Mammoth Cave National Park - Historic Tour

After we finished our hike, we headed out to find a place for lunch. We followed the signs for a picnic area, and ended up driving down a bumpy dirt road for several miles deep into the woods. We eventually made it to the picnic area, which was a secluded spot along the Green River (well secluded from people, there were hundreds of cicadas there screaming at us).



We still had some time to kill until the next tour, so we drove a bit more through the park. The landscape above ground features lots of deep woods and rolling hills. There are also a few historic churches, including the Joppa Missionary Baptist Church. The congregation first met in a log cabin built in the 1860s, the current church was built around 1900.



The church walls are being braced by metal beams, which is good since the church probably would have collapsed without them. Looking inside is a little disorienting since the walls all have a slant to them.



Then it was finally time for our next tour, and we headed back to the Visitor Center. We were doing the Historic Tour, which also starts out at the Natural Entrance to the cave like our previous tour. But unlike that tour, which was self-guided, this tour was with a large group of about 100 people. It's hard enough to take pictures inside the cave, but it's even harder when you're stuck in a large group of people. And also, the guides were busy trying to herd people along the path, which made it hard to stop and take the camera out.

The features inside the cave all have names. The first large room that you enter on both the Historic and Discovery tour is named the Rotunda. Then you follow a paved path through a tunnel-like passageway that is called Broadway Avenue, because early visitors to the cave thought it resembled the urban canyon of Broadway in New York City. Next the tour entered a room called the Methodist Church, because in the 1830s there were church services held here (the preacher would take up lanterns to ensure people would stay for the entire service). The tour then stopped in an area called Booth's Amphitheater, which was named after a 19th century actor named Edwin Booth who visited the cave once and reportedly recited Hamlet in this room (Edwin Booth is known more now for his brother John Wilkes Booth, which must be awkward since Abraham Lincoln was born here in Kentucky). We stopped to listen to the tour guide talk for a few minutes, next to a few leaching vats that were used to mine saltpeter during the War of 1812.



Then the tour heads deeper into the cave, and then stopped again at a feature called the Giant's Coffin. This is a 1,000 ton boulder that is 48 feet long and 20 feet high.



Many early visitors to the cave carved their names on the rock, and it is covered with graffiti from the 1800s. The tour guides pointed out that any markings made before the cave was protected as a National Park is considered historic graffiti, anything carved afterwards is considered a felony. 

And then the tour went deeper and deeper into the cave:



And then the tour reached Dante's Gateway, a section of the cave where the you take a ladder down a narrow and steep passageway (watch your head!). Then you pass over the Bottomless Pit, which I tried to get pictures of but they were too blurry. From there the tour goes through a few more low passageways until you reach a spot called Fat Man's Misery, which is where the path narrows down to a tight squeeze through the rocks that is only just wide enough for one person to go through at a time. Right after that is another section called Tall Man's Misery, where the path goes through a section only a few feet high. It was a fun section to traverse, but slow going with the crowd.

And then later the tour ends at Mammoth Dome, a 190 foot-tall vertical shaft. You get a really good look at it as you climb up a tower of 140 metal stairs.



After that the tour ends and you exit through the Natural Entrance, returned to the bright world above ground.