Mammoth Cave National Park

[Music] definitely more intense than I thought it was gonna be my heart is pounding yeah today on rock the park this is unreal it seems like you're on another planet we're heading deep inside the air who's that : starting to freak out a little bit only get out of here and looking deep inside ourselves how's my head gonna fit there ah you got a man to find a mammoth adventure unlike any other and it all starts right now Oh awesome [Music] I'm Jack Stewart and I'm Colton Smith we love the national parks oh my gosh it's all about packing up a car and just doing it just hitting the road our goal is to visit every National Park in this country and when you go off the beaten path like we do there's no telling what will happen next Wow ready for the time of your life get set to rock the park [Music] this is Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky the longest known cave system in the world it is more than 400 miles of trails and tunnels all buried deep inside the earth humans have been exploring these limestone labyrinths for almost five thousand years and yet new caves and pathways are being discovered all the time located just an hour and a half south of Louisville Kentucky Mammoth Cave National Park gets two million visitors a year we're going to explore all the bizarre ways this cave has been used over the centuries we'll need some current inhabitants and we'll put ourselves through the ultimate test that leaves us very little space to breathe let alone think straight today Ranger Vicky Carson will be showing us around [Music] oh my gosh this isn't like any National Park I've ever been to no not at all already it is creepy down here it's eerie honestly it's like we're walking into an abyss this is one of the first big rooms that you come to in the cave and it's called the rotunda because of that round Selah and here is where there are remains from a saltpeter mine back in 1809 and these are the original Timbers saltpeter is a naturally occurring chemical compound that is used to make gunpowder during the war of 1812 the British cut off the American supply of foreign gunpowder so slaves mined the nitrate here they are the unsung heroes and their bravery saved the United States the gunpowder that they were able to harvest that basically won the war of 1812 did not yes it's amazing so we're following Vicki and she takes us to what she's calling a bottomless pit for the first people who came here and crossed probably in 1838 the lanterns that they had were smaller the light didn't shoot downward and it just looked like it went on and on 105 feet down in fact yikes oh that's creepy so we've been wandering around in the cave for a while and all of a sudden vicki leads us to these little stone huts in the middle of this cave believe it or not people suffering from tuberculosis or consumption as it was called actually lived here dr. John cron thought the cave air had restorative properties he saw people going on cave tours they would walk for miles and never get tired and he asked people with consumption to come into the cave and live here in the 1840s people stayed for about six months they were six months entirely in this but the doctor thought it would help people breathe more easily but because they had to light fires for warmth and to cook it became very smoky down here many patients and eventually even the doctor himself died this is mammoth dome the vertical shaft almost 200 feet high Wow and you're saying that water did all that yes and still is you hear the water falling yeah I'm actually I am I'm getting wet right now it's hard to believe that water alone carved them but slowly over ten million years that's exactly what happened oh okay now this is fat man's misery all right it's really tricky lead on oh yeah this goes slowly and keep in mind this is a tiny Canyon you can see how water scallops the edges and then just made this whiny little path that is incredible Jack are you visible yet uh uh no but my back hurts this should all this tall man was that coming up things are getting bad oh my gosh horrible and maybe a little more than we bargained for Oh I'm sorry we're in Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky squeezing through a tight passageway called fat man's misery I'm doing all right but then was that fat start whizzing by my head and I'm just wailing my arms around he's just trying to find the way out you guys I'm not a big fan of bats they creep me out later tonight we'll be joining up with the team of researchers who are studying the bat populations here now we got a cave this is the frozen Niagara area oh wow we'll get down here man but you get some credit ku sticks down here nailed it this is what I think of when I think of a cave you know look at that over there you see wonder if the host oh my gosh looks like somebody just sculpted all this out it's perfectly smooth Dover the sculpting we've seen before is where water has cut the rock here water is building up the rock over time water seeping through the ground has deposited crystals