Cumberland Caverns - Tony

 

We had 14 brave spelunkers traverse the wilds of Cumberland Caverns... actually we were upright the whole time in the commercially lighted part, but it's fun to dream about the dark wilds anyway.
Fourteen of us from three chapters joined a few others for a wonderfully air conditioned hike in the cave. We all assembled as a group at Applebee's in McMinnville for lunch afterward.

 

I believe a good time was had by all, lots of laughter and smiles. It was a wonderful day!

 

 

Cumberland Caverns- Tony

Cumberland Caverns 7-14-12

Eighteen of us hikers from the Tennessee Trails Association ventured into fairly new territory for us. We generally hike outdoors but today we hiked UNDERGROUND.

We visited Cumberland Caverns in McMinnville, Tennessee for a cool 56 degree walk through millions and millions of years of constant creation. The tour was about two hours and we covered about a mile and a half or so.

We saw the obvious stalactites and stalagmites as well as wonderful examples of columns and flow-stones. We traversed (via steps) the magnificent Hall of the Mountain King which is the largest cave room in Eastern America…and the end of this hall we sat for a program of light and sound which was a Christian based narrative of the cave and the Creation.

Hall of the Mountain King

One of the other highlights of the tour was the chandelier that weighs over twelve thousand pounds and has over ten thousand hand carved crystal beads and shines red, white and blue. We saw a nice synchronization of the lights to Mozart.

All in all this was a great summertime diversion from the heat of hiking on a regular park trail.

We had a total of eighteen TTA members from four chapters along on this trip and sixteen of us piled into a McMinnville Mexican Restaurant afterwards and ate and rode out the bad storm that hit just as we were getting inside to eat.

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