Beyond Mammoth Cave

Beyond Mammoth Cave PDF Author: James D. Borden
Publisher: SIU Press
ISBN: 0809390388
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 392

Get Book

Book Description
In Beyond Mammoth Cave: A Tale of Obsession in the World’s Longest Cave, James D. Borden and Roger W. Brucker provide gripping first-person accounts of the discoveries, including Roppel Cave, that made Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave three times longer than any other cave in the world. Borden, a relative newcomer, and Brucker, a veteran explorer, bring a personal and sometimes conflicting view of their roles as adversaries in a race that lasted from 1972 through 1983 to find “big cave.” They describe hazardous adventures, precarious climbs, and close calls from falling rocks. The perils are many and the trek arduous as they squirm through muddy tubes, wade in neck-deep cold water, and crawl over sharp rocks and gritty sand. Theirs is a tale of agonizing endurance spiced by spectacular discoveries. But the cave was not the sole obstacle. The explorations were complicated by political intrigue and the rivalry between the Kentucky-based Cave Research Foundation and the Central Kentucky Karst Coalition, each seeking to make discoveries and hide secrets. Extreme stress, of course, evoked extreme behavior, ranging from selfishness to sacrifice, from outrageous humor to the deadly serious response. Beyond Mammoth Cave includes maps by Patricia Kambesis that show the progression of cave discoveries in relation to the topography. Original line drawings by well-known illustrator Linda Heslop capture the dark mystery of the exploration. The book features five black and white photographs as a color gallery of photographs. A sequel to The Longest Cave by Brucker and Richard A. Watson, this book is a comprehensive update of the speleological investigations in the Mammoth Cave region. Brucker’s involvement provides continuity to the investigation.

Beyond Mammoth Cave

Beyond Mammoth Cave PDF Author: James D. Borden
Publisher: SIU Press
ISBN: 0809390388
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 392

Get Book

Book Description
In Beyond Mammoth Cave: A Tale of Obsession in the World’s Longest Cave, James D. Borden and Roger W. Brucker provide gripping first-person accounts of the discoveries, including Roppel Cave, that made Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave three times longer than any other cave in the world. Borden, a relative newcomer, and Brucker, a veteran explorer, bring a personal and sometimes conflicting view of their roles as adversaries in a race that lasted from 1972 through 1983 to find “big cave.” They describe hazardous adventures, precarious climbs, and close calls from falling rocks. The perils are many and the trek arduous as they squirm through muddy tubes, wade in neck-deep cold water, and crawl over sharp rocks and gritty sand. Theirs is a tale of agonizing endurance spiced by spectacular discoveries. But the cave was not the sole obstacle. The explorations were complicated by political intrigue and the rivalry between the Kentucky-based Cave Research Foundation and the Central Kentucky Karst Coalition, each seeking to make discoveries and hide secrets. Extreme stress, of course, evoked extreme behavior, ranging from selfishness to sacrifice, from outrageous humor to the deadly serious response. Beyond Mammoth Cave includes maps by Patricia Kambesis that show the progression of cave discoveries in relation to the topography. Original line drawings by well-known illustrator Linda Heslop capture the dark mystery of the exploration. The book features five black and white photographs as a color gallery of photographs. A sequel to The Longest Cave by Brucker and Richard A. Watson, this book is a comprehensive update of the speleological investigations in the Mammoth Cave region. Brucker’s involvement provides continuity to the investigation.

Scary Stories of Mammoth Cave

Scary Stories of Mammoth Cave PDF Author: Colleen O'Connor Olson
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780939748549
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 108

Get Book

Book Description
As you enter the world's longest cave you cannot help but wonder about scary stories. Two centuries of tourists and explorers--some of whom got lost, saw or heard the unexplainable, or just wanted to tell a good tale--cannot leave a cave without stories. Scary Stories of Mammoth Cave is a collection of nineteenth and twentieth century fiction, historical and more recent first hand accounts of unusual experiences by National Park Service employees, cave explorers, and scientists.

