Mammoth Cave National Park

We spent a lot of our time in Kentucky in Cave City and on our last day there - finally - we made a visit to Mammoth Cave National Park.

The cave system has formally been known as the Mammoth-Flint Ridge Cave System since 1972, when a connection was discovered between Mammoth Cave and the even-longer system under Flint Ridge.  As of 2022, more than 426 miles of passageways have been surveyed, over 1.5 times longer than the second-longest cave system, Mexico's Sac Actun underwater cave.

The park was established as a national park on July 1, 1941, after a contentious eminent-domain proceedings with consequences still affecting the region.  It was explained that one of the reasons that the park is free to visit is because many of the residents who were displaced were promised that the park would always be free so that they would be able to return to visit cemeteries, etc.

We chose the Historic Tour (approximately 2 miles) which visits many of the historic areas that originally made Mammoth Cave famous.  Humans have used the tunnels for thousands of years and the tour not only explores huge rooms that gave Mammoth Cave its name, but also descends to much tighter places deep inside the cave.  The tour ascends and descends hundreds of stairs and several steep inclines.

As we met with our tour guide before descent, he explained exactly what we would be going through - narrow passageways, lots of stairs, and some areas where we would have to crouch.  If it made us nervous, we shouldn't visit because once inside, there was only one way out.  I started to hyperventilate and thought I wouldn't be able to do it.  But I decided to be a big girl, put my fears aside, and head down to the cave.

We stopped at the entrance so our guide could give us instructions and to, once again, make sure we were prepared.  Geez, just when I thought I would be fine I started having second thoughts.

Deep breath.....and in we went!

YIKES!  We were inside!

It was beautiful and once I acclimated to the lighting (or lack thereof) I felt pretty comfortable.

The Mammoth Dome is beautiful.

And nearby we saw some monuments.

"In memory of our fallen comrades of Kentucky and the American dead of the World War"

We stopped at an old saltpetre mining area.

Thousands of years of occupation by bats (BATS?!?) made the cave dirt rich with a compound called calcium nitrate.  This is a mineral that can be mixed with other potassium materials to create potassium nitrate, or saltpetre, which is a principal ingredient in black gunpowder.  Saltpetre mining was not easy work, and not many people were willing to work in the cave in the mine.  Most of the workers were enslaved African American men, many of whom were leased from nearby states and worked long hours in poor conditions.

There are 13 species of bats that live in Mammoth National Park, three of which are listed on the federal endangered species list.  Most of the species of bats living inside the cave are about the size of a small mouse.  We even saw one - see it?

And evidence of a waterfall.

Next point of interest was Giants Coffin.  The large boulder is 48 feet in length, 20 feet in height, and eight feet wide and weighs approximately 1,000 tons.  On the surface can be seen many historic signatures, as well as some not so historic signatures.  After the establishment of the national park, marking on the cave walls became a federal offense.  The earliest name for this boulder was "Steamboat" but by the 1840s visitors decided it looked more like a giant's coffin.

Now came the parts the guide had warned us about.

Sidesaddle Pit

Hundreds of miles have been added to the cave system through exploration over the years.  One of the earliest impediments to exploring the caves was a six foot gap in the path at the location of Bottomless Pit, a 105 foot deep hole in the cave.  And here we were!

Unfortunately, our picture didn't turn out well but I can vouch for the fact that it is DEEP!

And now the part I was really dreading, Fat Man's Misery.  

This was the area we might need to crouch - even a short person like me.  But I sucked it up and did it.

When we started this journey, I wonder what would happen if someone needed to use the restroom.  And after we finished Fat Man's Misery, there like an oasis was a restroom.

Not that either of us needed to go, but I sent Ron inside the men's room to take a photo.  Haha!

And then it was time for a rest.  We were close to the point where we would be climbing all of the stairs to get out so we needed to gather our strength.

We climbed the stairs but since it was pretty intense, we skipped the pictures.  And then we were at the last set of stairs leading us out of the cave.

Phew - we made it!  We came, we saw, we conquered!  So glad I sucked it up and did it.