhole.
Ike's Way, which is a relatively easy shortcut to Emily's Avenue.
"Stop Danger"
Some delicate gypsum, placed out of the way on top of a rock
The Black Hole of Calcutta
The signature of one of the CCC workers
We go back up into Mary's Vineyard, closing the loop we started way back near the Snowball Room, six and a half hours ago.
Heading back behind the concession stand towards the supply elevator for the Snowball Dining Room
The exit of the Mole Hole. I want to convince a Wild Cave guide to let me at least try this sometime.
Starting a little ways down into Marion Avenue
Some scientific equipment
Back at the elevator, you can't use it unless you can get out without it.
Stan closes the elevator door. It's even more humid outside now than inside.
Stumbling towards the van, and a place to finally shed our gear
For the first time, I go down the New Entrance.
Looking down into the bottom of King Solomon's Temple
The shaft of King Solomon's Temple
We come out in Grand Central Station.
Morrison's route goes back behind the benches.
A pit behind Grand Central Station
Looking down from Morrison's "Lover's Leap"
Sitting in Aerobridge Canyon
This leads off to Blair's Dome, which is the last room labeled on Kämper's map.
The Civilian Conservation Corps built up this whole walkway out of rocks.
Stan holds a hand-line to help people up into Woodbury's Pass.
Woodbury's Pass
Woodbury's Pass ends in this direction overlooking the same canyon we were just in.
Here's where the cable ties in. Morrison strung it to help carry in equipment to Woodbury's Pass.
In the other direction, we walk for a while and the passage *still* goes onwards.
A poem. The last, faded line reads "Why can't we be like that old bird?"
Up along the wall, this opening also leads to Blair's Dome.
Cecil's Slide -- the other end of Woodbury's Pass
Zach standing on the old cliff walk
Me standing on the old cliff walk
This is Morrison Avenue, leading out towards Elizabeth's Parlor.
Along the way we find some formations.
The "Gnomes"
I took a wrong turn and ended up crawling way out an old dug passage. I decided this fish was a good place to stop and turn back.
I can't make out the second line: "Don't let him..."
This short crawl off of Jeanne's Avenue leads to a window overlooking Felicia's Dome. This is how Kämper surveyed the dome.
It's hard to see here, but the white triangle a little to the left is a *ton* of water gushing down into Thorpe's Pit.
In Hawkins' Pass, this is usually just a trickle that drains through the bottom of a pool. Today it's flooding down, filling the pool, and even making its way down the center of the passage towards Martel Avenue.
Cathedral Domes. Again, the amount of water made illumination difficult, but you can see the torrent of water along the wall.
One of two known signatures of E.A. Martel
We took the bypass to No-Name Pass. The water here is also pouring down.
The $100,000 Formation. Impressive, isn't it?
The real No-Name Pass comes out here.
We come out just above... Grand Central Station again!
I never quite noticed this plaque in College Heights Avenue.
Near Frozen Niagara, another flood of water
Richard Zopf, grabbing a late night snack
Stan works at opening the gate to Salts Cave.
In the entrance hall are three standing pieces of breakdown.
Coming down the first slope into the entrance hall
The wall shows scratch marks where the natives 4000 years ago scraped away gypsum.
This way leads down to the A and B surveys.
Both J10 and Q10
This used to be a commercial route, and many people came this way.
The River Map
Some monuments in Monument Hall
Franklin Gorin signed here in 1839.
A very young gypsum flower, growing since the native mining stopped
A party led by Neville spent over 57 hours in the cave, as attested by the many scratchings on this rock.
Looking deep into Dismal Valley
These depressions were made by the natives, but nobody is sure what they were for.
Stones set up like this mark some important anthropological find.
Canned apricots
Mirabilite cotton
Some trash left in the first Neville bedroom
Just so you don't miss it, that spot is P53.
Many people try to climb up this face, but it's really too steep.
Ashes of native cane reed torches
Like the sign says, the trail goes up and to the right.
Previous explorers came well-prepared.
We continue up into that hole near the wall.
The bag contains a scrap of preserved hair.
These rocks are not to be touched.
J.M. Smith wrote this, damning to hell those who had stolen the mummy from Salts Cave.
More of Smith's writing
Turner, who discovered Great Onyx Cave was here in 1914, as was R.T. Neville in 1925.
Some gypsum, where half of the deposit has been scraped off
More cutaway gypsum
"Little Al" was found on the flat surface to the right. He was sold to the owners of Proctor Cave, who put him on display.
An ancient red bat, which is actually a forest-dwelling species and isn't usually found in caves.
Floyd Collins' brother Homer accompanied Neville's expedition.
A broken gourd
Neville's second bedroom
Neville's companions
Neville left some masonic symbols.
A monument constructed by Floyd Collins in 1912.
An old ladder someone left in the cave
The "Stephen" signature on the left might have been left on behalf of Stephen Bishop.
Climbing out of the Entrance Hall
A little further out
Almost at the top now
I'm the last one out. The recent storms have made this entrance wetter than ever.
Stan Sides highlights where we'd gone in Mammoth Cave itself on the Kämper map.
