Ranger Alex The Story Teller

Ranger Alex, The Story Teller

Our first tour of Mammoth Cave was the Star Chamber Tour. An evening tour without lighting, save the lanterns that a dozen or so of us carried.

It was just enough light to see where you are going, but not enough to 'see' the cave.

The photos that My Lovely took will illustrate this. The most you see is the lanterns themselves. Although, I think we have a rather nifty selfie - by the glow of the lantern.

The tour was more of a story telling tour than a sight seeing tour. And Ranger Alex did a good job.

He told that us Mammoth Cave (singular - it is all 1 cave - 426 miles long) is the longest cave in the world. And that the cave was privately owned and changed hands many times until 1941 when it became a National Park. But he did not tell us the facts, he told stories and the facts revealed themselves in the stories.

The cave used to be filled with soil full of nitrates. Nitrates are preservatives (such as in pickles and hot dogs) and back in the day, people mined the soil and filtered out the nitrates and sold them - including to Egypt for mummyfying.

The Nitrates were used to make gunpowder too.

And the cave was once bought by a man for its believed medicinal properties. He built cabins of rock inside to house TB patients.

The tour is called the Star Chamber Tour because Ralph Waldo Emerson once toured the cave and asked to be left in the cave overnight so that he could lie on the cave floor and gaze at the stars on the ceiling.

The tour was a walk in the dark. Cool air , 54°. We strolled hand-in-hand for about 4 miles and listened to the stories. Then we watched as he gathered all the lanterns and walked away. He left us for a few moments, in the truly pitch black darkness. No light at all. My Lovely was busy trying to see her hand in front of her face while I wisely took the opportunity to steal a kiss.Read more