Day 11: Mammoth Caves National Park, KY

Today was a cave extravaganza. We visited two totally different caves and a karst window.

Diamond Caverns was our first stop for an hour-long guided tour in this “show cave”. The tour guide left something to be desired (we didn’t get the impression that he liked his job much) but the cave was spectacular. We cannot emphasize how much this is an absolute must-see. The cave was FILLED with numerous stalagmites, stalactites and columns. Just wow. Incredible.

Cave bacon - see the “fat” strip?

The wedding chapel.

We learned about the Kentucky Cave Wars of the late 1900s, saw the wedding chapel and discovered cave crickets that are so starved for food underground that the males will eat their own legs for nourishment - ugh. We spied many hidden staircases and pathways that we were not permitted to explore. Interestingly, we read that in the 1990s a new part of this cave system was discovered under the main rotunda which has pristine formations but has not been developed and is not accessible to visitors. Weirdly our guide denied any knowledge of this, leading us to suspect there are likely many areas of this cave that are not on the public tour. Even so this was absolutely worth it and was today’s highlight.

Next on our agenda was a short hike to see a karst window, which is where an underground river becomes visible when a cave roof collapses into a sinkhole. Water emerges from the cave system at one end of the sinkhole, is visible above ground as it travels through the sinkhole, and then re-enters the cave system and disappears back below ground. We walked through the sinkhole but the river was mostly dry. It was a cool cave-adjacent geological feature to witness, though Alistair was not particularly impressed.

Alistair: This is it?!

Rim of the sinkhole.

Dry riverbed at the bottom.

Hole where the water disappears back into the cave system.

Our final stop was Mammoth Caves’ Cleaveland Avenue Tour. Mammoth Caves is the longest cave system in the world at 686 km in length. Walking in this section of the cave was akin to walking in a subway tunnel. It was the path of an underground river and it twisted and turned just like a river might above ground, except that this was all below the surface and there was no water flowing through it anymore.

This part of the cave is special because of the gypsum formations (carpets, bubbles, pearls and flowers) on the ceiling. We entered through the “new” entrance made in the 1950s which is near the part of the cave with lots of gypsum. Before this entrance was blasted open, visitors would take the “long” cave tour (about 12-14 hours in duration and guided by slaves) starting from the historic entrance to get to this part of the cave. Given how much trouble the boys had holding their pee on our 2hr tour, thank goodness we weren’t signed up for a 12 hr one.

We did a lot of walking today and are looking forward to seeing more of Mammoth Caves tomorrow.

Day 10: Hidden River Cave, KY

Today we got really, really dirty. Like REALLY dirty. How you ask? Wild caving in Hidden River Cave (previously known as Horse Cave), just outside of Cave City, KY. This “Off Trail Tour” was the only wild caving tour I could find anywhere that would accommodate a seven and eleven year old; usually the age cut off is 13. The boys really enjoyed it. Within the first 5 minutes we had walked through a river completely soaking our hiking boots. We then conquered the “knee buster” passage that required a combination of very low crab walking and crawling on our hands and knees. Our 19 year old tour guide Jack also had the boys army crawling on their stomaches through two really tight passages. Ian and I opted out of the crawling citing this part as a young person’s game, lol. At one point, we all turned off our headlights to experience the absolute blackness deep inside the cave. During our journey, Ian made good use of his helmet and bonked his head real good three times. We also saw a very cool cave crawfish with totally transparent skin that allowed us to see all his insides. We tried hard not to step on him. At the end of the tour we got to walk the route of the regular cave tour to see the sunset dome; it is the second largest cave dome in the US beat only by the dome in Carlsbad Caverns, in New Mexico (which we will be seeing later in our trip). Guide Jake told us it would take 880,000,000 Rubick’s Cubes to fill the dome! 

Before

After

Alistair hanging up all the wet insoles of our boots.

In the afternoon we did some rock shopping with our spending money from the grandmas at the very reasonably priced Big Mike’s Rock Shop. Alistair cleaned up selecting a “pint” of assorted rocks for $9.95. He also purchased a very cool TV Rock (made of feldspar). Liam opted for a polished opalite. Seamus could not decide (SO many choices) so he is holding on to his spending money for now.

We also grocery shopped for a steal of a deal at the Dollar General Market in preparation for burritos for supper tonight. 

Burrito bowl

It has been a rock-solid day.

Day 9: Natural Bridge State Park to Mammoth Caves National Park, KY

We had a wild adventure this morning on a guided clear kayak tour through an old limestone mine! It was amazing - the kids gave it an eleven out of ten. Alistair was adamant that he wanted to pilot his own mini kayak. He gave it a valiant effort and (thankfully) graciously accepted the guide’s suggestion a few minutes in that he might enjoy being towed behind the guide’s kayak to minimize zigzagging. The big boys nailed it. It was so cool to see the huge trout swimming right beside and underneath us throughout our time on the water.

After a lunch of leftover pizza, we drove toward Mammoth Caves National Park, stopping at Maker’s Mark Distillery in Loretto, KY to hand dip our own bottle of bourbon into their infamous red wax.

We also dropped in to Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Park to see a replica of the log cabin where the 16th US president was born and the sinking spring that was the reason his father selected this particular homestead. The spring was most underwhelming as it is today but we could see how it could have been important in the past.

After gaining an hour to our afternoon due to moving time zones, we rolled into Mammoth Caves Campground around dinner time and settled in. We have another exciting adventure planned for tomorrow. Stay tuned to see what we get up to.