My last visit to Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky, USA (April 2005) was brief because even on the self-guided tour not even a monopod was allowed into the cave, let alone a tripod. I should be grateful I guess they let me take the camera in with me.
There is simply no good reason not to allow a monopod, so I saw no reason to pay good money to see more of the cave system since this was my third visit over my lifetime and my only interest this time was to shoot photos with my Canon 20D.
Anyone interested in cave photography should email the US National Park Service and complain about Mammoth Cave's policy against monopods. In Carlsbad Caverns even *tripods* were permitted on the self-guided tour. This inconsistency of policy is most puzzling, particularly since Mammoth Cave's self-guided tour had a much wider 'trail' and far fewer people on it. Moronic bureaucrats.
Because of Mammoth Cave's unbending policy against camera supports, I had to shoot at ISO 3200 and brace the camera on whatever was available, usually the railing or my knee, and still had to 'push' the images in Photoshop which, of course, with a 20D results in banding in the dark tones which, of course, makes these photos useless for any serious application.