of limestone little by little and created these formations called stalagmites and stalactites the stalactites hang tight to the ceiling you could say okay so those are ones that kind of seem like they're dripping down yes yeah and then others pointing up those are stalagmites they mound up or they might reach the ceiling a single droplet of water is how these all begin for me yes how long have these been in the forming process a general rule is that a cubic inch takes between 100 to 300 years this is unreal Oh after a few hours underground it's time to head back up to learn more about the bats that call mammoths home but first now we have to clean our boots every time you exit the cave you have to walk on a biosecurity man Foam them up this helps prevent fungus spores that caused a bat disease called white-nose syndrome from spreading cleanness boots in Kentucky right here left side ok you guys ready Ric to me is head of a research team and he's offered to take us under his wing tonight there are 13 bat species in Mammoth Cave including endangered ones like the gray in Indiana bats they are incredibly important to the ecosystem because they feed on night flying insects like moths and mosquitoes but right now there's something that's threatening them and it's this white nose syndrome yeah white nose syndrome is a disease it's caused by a fungus it's killed something on the order of almost 7 million bats in the US and there are several species that may go extinct tonight we've been invited to help out with the research study on the bats in the mammoth cave system just hold it we'll be capturing then weighing and measuring the bats and checking to see if they have the disease we're setting up this trap hopefully we're gonna get some bats flying out they're gonna drop into the bag you see him we've got our first bat and it's just Quan around just kind of squirming in there oh my gosh will he bite you if I get my finger close it will this is a little thing called a tri-colored bat it's one of our smaller bats that's a guy that flew at my head almost certainly not as scary now right once the bats are safely transferred from the net to these little pillow cases it's our job to carry them up to the researchers Rick's handling these because we don't have rabies shots take that up so take that on up here we go [Music] so what's the squeaking is doing there echolocation is largely high-frequency that we can't hear but they can also generate audible sounds he's calling his mate she's calling for help all right I got a nice tricolour here got your ID skills down already I do after each pad is measured and inspected for white nose syndrome they are individually tagged and released there he goes right now we have a waiting list to get into the clinic over here so this little guy's got to go up on the line man who that guy could sense me yikes tonight we're capturing several different species of bats this is great because the more bats they have the more they can find out and really kind of prepare for what this white nose syndrome is gonna do in the long run none of the bats captured had active white nose syndrome but some showed signs that they had survived the disease at some point right now these bats are coming in fast we're uh it's been a good night for bats oh this one's crawling I gotta go I gotta go we've got a long night ahead of us but it's nothing compared to the adventure that awaits us tomorrow how's my head gonna fit there oh man it's our last day in Mammoth Cave and Kentucky and this is what we've been waiting for oh my gosh the wild cave tour we're facing six long hours of tight squeezes through jagged rocks dust and mud we are going to be crawling through spaces probably this big and there's no turning back on this once we're in we're in we're meeting up with Ranger Rose Clark and she's gonna be our guide today I'm the wild cave tour do you think roads that either one of us are gonna have trouble squeezing through these tiny little spaces we've got pretty broad shoulders yep some big shoulders we'll work with you we may have to do like a half Superman to get you through some of the different crawlway so we'll see I'll walk away Superman is my middle name it should be easy for you then you guys ready to go yep I'm good all right guys follow me wild cave is the most intense experience the park offers and it will test your agility and fears of tight spaces some only 11 inches wide Rose is here for two very important reasons already she knows her way around these maze-like passages and to keep us safe oh no not a good start Rose clearly has her work cut out as I keep hitting my head on the way down into the cave we're getting off the trail this first challenge is called the bear fall at less than a foot wide it's a good test for first-time cavers if you can't manage this we're you're not allowed to go any further so we just dive in oh my gosh Jackie's going first [Music] like a 9 inch barrel you got this you're just feeling like okay but I don't crawl my way through this I'm not getting out so I've