Mammoth Cave National Park - Frozen Niagara Tour

The next morning we were to do our third and final tour at Mammoth Cave. We were just chilling and relaxing after breakfast when my nephew JT said "oh we should probably get going." We checked the time and with a shock saw that our tour started in 30 minutes. And it was a 30 minute drive to the Visitor Center.

So we rushed to the park, driving as fast as possible on the rural roads. The tour we were going on that morning was the Frozen Niagara tour, and unlike the other tours this one requires a short ride on a bus to a different access point to the cave. When we finally arrived at the Visitor Center parking lot, we saw the last few members of our tour group boarding the bus. We hopped out of the car and ran, just as the bus started to drive away. We frantically waved, and amazingly the bus stopped for us. I hated being one of those people who was so late that we had to stop the bus, but I was thankful that we were able to jump on at the literal last second.

Mammoth Cave is known for its immense size, and not for cave formations. But one of the few places where formations like stalagmites and stalactites have formed is along the Frozen Niagara tour. It is one of the most popular tours in the park, and for good reason. It was definitely the most interesting tour that we did. Also it was a smaller tour group, so it didn't fell like you were being herded along with the crowd.



The tour soon empties out into a wide room filled with all sorts of formations, and even a little waterfall pouring out of a hole in the ceiling.



Then the tour follows a set of stairs that runs alongside and then beneath the tour's namesake formation - Frozen Niagara. The formation is named because it looks like a waterfall, frozen in stone. The formation is 43 feet wide and 70 feet tall, and is thought that it has been growing slowly for 800,000 years.



The stairs descend lower into the Drapery Room, where if you look up you see hundreds of delicate formations.



We then headed back up, and I turned around to get a view of looking back at the metal stairs as they run past Frozen Niagara.





Then the tour goes over a grated walkway that hangs 80 feet above a small natural pond called Crystal Lake. I'm sure the tour guides here have heard lots of Friday the 13th jokes here over the years.



As we made our way out, the tour guide stopped and asked "do you feel like you're being watched right now?" And then she shined a light on a bunch of cave crickets on the ceiling, just inches above our heads. It turns out that we had been walking right by and under hundreds of cave crickets the entire time. They looked like little aliens running around.



And then the tour ended. We made sure to make it back to the bus before it started driving away this time.

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.

Mammoth Cave National Park - Discovery Tour

We drove east across southern Missouri, eventually dipping into the very southern tip of Illinois for about 5 minutes before crossing over the Ohio River into the state of Kentucky. Unfortunately our travel intenerary didn't include any of these exciting tourist activities near Paducah.



A few hours later we finally made it to our destination - Mammoth Cave National Park. The National Park protects Mammoth Cave, which is the longest cave system in the world. There are over 400 miles of surveyed passageways, and as many as 300 more miles that have not yet been explored. The cave has been designated a World Heritage Site, an International Biosphere Reserve and an International Dark Sky Park.

To actually enter the cave you need to be on one of the official tours provided by the National Park Service. We signed up to do three tours during our visit, and the first was the Discovery Tour. This is a short self-guided tour, which starts by taking a flight of stairs down into the Historic Entrance of the cave. This natural opening has been used by visitors dating back thousands of years (I was kinda disappointed that you didn't enter the cave by sliding down fireman poles, like Batman and Robin used to get into the Batcave in the old TV show).



Once you enter the cave it quickly gets dark and cold (the temperature inside the cave is 54 degrees).



Inside the cave are two memorials dedicated to those who lost their lives during World War I.



The cave here looks like a massive tunnel going deep underground, as if carved by the dwarves in Lord of the Rings.



It wasn't all that easy to get pictures inside the cave. It is pretty dark in there (obviously), and tripods aren't allowed. I tried taking pictures with my camera, but most of them turned out blurry. I ended up having better luck using my cell phone camera during the trip.





The Discovery Tour is short, only about a half-mile into the cave. There are a few artifacts on display, and some information signs to peruse. And if you have any questions, there's a few park rangers there to answer any questions (they said they love answering questions because that beats just sitting around in the dark). We turned around and headed back into the bright daylight outside.



We had another tour scheduled for later that day, so to kill some time we did the short hike to the Styx Spring. We arrived to find the spring was flooded, thanks to some recent heavy rains.



Next to the spring were some massive trees, so this was the view looking up:



I was pleasantly surprised to see so many hiking trails above the ground at Mammoth Cave, it was a nice and pleasant place to walk about.