Wasn’t able to get a post up last week because Chance and I were in the midst of our travels to Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina to enjoy the emergence of spring. Our first stop was Mammoth Cave National Park in central Kentucky. Most of the 63 National Parks do not allow dogs on the park trails. Mammoth Cave, of course, as the world’s largest cave is known for its fantastic network of over 400 miles of underground caverns. However, the park also is a treasure of forests, rivers, lakes, and — as it wouldn’t be surprising on land above a cave system — sinkholes. And dogs following B.A.R.K. ranger rules are permitted on over 30 above ground trails.
Sinkhole along Cedar Sink Trail
The slightly acid rainwater and chemicals in groundwater peculating into the limestone start dissolving the rock leading to the creation of fissures, caverns, and underground systems. Occasionally, the land above begins to seep downward, and occasionally dramatically but more often over a long period, the land begins to collapse, and sinkholes form. In wet times, water will collect in the sinks. And perhaps a creature will through the mud.
Black Bear tracks and mud cracks
In early April the sunlight fills the nearly leafless forest floor with light and wildflowers emerge, including the perfectly named Dutchman’s Breeches. that look like 18th century pants hanging to dry and billowing in the wind.
Dutchman’s Breeches and Bulbous Buttercup
One of my favorite flowers, the Trout Lilly, was also popping up, and a moss covered log was bedecked in shelf fungus.
Trout Lily
Polypore
Amid the wildflowers, Chance wonders if the mushrooms are tasty.
Slowing down and getting low lets you see some other creatures wandering along the forest floor.
Along this trail—Cedar Sink—one of the rivers that flow through Mammoth Cave emerges briefly into daylight before heading back underground and continuing through the caverns.
A couple miles away along the Turnhole Bend trail, this underground river as well as much of this water that’s been collected from the area sinkholes emerges in Kentucky’s third largest spring. The water bubbles up from its underground travels and soon flows into the aptly named Green River that runs through the Park.
Redbud view of the Green River, Mammoth Cave National Park, Kentucky