Wildflowers of Mammoth Cave National Park

Wildflowers of Mammoth Cave National Park PDF Author: Randy Seymour
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 081318178X
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 836

Get Book

Book Description
Not only for use in the Mammoth Cave area, this guide is widely useful in a large area, including much of the states of Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Ohio, Tennessee, and West Virginia. An in-depth field guide to 400 wildflowers found along the trails and roads within the park. Each wildflower is represented by a brilliant full-color photograph and accompanied by identifying characteristic text that specifies the colors, floral and leaf forms, flowering time, native or introduced status, as well as the plant's folklore and history, its past herbal or medicinal use, and myriad other facts and myths. For those enthusiasts eager to search for new discoveries, the appendix provide tables showing the observed flowering period, a flower hunting planning guide, and an index of flowers by trail. A lasting and memorable introduction to the park's wildflowers—nearly all of which extend throughout Kentucky and neighboring states—Wildflowers of Mammoth Cave National Park is an indispensable tool for the amateur enthusiast and the professional botanist alike.

Journey to the Bottomless Pit

Journey to the Bottomless Pit PDF Author: Elizabeth Mitchell
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1504057694
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 86

Get Book

Book Description
“A fascinating story.” —LeVar Burton The thrilling adventures of a slave who became known worldwide for his explorations of Mammoth Cave. If you toured Mammoth Cave in Kentucky in the year 1838, you would have been led by candlelight through dark, winding tunnels to the edge of a terrifying bottomless pit. Your guide would have been seventeen-year-old Stephen Bishop, an African American slave who became known around the world for his knowledge of Mammoth Cave. Bishop needed bravery, intelligence, and curiosity to explore the vast cavern. Using only a lantern, rope, and other basic caving equipment, he found a way to cross the bottomless pit and discover many more miles of incredible grottoes and tunnels. For the rest of his life he guided visitors through the cave, showing them how to stoop, bend, and crawl through passageways that were sometimes far from the traditional tour route. Based on the narratives of those who toured the cave with him, Journey to the Bottomless Pit is the first book for young readers ever written about Stephen Bishop. New to this edition: A free teacher’s guide to this book, as well as an interview with current-day Mammoth Cave guide Jerry Bransford, great-great-grandson of Stephen Bishop’s fellow guide, Mat Bransford.

Mammoth Cave

Mammoth Cave PDF Author: Norman Warnell
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781590910504
Category : Mammoth Cave National Park (Ky.)
Languages : en
Pages : 208

Get Book

Book Description
For the majority of the 1.5 million people who visit Mammoth Cave National Park each year, the cave, forest trails and Green River are the major attractions. Little known are the small isolated communities that were inhabited for more than a century before the park?s creation. Traces of forgotten homesteads, now almost indistinguishable from the surrounding forests, are all that remain of these small communities. Taken from court documents and personal interviews, the author writes about the struggles and livelihood of the people who inhabited the region now within Mammoth Cave National Park. These stories sketch the early pioneers and human interest stories of their descendants?their schools, industries, tragedies, and humor that surrounded their lives.

A Year in the National Parks

A Year in the National Parks PDF Author: Stefanie Payne
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780692926789
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 240

Get Book

Book Description
On January 1 of 2016, Stefanie Payne, a creative professional working at NASA Headquarters, and Jonathan Irish, a photographer with National Geographic, left their lives in Washington, D.C. and hit the open road on an expedition to explore and document all 59 of America's national parks during the centennial celebration of the U.S. National Park Service - 59 parks in 52 weeks - the Greatest American Road Trip. Captured in more than 300,000 digital photographs, written stories, and videos shared by the national and international media, their project resulted in an incredible view of America's National Park System seen in its 100th year. 'A Year in the National Parks, The Greatest American Road Trip' is a gorgeous visual journey through our cherished public lands, detailing a rich tapestry of what makes each park special, as seen along an epic journey to visit them all within one special celebratory year.

The Longest Cave

The Longest Cave PDF Author: Roger W. Brucker
Publisher: SIU Press
ISBN: 080939099X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 354

