Mammoth & Hidden River Caves

Mammoth Cave National Park

Mammoth Cave was a repeat visit for me. Being from the Midwest my family drove EVERYWHERE especially when we were on spring break. So Mammoth was actually a pit stop we made ages ago when my sister and I were younger and on our way down to Florida. I will also admit that I remember very little of that visit - and that is what stemmed my desire to go back and revisit.

When booking a tour through this cave system (*the largest underground cave network in the WORLD*) there were sooo many options for which tours to take. And there is nothing stopping anyone from booking multiples; which I would entirely recommend!

I ended up booking myself the Extended Historical Tour; it was one of their most popular and most reviewed of the tours. And it was great - super informative and I learned sooo much! I will admit that it was not the most scenic but I did discover a lot of the historical significance of the cave and its origins!

Below I have a gallery of some of the better underground shots I managed on my tour! The first is the Main Entrance followed by some of the larger formations within. The second is The Giants Coffin...and I will be honest the rest either did not have names or they were not fun enough for me to recall. The last photo just shows that the bulk of the tour was paved but there were portions like Fat Man's Misery (a very narrow channel of trail carved out by water) that we had to squeeze through.

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Hidden River Cave

When one is in our around Cave City you cannot simply just visit one cave! So of course I went and made an entire day of caving! I headed from Mammoth into another nearby town (Horse Cave, KY) and found myself at the American Cave Museum! I will admit I walked in there with the sole purpose of checking out the museum and learning a bit about caving and then hitting another cave! However I found out that the Museum actually sits above its own cave that one can tour! The first photo of the trio below was actually taken while standing in the entrance of the cave looking back at the museum! The left most wall of the cave that you can see in the same photo is actually running parallel to Main Street. You can walk down the sidewalk and look over the edge into a cave. Crazy to think they built a city right on top of a cave with multiple rivers running through it!

Now this is cave was obviously much smaller than Mammoth - but I enjoyed it much more. It seemed way more natural and less commercialized. Also I toured with a mother, her son, and our guide! So th entire thing was much more personal! The trail wasn’t paved or really even all that maintained but again - much more natural. Our guide also explained that they were still actively exploring certain parts of the cave system and it was his job to create cave maps of all the newly discovered areas.

Some of the stories he shared of him personally crawling down into new cave openings/washouts and contuiung into the unknown were surreal to listen too - as thrilling as spelunking would be…*shivers* I don’t know that I could do it!

While it was so much smaller - it still hosted The Worlds Longest Underground Suspension Bridge as shown in the middle image above. The river ran beneath the bridge which ran beneath the city. The Sunset Dome (last photo) is the last of three domes visited on this tour and the most impressive. And it’s actually located beneath the main stoplight in Cave City (per my guide).

Until my next cave tour y’all! Hey maybe I’ll even try cave diving next (a guided tour of course - nothing unknown)!

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