Friday 4-14-23 Hiking & Mammoth Cave Historic Tour

 

Let's go hiking

We had a super day. It was a little humid but we had fun.

I started the day by making pancakes for breakfast. Then we got ready to go for a hike. We went on a 3 mile hike on the White Cave Trail, Echo River Trail, Two Springs Trail and River Styz Spring Trail. We picked up the trails at the D loop. We started on White Cave to Echo River. The Echo River Trail was an easy paved trail designed to be handicap accessible, it had a couple of beautiful bridges that took us over the creek. It had signs and talking displays that explained the Eco-system of the water and some of the rare animals living in the water. This trail also took you by the ferry used by cars to cross the river. Years ago there was a number of ferries that took people across the river, there is only one left. From there we picked up the Two Springs trail, we hiked it to the River Styz Spring, where we saw a water fall and learned about the underwater spring. As we were hiking the Two Springs trail we saw a beautiful turkey. The end of the hike was up hill for a bit to get us to the visitor center. From there we walked back to the Minnie. The hike was very nice and peaceful.   

Echo River

Echo River Trail

 

Ferry

  River Styz Spring 

Turkey

We had a few hours before our tour so we had lunch, relaxed and read. I finished The Girl Called Samson. It was an excellent book about a girl who dressed up as a man to go to war. 

Our tour was at 3:15 and it was for two hours. The tour was the Historic Tour. We had a great tour guide named Ranger Quincey. He was very enthusiastic which made it very enjoyable. We toured two miles of Mammoth Cave and learned a lot about the history of it. We walked through Fat Man Misery, where it was very narrow passage. Some places the ceiling was very low so we had to squat down. We climbed a staircase of 125 steps to get to the top of the cathedral. It was a great tour and we saw a lot of beautiful things. I didn't take too many pictures because it too dark.

Ranger Quincey and the tour at the Church room

People who visited the cave

Crystals formed by water

 

Fat Man Misery in 2011

After the tour we went back to the Minnie. I made leftovers for dinner.

After dinner I walked around for 45 minutes. I ended up doing 27,000 steps, which put me in 4th place in my group. 

We had an outstanding day.