Mammoth Cave National Park, Kentucky

Mammoth Cave National Park is the longest cave system known in the world with 405 miles (652 km) of surveyed passageways. The park was established as a national park on July 1, 1941. It became a World Heritage Site on October 27, 1981, and an international Biosphere Reserve on September 26, 1990. It was believed discovered in 1791, and encompasses 52,830 acres.

We were initially going to stay at a Passport America campground and drive to the cave with our Jeep. One campground was full, and at the other one there was no one in the office and it was locked, but the sign said Open. When we called the phone number, you could hear it ring inside. So we drove our motorhome to the Park. There is a large parking lot for buses and campers. I don’t know how it would be in the summer, but at this time it was almost empty so it worked perfect.

You can click on any of the pictures to enlarge them.



There are eight different tours in the winter schedule. We took the Historic Tour, which was $7/person with the Senior Pass. You go through the natural entrance to "classic" Mammoth Cave landmarks visited by writers, scientists, military figures and celebrities of the 1800s and early 1900s. Duration is approximately 2 hours, 2 miles and over 440 stairs. There were some very large rooms with huge ceilings, and also some very narrow spaces that you side-stepped through and ducked your head (Fat Man’s Misery). There’s an area where they did salt-peter mining with some equipment left. We were able to take pictures, just no flash photography.



After doing this tour, we wished we would have done the Domes & Dripstones Tour instead. We’ve seen some dripstone features before, so we did the history tour. We thought there’d be more history and information given out during the tour, but the ranger did very little talking. Maybe it was just the two rangers who were with us. There are displays in the Visitor Center with a lot of information there.



Per the web site, and rangers, “All participants on cave tours must walk on bio-security mats immediately following the conclusion of their tour. No exceptions. This extraordinary measure is due to the confirmation of White-Nose Syndrome in Kentucky. Your assistance is required to slow the spread of this fungal disease affecting bats.”

                         
And that’s how dark it is in the cave when the ranger shuts the lights off. (I think they do this in every cave tour.)

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