Mammoth Cave National Park

We have always been big fans of the national park system, and we will go out of our way to check another one of these parks off our list. So our travels through Kentucky must definitely include a stop at Mammoth Cave National Park--home to the longest cave system in the world. Instead of one long cave that runs in a straight line for 400 miles, this metal model of the known cave system looks more like a tangled web of layered highways.

The only way to experience Mammoth cave is to go on a guided tour. We got our reservations in advance, as they will sell out on holiday weekends. The tour group sizes can be large, and we followed our guide down the steps into the historic entrance of this huge cave.

There are 16 different cave tours available here at Mammoth Cave National Park. They are different lengths, start in different locations, and show different parts of the cave. It's hard to decide which one to take, but we settled on this "Extended Historic Tour." We soon found that taking pictures inside a cave is almost impossible, but that doesn't mean we didn't try.

While some of the areas inside the cave are tiny, others are as big as ballrooms. This is a dry cave, so we wouldn't see the fancy wet stalactites and stalagmites that we have seen in other caves.

As we walked deeper into the cave, we were soon away from the entrance and the only source of natural light. When the ranger turned out the lights, he lit an oil lantern that was used in the early days of exploring this massive cave. Then he started telling stories about those early days.

We are on the extended historic tour, so his job is to tell us stories of the history of Mammoth Cave. Early explorers and visitors signed their names on the cave walls throughout the cave. Doing that today would be a federal offense since we are in a national park.

On this extended tour, we walked to the part of the cave that was once used as a home for patients with tuberculosis. It was hoped that the cold clean air would help to heal their lungs. But the experiment was a failure, and the empty treatment apartments are tucked away inside Mammoth Cave.

The ranger guide warned us of the two miles that we must walk on this tour, which also includes 540 stairs. He also mentioned the "Fat man's agony," where the cave passage would narrow to 18 inches in one long section.

Luckily, that narrow 18-inch measurement was usually near our feet, with more room toward the ceiling.

Then he had warned us of "tall man's agony," where the ceiling would drop and we had to crouch to get through one passage. Some of us had to crouch more than others.

The ranger described the bottomless pit, and we found it was hard to take a picture of something without a bottom.

After two hours and 15 minutes, we returned to sunlight as we walked up the stairs  After being in a 56-degree cave, it didn't take long to remove our jackets when we hit the sunshine.

Besides the cave under the ground, this national park also includes many miles of trails above ground. We took the ranger's advice and started out on the series of trails that start close to the visitor center. Even though it was warm outside, we have found that Kentucky trails are almost completely shaded.

Our trail finally broke out of the trees for a view of the tree-covered hills and Green River far below.

From that viewpoint up high, we made our way down the trail to get a closer look at Green River. 

We know that they have kayak trips through this section of the river that flows through the national park. So this hike is a really a mission to see if we wanted to plan a float trip down the Green River. We are looking at the current, and checking to see if we can arrange a shuttle for our inflatable kayak.

Our hike took us to the Green River Ferry, which is also the end of most of the kayak trips. We watched as tired and sun-burned paddlers struggled to bring their kayaks up the long concrete steps where they were loaded onto trailers. We had hoped to ride our bikes between here and the put-in spot seven miles up river at the Dennison Ferry. But the narrow, winding, up-hill roads in this park convinced us that wouldn't make for a safe bike ride. So our mission convinced us that we won't be kayaking after all.

By combining trails with names like "Green River Bluff" and "Heritage" and "Two Springs" we knit together a 5.2-mile loop that included the highlights of the above-ground portion of this national park close to the visitor center. We spotted sinkholes and springs, and even this little waterfall that ended in a pool of turquoise spring water. This is a national park filled with God's wonders, and we were glad to wander both under-ground and above-ground here.