Mammoth Cave

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ILNP Rating

Scenery

Uniqueness

Wildlife

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The Cedar Sink area is home to many cool and accessible limestone features including this massive overhang

ILNP Park Review

In a Word. “Twisting”

“Leave the cities and dwell among the crags, O inhabitants of Moab, And be like a dove that nests beyond the mouth of the chasm” -Jeremiah 48:28

Our Visit. My family visited Mammoth Cave on a day trip in October while on a vacation to nearby Tennessee.

Our Weather. Partly cloudy and an unseasonably hot 85 degrees and humid. A cool 54 degrees in the cave.

Overall Impression. Mammoth Cave is a very unique experience for most of us above-ground dwellers, and the National Park Service does a great job of exposing explorers of all skill levels to the underground realm. For most of us with no caving experience, the paths and railings of the main tours offer a safe way to explore an otherwise dangerous area due to the drops and winding passages. It’s a great place for the family to explore for a day, or the variety and tours and hikes could keep you occupied for many days.

There are 49 stairs down into the Frozen Niagara section, and the formations at the bottom are well worth the climb

Favorite Spot. Frozen Niagara

Minimum Time Required. A well-planned and well-timed stop would take a minimum of three hours. Add another 30 minutes for the round-trip from I-65 if you’re just passing through. In this time, you could tour the Visitors Center, take a short hike to the Historic Entrance, and take one of the shorter tours. While there is a “self-guided tour” option, the better tours are guided and must be reserved. The shortest tour is the Frozen Niagara Tour which takes about 1.25 hours. Even if you have reservations, your tickets need to be picked up about 30 min in advance which gives you time to explore the area in the immediate vicinity of the Visitors Center.

This is the historic entrance to Mammoth Cave near the Visitors Center

A Longer Visit. I recommend spending at least half a day at the park. Every good visit starts out online where you reserve your cave tour(s). Half a day is plenty of time for one of the bigger tours. If it’s your first time, I recommend the Historic Tour or the Domes and Dripstones Tour (we did Domes and Dripstones) where you’ll get to explore multiple caverns and learn from a Ranger. Start out at the Visitors Center where you pick up your tickets and spend 15 minutes exploring the nice museum and talking to the friendly rangers. If you have at least 30 minutes before your tour starts, you can walk down the paved path to the Historic Entrance where the cool air will hit you before you even see the entrance. With 45-60 minutes, you can continue on toward either the river on River Styx Spring Trail or head up to the bluffs via the Dixon Cave Trail. Dixon Cave is nothing spectacular (a hole in the ground), but the trail leads to the Green River Bluffs Trail where you can catch a glimpse of a beautiful valley when there’s a break in the trees.

The path on the Domes and Dripstones tour winds through many twisted passages that require one to duck and contort a bit to get around

Don’t be late for your tour. Tours meet just outside the Visitors Center, and they’re well organized. Tours using the Historic Entrance will walk, but other tours will take you by bus to the other entrances. If you have children with you (or adults with short attention spans), you may want to prep them that there will me several minutes of warnings, questions and answers both at the tour gathering and before going underground. We found our ranger to be quite knowledgeable and interesting, and he kept things moving well. Once underground, be prepared for a maze of steps, tight passages, spots where you’ll have to duck or twist to get around rocks, and very little light. If these things bother you, then you’re probably not going to enjoy the best parts of Mammoth Cave National Park. At no time, though, did I feel like it was dangerous or worry about my children (10 and 14 at the time).

The cave is cool year round (54 degrees Fahrenheit) which feels wonderful when it’s hot outside. We took jackets, but we found we didn’t need them with as much as we were moving–ten minutes was as long as we spent sitting inside the cave. On the Domes and Dripstones Tour, there were really three phases: 1) steps and steps and steps, 2) winding and some more steps through fairly plain (but still interesting) caverns, and 3) the decorated room (with more optional steps) at Frozen Niagara. While you can see the large formations from the main walkway, the 49 steps down to the Frozen Niagara (and 49 steps back up) are well worth it if you have a little energy left after the nearly 300 steps to get into the cave from the New Entrance (opened in 1921).

The base of Cedar Sink is a neat place with limestone walls and trees all around

If you have another hour after your cave tour, consider hiking down to the Cedar Sink via the Cedar Sink Trail near the south boundary of the park. The hike covers about 2 miles round trip and takes you down into a 300-yard wide sinkhole with limestone walls and outcrops surrounding you. Like the cave, it’s a lot of steps, but it’s worth the view!

For a multi-day trip, you’ll be able to take multiple cave tours. If I had the time, I would take one of the “lantern tours” which use only portable lights and take smaller groups.

Looking up under Frozen Niagara, the main decorative feature of the Domes and Dripstones Tour

Suggestions. Reserve your cave tour in advance! You can do this online, and the reservation system shuts down 24 hours before each tour (start online here). If you wait to buy your tickets at the Visitors Center, you risk having the tours you want be sold out. We went on Monday of a holiday weekend (Columbus Day), and while we were able to book a reservation online about 25 hours before the tour, when we got there ALL tours except the self-guided tour were sold out!

Dress in layers. This area can be stiflingly hot in the summer, especially hiking under the trees, but you’ll probably want a light jacket in the cave. Don’t let the lack of a jacket stop you, though, as you’ll be moving enough on the tour to avoid getting too cold. If you do plan on hiking when its hot, I recommend bringing a change of clothes to avoid going into the cave wet.

Note for photographers: Mammoth Cave is VERY dimly lit. Even with a nice camera and lens, you will still struggle to take good pictures without a tripod (they’re not allowed). I set my camera to ISO 3200, f/2.8 at 1/30s and got some tolerable (though very noisy) shots. They were only slightly better than my cell phone camera which did a pretty admirable job all things considered

Nearby Towns Park City, Cave City, Brownsville, Bowling Green (KY)

Other Nearby Attractions Diamond Caverns, Dinosaur World

Official NPS Website Mammoth Cave National Park

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