Mammoth Cave National Park

My Mammoth Cave tour was probably one of the coolest things I've ever done. It was about a 90 minute drive down to southwest Kentucky so I left by 8:00 for a 10:00 Historic Tour of the Cave. What I totally didn't think about is that Eastern Time Zone changes to Central Time Zone in western Kentucky. Yup, got there at 8:30 (instead of the planned 9:30). Luckily they had just added another tour at 9:30 because everything was sold out so I was able to switch to the earlier tour. That turned out to be a great decision because we were the first group to head down into the cave so not only was there no one else around (other than those of us in the tour) but our ranger had to turn lights on as we walked down into the depths.

It was hot, rainy and humid as we made our way down the hill to the cave entrance. The temperature dropped about 30º within seconds. 

It was difficult capturing the grandeur and scale of this incredible place so I've included some images of some of the parts of the 2 mile tour. 

There are HUGE open spaces and as we worked our way down to the deepest part of the cave (almost 400 feet deep) we had to climb slippery limestone, squeeze through narrow passageways and duck walk under really low ceilings. It was AWESOME!!

Mammoth Cave is the most extensively explored cave system in the world with more than 400 miles mapped and explored with many miles yet to be studied and mapped. 

The center of Mammoth Dome rises about 200 feet with water rushing down the sides. 

At one point, our Ranger shut off all of the lights as we stood in complete darkness and silence. She then lit a candle to show us how the first peoples explored the caves. Crazy!! There is evidence of humans using the cave up to 5000 years ago!! There are even versions of graffiti on the ceilings and walls including these made with candle soot. Many of these date back to the 1800's. 

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We stopped for a minute at the deepest part of the cave where I took the picture below. This was filled with water only a few years ago when the area flooded. The markings on the ceiling are beautiful. After our stop we then hiked back up to the surface up many stairs and curving paths to the incredible greenery at the entrance.

If you ever get a chance to visit Kentucky, you have to visit Mammoth Cave! There are many different levels of tours (I did the 2 hour moderate Historic Tour) and the Rangers were fun and so well informed. I loved every moment of it!!