Sunday, June 6, 2021

Sand Cave (Mammoth Cave National Park, Kentucky)

 

I spent the weekend attending one of my cousin's wedding in Owensboro, KY, which is about a six hour drive from my home near Atlanta. My mother joined me for the trip and we spent Saturday night at my aunt's house, before going to a breakfast with several family members that had traveled to the wedding. From there, we started the long drive home, but as it is a long drive I wanted to find a few places along the way to stretch our legs a little bit. Given that my mother was with me, we couldn't do anything to strenuous, but I think I identified a number of good spots to check out. 

The first is just on the outskirts of Mammoth Cave National Park. The trail to the Sand Cave overlook is a slightly elevated boardwalk through the woods. It's only about a third of a mile long and mom seems to do okay with it. Once we reach the overlook, we peer down into the large cave entrance. The cave is notable due to an early cave explorer of the area dying while trying to enlarge a passage. Floyd Collins spent four days wedge in a passageway before a collapse further trapped him. He passed away approximately two weeks later from a combination of starvation, dehydration, and hypothermia . . . not a pleasant way to go. We're not going to go spelunking today and so, hopefully, we'll survive this very short hike. After we take a few shots, we head back to the jeep and continue on our way home, with a couple of other stops along the way.

No comments:

Post a Comment