got to focus and really just get out of this tight spot all right clear oh man now it's my turn yeah sure I'm gonna make this this is about as wide as my body I don't have many inches to spare here : starting to freak out a little bit and I'm trying to reassure him you got a man stomach you got a stomach is my head gonna I think I'm stuck I'm trying to wiggle and there's no room to wiggle whatsoever I thought I was stuck for a second there all right yeah I'm fine now now that we've made it through the bear hole Rose is taking us on a boulder scramble oh it's so cool this is amazing oh man Wow we're caving now my friend oh no it's getting there or where we crawl oh it's dusty slide side both slide how it's awesome are you guys okay we've made it to a chamber called the lantern room where we'll climb over a deep dark canyon your feet and hands on either side where you trust that your feet aren't gonna slip oh man oh I can't see anything we're almost kind of in a cave with in a cave with in a cave Arina so as we move along in the tour the spaces just seem to be getting tighter and tighter and this next lone crawl is the most intense yet it's 265 feet below the surface and at its smallest point a mere 9 inches high we went hauling fur I'd say about 20 minutes right now in a tight little space Jack I start to realize that maybe I do have a little thing with Coster phobia I'm kind of ready to get out of here I'm battling with my brain I'm taking deep breaths and I'm just trying to tell myself that there's got to be an ending you're almost there are you doing I want to get out of here yeah he's got it oh man no yeah you feel that yeah that's definitely a more intense than I thought it was gonna be that was pretty crazy my heart is pounding oh man and honestly I am just relieved that I'm out of that tiny little space but unfortunately I can't celebrate yet because we're not done and it's a belly-crawl it's wide but it's very short it's gonna be over a lot of rubble so there's a lot of loose Rock probably gonna be poking at you as you crawl can I look in there you can look in there huh I love a good physical challenge right now I'm dealing with a mental one how far is it did you look down there I'm not gonna look I'm just gonna go I've got that feeling of claustrophobia and I can't shake it Jack goes in and I'm right behind him are you incoming well [Music] I've just entered the last crawl of this wild mammoth cave tour and it's a tight squeeze Colton's feeling claustrophobic and I don't see him coming in behind me are you in : no not yet man there is a way around this one but Colton normally doesn't like to back down from a challenge yeah I don't know dude at the last second I decide you know what I'm done I'm already feeling too claustrophobic you got to do what you know is right for you I've been in this cave a little too long sorry my mind didn't want me to go and no matter how much I tried to convince myself it was gonna be okay this wasn't having it Jack's got it more props to him I'm gonna go greet him on the other side a lot of jagged rocks down here Jack how are you doing Jack this is tight this is the hardest part of the crawl lucky for me I'm skinny [Music] you're almost there man call it yeah smacked my head hard and that is why the park requires us to wear helmets thank you I had a blast yeah that was quite the experience but I definitely learned my limitations at least when it comes to being underground in the cave in total we scrambled and crawled five and a half miles today and at our deepest point we were 280 feet below the surface not to shed that was one of the most intense things I think I've ever done you're telling me man even though it was kind of scary it was a really cool feeling I had no idea that I had such a fear of tiny little spaces like that but I learned a little something about myself on this trip I don't know about you the cool thing I think also is the history of people here let's see some of the spots where some mining took place and the tuberculosis huts pretty fascinating I love the bats that was so cool getting to go out into the field and actually like study these guys I'm hooked Mammoth Cave thrilled us from top to bottom inside and out hopefully we will be back and remember if we can do it so can you so the next chance you get go out and rock the park [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] hey everybody thanks for watching make sure to leave any questions or comments that you have and please subscribe to the channel there's a lot more to come you

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Views: 23,828

Rating: 4.8871474 out of 5

Keywords: Exploring Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky, Mammoth Cave National Park, Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky, Kentucky, Mammoth Cave, mammoth cave national park, kentucky, mammoth cave, national, hiking, national park, national parks, national park service, nps

Id: KBLunwf55oc

Length: 20min 19sec (1219 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 08 2020