When we arrived to meet with our tour group of 15 people, the ranger explained that the "Left-Hand Tunnel" tour would be led by her, and our only source of light in this part of the cave would be lanterns with candles. She also mentioned the importance of staying on the trail marked my orange guide tape or risk falling, falling, falling. I didn't know whether to be totally excited about this rare opportunity or to be scared out of my mind!
Needless to say, we were up for the adventure and embarked 750 feet underground on special elevators to begin our Left-Hand Tunnel exploration. I was pleasantly surprised (and relieved) that the tunnel wasn't narrow at all, so it wasn't difficult to stay on the trail and enjoy our journey as early cave explorers did with minimal light. Our guide had a dry, yet refreshing sense of humor and played her harmonica at times to lighten the moment. We also did a "black-out" where we blew out our candles in the lanterns according to our birthday month. Once they were all out, it was amazing and a little scary how dark it was inside the cave. You couldn't even see your hand in front of your face, even though you knew it was there and your brain was trying to tell you that you were seeing it.
One and half hours later, we emerged from the Left-Hand Tunnel safe and sound (yeah!), and then we were off to a self-guided tour of The Big Room. When we walked into the expansive chamber, David exclaimed, "We are not in Marianna anymore." By no means putting down Marianna Caverns, but the Big Room is named appropriately since it is 357,469 sq. ft. (or over 8 acres) in size. There were a variety of formations, including stalagmites, stalagtites, draperies and popcorn. Several of them were cleverly named, like "The Hall of Giants" or "Dolls' Theater." It took us an hour or so to walk around the paved walkway, and then we rode the elevators back up to the lunchroom and a visit to the gift shop before our last tour of the day.
At this point, I wasn't sure if I could go any farther (I was pretty tired!), but I didn't want to miss the opportunity for another ranger-led tour and to see the "The King's Palace." So we ventured down 750 ft again on the elevators and met another tour group. Our ranger for this tour was so hard core about the rules, that he almost forget it was supposed to be fun. David gave him the nickname "Ranger Barney Fife," and another tour member said, "He must have woken up on the wrong side of the cave."
Once we were on the tour for a while, I realized I went on this tour with my family years ago. I found out that it used to be self-guided until visitors in the 1990's destroyed over 10,000 formations. My favorite formation was the "Queen's Draperies" that were floor to ceiling "decorations", and Ben's favorite was the "Bashful Elephant."
Whew! We were all tired and headed back to the hotel for a rest and then to eat before heading back to the Caverns for the Bat Flight program at sunset. We broke tradition (never again!) and drove through Sonic for a quick bite to eat on the way.
We were not at the Bat Flight Amphitheater long when the ranger's signal went off that the bats were flying through the cave and would soon exit at the Natural Entrance. Jonathan said seeing the bats leave the cave was his favorite part of the day. It was pretty amazing, though not as chaotic as I remember it to be as a child.
Can you tell we enjoyed the day?
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