National Parks: Mammoth Cave

From the high tech Batcave to Aladdin’s Cave of Wonders, to Tom and Huck’s cave in Mark Twain and Nickk Shepard’s boyhood hometown of Hannibal, Missouri, and thousands of other tales across the centuries, caves hold special places in our minds of fear and adventure.

Leading up to this visit, I wasn’t super excited about visiting Mammoth Cave National Park. I love exploring the National Parks, but I thought I knew caves. Having grown up in Missouri, which has seriously flirted with the idea of changing its license plate slogan from The Show-Me State (an antiquated nickname dating back to the 1800s) to The Cave State, I’ve seen a great deal of caves. My boyhood home Hannibal slaps theirs on every billboard within 100 miles, and I’ve visited many others throughout my lifetime. To my ignorant mind, Mammoth Cave was just going to be a big cave that I would get to see a small part of on a tour – but this is a National Park for a reason.

Beneath our seemingly normal landscape that we all traverse, live, and work, a whole different alien world exists with creatures and sights that we on the surface know not of. I had this thought on a chilly November afternoon as I drove through the farmlands outside of Bowling Green, Kentucky. Unlike the busy growing season of the strawberry fields of home in Florida, winter in Kentucky is a time of quiet outside of cities and homes. The leaves have all fallen from the once vibrant trees, and the fields sit fallow, resting and waiting for spring’s thaw. Nothing about the rolling forested hills on the edge of the farms gives hints to the massive world beneath them.

Once inside of the unassuming entrance to Mammoth Cave National Park, few signs trumpet that you are within a traditional National Park. The occasional note on the map about a hiking trail or campground aside, it feels as though you are in just a woodsy state park – a great place to bring the family to escape the hustle and bustle of daily life. Yet reaching the Visitor’s Center, you do start to get a sense that something different is going on. A massive parking lot stands in stark contrast to the otherwise small structure at it’s center – only a fraction of the people who have filled this parking lot can be seen milling about the gift shop and history museum. Turns out, Mammoth Cave is one of those few places that is very accurately named.

The digital display (due to it often being updated) in the Cave’s Visitors Center currently reads 426 miles (686 kilometers) of explored and mapped passageways, making it by far the largest known cave system in the world. The Parks Service estimates that there is another 600 or so miles left to be explored. To give some perspective, the next largest cave system in the world is Mexico’s Sistema Sac Actun Cave system which currently has 216 miles of explored and mapped passageways.

“If you wander off, thinking that you’ve got a flashlight on your iPhone…guess what’s going to happen? I don’t know, but I’m going home at 5:15”

Park Ranger

As we descended into the earth, our tour guide reminded us to stay close and not lag behind as he’s on a schedule to ensure that every bit of history that we paid for can be given. This initially concerned me thinking that we would be rushed through the tour, but those concerns quickly passed as we found that there is ample time to stop and take in the grandeur of the cave’s many wonders. Mammoth Cave has been used by humans for the past several thousand years, and there is a great deal of that history shared on the Historic Tour.

In addition to the Historic Tour, the Park offers nearly a dozen other tours of various destinations and topics – I know that when I go back, I’ll try and get one focused on everything that went into the creation and formation of the cave system.

The initial part of the Historic Tour seemed pretty calm – massive passageways over 30 feet in height and wide paved walkways gently ascending and descending along the way. It wasn’t until we reached a massive stone in a seemingly dead-end room that things took a turn for the thrilling. After a discussion in the near pitch blackness (cave tour guides love turning off the electricity to give you a sense of what it is like to have had your torch go out back in the day), the guide directed us to head behind the rock and to watch our heads and footing as we descend. My heart rate started to trend upwards, and my mind became alert – adventure lay ahead.

Everyone says they want to be taller, until they find themselves in a cave that clearly wasn’t designed by nature with the comfort of people taller than 5 feet in height in mind. While you never found yourself needing to crawl at any point of this particular tour, you do need to be very aware of what’s coming up and around each corner otherwise you may find yourself seeing stars while under the earth! Sometimes I found myself wondering how they were even able to create the steps and railings in the tightest of locations. Ducking, squeezing, and winding, we made our way deeper into the depths. Here we discovered tiny passageways opening up to large cathedral-like rooms and chasms that you logically know has a bottom, but your imagination refuses to believe.  

This part of Mammoth Cave may not have glistening jewels and cascading stone waterfalls, nor stalactites and stalagmites, but it does beckon your heart to explore. As we stood outside of its entrance before the tour began, you found yourself wondering what would cause someone to journey into the Cave’s dark mouth – by the time you come back out, you know. The drive to discover all that lays hidden beneath is now in my veins, and coursing through my imagination even now as I sit reflecting back on this journey in sunny Florida.

One thing to note is that Mammoth Cave, like Wind Cave and Carlsbad Caverns National Parks, generally requires advanced ticket purchases for cave tours. I lucked out in that I was able to secure a Historic Tour reservation a week before my visit thanks to this being a trip I was making by myself, and there being one ticket available. Waiting for the tour to begin, I saw several people milling about, upset that they weren’t able to go into the cave because they didn’t have any available tickets. These tours, while comparatively inexpensive ($20 per person), do fill up fast and are limited in size due to how effectively one Ranger can lead and teach a group – plan your trip several weeks in advance, especially if you’re bringing several people.

I don’t say this lightly: Mammoth Cave National Park is an adventure that rivals theme parks, and will stay with you long after your visit. I look forward to returning to explore more of its mysteries, and bringing others with me so that they too can have their eyes opened to what lies beneath. To plan your visit and get tickets, visit Recreation.gov.