A journey to the center of the earth. That’s what it felt like while walking through the cavern. Just getting to the cave from the Visitor’s Center feels like you are deep within the surface of the earth, and that’s because you are. In order to get to what is referred to as the “Big Room”, you have to descend around 750 feet beneath the surface, which is about 80 stories. That’s a 1.3 mile walk from the Natural Entrance. An entrance that is worth walking down in order to experience how explorers entered the cave, and also to get an idea of how massive the cave really is. I witnessed a few people attempting the walk back up the Natural Entrance, however they did not look excited to be doing that walk. It’s about a 20% grade the entire time, which made the walk down a quad burner. I can’t even imagine walking back up it.
I was only able to book one ranger-guided tour, because the other tours were sold out. I enjoyed the King’s Palace tour because it allows you to see parts of the cave which are only open to the tours. Even if you don’t do a ranger-guided tour, you can still see over 8 acres of cavern in the Big Room. The one and a quarter mile walk around the Big Room felt like it was never going to end, but I also didn’t want it to end because there were so many different kinds of formations to look at. Some that looked like popcorn, some that looked like bones, some that looked like ice, and some that you couldn’t tell if they were stalactites or stalagmites because they were so close to touching in the middle.
While walking through the cave, I kept wondering how many bats were hanging over my head. Because I knew within the next few hours, thousands of bats would exit the cave for the night. I never did see them in the cave, so they must have been in a part of the cave that visitors don’t walk through. As dusk began to arrive, people started gathering at the outdoor amphitheater to witness the bats exiting the cave. I had seen pictures of how many bats exit at a time, so I thought it would only last a few minutes. I also expected only a few bats leading the pack when they started exiting. But it was like someone opened the gate for them, because it was a flood of bats once they began leaving the cave. Thousands of bats leaving to find food, and breaking off into smaller groups as they flew away. But still staying in a formation that appears to look like smoke because of the vast amount of bats. This lasted for nearly 25 minutes. It was definitely a sight worth seeing. I only wish I could have seen them re-entering the cave the next morning.
