Day 39: Mammoth Cave

Mammoth Cave is the largest known cave in the world. 412 miles of the cave have been mapped so far. It is estimated that there may be more than 600 miles of the cave yet to be discovered! If you take every guided tour available you can explore approximately 10 miles of the cave. We took one tour this morning, saw 2 miles of the cave. We have another tour scheduled for tomorrow, we’ll see another 2 miles of the cave. Today’s tour was the historic tour. The park ranger guide gave what I assume was a lovely talk throughout the tour. Unfortunately I heard exactly none of it. He was not speaking particularly loud, it was a large group, sound bounces around a bit in the cave, it was dark and I could not see his face, the tinnitus in my ears is quite loud all the time. In short, my hearing deficiency got the better of me today. I can almost always fake my way through and figure out most things, but not today. Today it was frustrating :( But, the upside is that the cave was really neat to look at even if I missed the history.

It’s a mostly dry cave, and just huge, hence the name. There were some extremely narrow twisty passages and a LOT of areas where we had to crouch down considerably. And a giant staircase at the end called the tower, 270 steps up. We also walked over one pit 105 feet deep and another called the bottomless pit. At the end we came to a dome that was a couple of hundred feet high. Tomorrow we tour a different part of the cave, presumably with more moisture as we are seeing things such as the frozen Niagara Falls feature, and the tour is called “Domes and Dripstones”.

After the cave tour the kids turned in their junior ranger books. Probably the last one for Alex, maybe Ben too. Had a quick lunch at a little cafe in the park and set out for some hikes.

The first hike was to the overlook to an entrance to a cave that houses an endangered species of bat. We continued on, saw an overlook for the Green River (longest river in Kentucky), and continued looping through the woods for awhile back to the visitor center.

Next we went to a place called Cedar Sink. It’s s big giant sinkhole. The path wound down into the sinkhole a bit, then back out. It was pretty wild, very primordial.

One last small walk to the entrance of Sand Cave. Floyd Collins was hiking in the cave and on his way outkicked a rock that fell and trapped his leg. This was back in the 30s. The rescue attempt gained national coverage. He ultimately perished in the cave but it was his death that brought the Mammoth Cave area to peoples attention and it was made a National Park a year or so later.

Back to the hotel after that for some showers. It wasn’t particularly hot today, mid 80s and all of our hiking was through the woods, but the humidity was ridiculous and we were all a sweaty disgusting mess. The cave temp is in the mid 50s, so cool, but humid down there too.

Anyway, being able to shower and relax for a bit before dinner is nice and i’m Ok that we opted not to camp here.

In a short while we’re heading back into the park. There is a pond that is supposedly full of frogs that sing at dusk and bats that circle around it. The park ranger yesterday highly recommended s dusk time stroll around the pond. We’ll grab dinner afterwards.

Tomorrow we have one more cave tour in the morning then we head for St. Louis.