IN...
"The Secret of Mammoth Cave"
The next morning we walked over to the park cantina and had breakfast indoors. We bought tickets for the first tour of the day at the fabled Mammoth Caves. We were looking forward to two and a half hours of following a Ranger and listening to him drone on and on about this and that. What Roz (our intrepid soundman) and Martyn Jones wanted to do was bolt from the group and go exploring.
Naturally, Allen was not hard to convince. Ducking behind an outcropping, we waited until the group was out of sight. We sprinted down towards Echo Lake, an area closed to tour groups because of heavy flooding and rockslides. The broad, dry track became a muddy trail which, in turn, became a small steel walkway suspended above a flooded underground canyon. Boulders the size of automobile engines lay in the middle of the metal bridge in the shallow concave bowls they had made by their impact. Then, finally, a hundred yards of irregular, rotting, and broken wooden slats signaled the end of our flight. We had started off running and now had slowed to careful steps using flashlights to guide our way through the vast dark and wet silence. We caught our breath and listened. Not a sound. One by one we began to keen, and then to call out and then to sing, loud and long in the chamber. Sounds bounced off the irregular faces of the rock and the long, deep river. You could sing a note and then sing another note and then shut your mouth and the two notes would blend in a perfect harmony lasting for ten seconds or more. It was sublime. It was beautiful. We were happy. Then Roz started to get nervous. He said it was time to get back.
Mark met us a little ways ahead after we reached the brightly lit path. He told us that another Ranger had seen him split off from the group and come back to look for us. He said she was not happy. She found us all right. That particular entrance to the caves is a locked gate. Tour groups come in and the gate is locked behind. When the tour is over, only the Ranger's key opens the gate so that tourists can return to their Winnebagos. She lectured us in front of her tourgroup which, coincidentally, were the same yelling adolescents we had camped near the previous night. They were not yelling now. She unlocked the gate, let the kids go up to the sunlight and kept us inside while she called ahead to someone else. Then she escorted us out of the Pit and into the steaming Kentucky woods.
Police cars and policemen showed up. ID's were asked for. Martyn and Roz did not have theirs so they were tossed in the back of the vehicles and whisked away.
Mark and Allen were kept on the trail and questioned, asked to sign a statement and finally told to return to the van. After waiting a half an hour, all four were fined fifty dollars apiece for "straying from the group".
What's 50 bucks when you've heard the echo of your voice over the river Styx and returned to the sunlit day? We left Kentucky.