Get Book

Book Description
In 1925 the geological connection between Flint Ridge and Mammoth Cave was proved when dye placed in a Flint Ridge spring showed up in Echo River at Mammoth Cave. That tantalizing swirl of dye confirmed speculations that wereto tempt more than 650cavers over half a century with the thrill of being the first to make human passage of the cave connection. Roger Brucker and Richard Watson tell not only of their own twenty-year effort to complete the link but the stories of many others who worked their way through mud-choked crawlways less than a foot high only to find impenetrable blockages. Floyd Collins died a grisly death in nearby Sand Cave in1925, after being trapped there for 15 days. The wide press coverage of the rescue efforts stirred the imagination of the public and his body was on macabre display in a glass-topped coffin in Crystal Cave into the 1940s. Agents of a rival cave owner once even stole his corpse, which was recovered and still is in a coffin in the cave. Modern cavers still have a word with Floyd as they start their downward treks. Brucker and Watson joined the parade of cavers who propelled themselves by wiggling kneecaps, elbows, and toes through quarter-mile long crawlways, clinging by fingertips and boot toes across mud-slick walls, over bottomless pits, into gurgling streams beneath stone ceilings that descend to water level, down crumbling crevices and up mountainous rockfalls, into wondrous domed halls, and straight ahead into a blackness intensified rather than dispelled by the carbide lamps on their helmets. Over two decades they explored the passages with others who sought the final connection as vigorously as themselves. Pat Crowther, a young mother of two, joined them and because of her thinness became the member of the crew to go first into places no human had ever gone before. In that role, in July 1972, she wiggled her way through the Tight Spot and found the route that would link the Flint Ridge and Mammoth Cave systems into one cave extending 144.4 miles through the Kentucky limestone. In a new afterword to this edition the authors summarize the subsequent explorations that have more than doubled the established length of the cave system. Based upon geological evidence, the authors predict that new discoveries will add another 200 miles to the length of the world’s longest cave, making it over 500 miles long.

Trapped!

Trapped! PDF Author: Robert K. Murray
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813143950
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 360

Get Book

Book Description
"When Floyd Collins became trapped in a cave in southern Kentucky in early 1925, the sensationalism and hysteria of the rescue attempt generated America's first true media spectacle, making Collins's story one of the seminal events of the century. The crowds that gathered outside Sand Cave turned the rescue site into a carnival. Collins's situation was front-page news throughout the country, hourly bulletins interrupted radio programs, and Congress recessed to hear the latest word. Trapped! is both a tense adventure and a brilliant historical recreation of the past. This new edition includes a new epilogue revealing information about the Floyed Collins story that has come to light since the book was first published.

The Kentucky Cave Wars

The Kentucky Cave Wars PDF Author: David Kem
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 9781312175846
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 276

Get Book

Book Description
Eighty-two square miles of rolling hills and valleys in south-central Kentucky make up Mammoth Cave National Park, one of four National Park units in the Commonwealth. Our 26th National Park is home to an enormous labyrinth of underground passages. In fact, Mammoth Cave today is understood to be the world's longest known cave system. Over 400 miles of passages have already been discovered, yet Mammoth Cave is not the only cavern in southern Kentucky. More than 300 other cave systems are known to exist within park boundaries, with many more beyond the reach of the national park. The discovery and exploitation of many of these created opportunity and prosperity for many who would seek to compete with the world famous Mammoth Cave. Roughly one hundred years of competition between enterprising cave managers, guides, locals, outsiders, explorers, and those loyal to one cave or another defined an era known as the Kentucky Cave Wars.

Mummies, Catacombs and Mammoth Cave

Mummies, Catacombs and Mammoth Cave PDF Author: Angelo I. George
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780971303836
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 168

Get Book

Book Description
Mummies, Catacombs and Mammoth Cave recounts the discovery of Indian mummies in American caves. Over three thousand years ago Native Americans used caves as their workplace, home, and site for burials. Many are found in the Mammoth Cave area. The book traces the exploits of a number of Indiana Jones kind of adventurers and their amazing discoveries of mysterious catacombs and caves full of Indian mummies. A catacomb of prehistoric Indian mummies was reported in an 1808 travelogue. A pioneer discovery of a dry cave full of well-preserved Indian mummies adjacent to Lexington, Kentucky - The first burials reported of this nature in an America cave. Three years later, saltpeter miners began to dig up mummies in a cave near Mammoth Cave. One of these, Fawn Hoof, the best known of all the mummies, was taken to Mammoth Cave and exhibited. In 1816, newspapers carried Nahum Ward's report of a swashbuckling cave exploring adventure. It was an adventure like no other - stupendous rooms, exploring miles of passage, seeing sparkling formations and a petrified Indian mummy. The mummy really captivated people's attention. Tourist traveled to the cave to see this wonder of nature and relive the adventure, making Mammoth Cave a top tourist destination as a famous abode of prehistoric Indians. Today, Mammoth Cave is the longest cave in the world - with surveyed passages measuring over 400 miles in length.