Finne's Follies: Exploring the Caverns at Mammoth Cave National Park

Mammoth Cave National Park has about 420 miles of explored cave tunnels. They estimate there are likely another 400 miles yet undiscovered.

Mark and I walked about three of those miles.

We took two of the several tours the Park offers. The first, "Gothic Avenue Tour," began at the historic natural cave entrance and showed us the main tunnels that began as a saltpeter mine in the early 1,800's. (Saltpeter was used in the making of gun powder.)

In those days, the Cavern was privately owned and was managed primarily for monetary gain. That included tours, almost right away upon its discovery. Nobody really cared about preservation, and lots of things were allowed that would be considered criminal today. In those tunnels, the workers and visitors both added to and subtracted from the natural surroundings. They loved to paint their names and visitation dates on the ceiling and walls, and build "memorial" rock pilings to commemorate certain places. We found a stone memorial to Minnesota, among other places. They also took memorabilia in the form of broken off stalactites, which can be seen as cave damage in some places.

Mammoth Cave joined the national park system in 1926 and was protected from that time forward from any further ransacking.

The "Gothic Avenue Tour" was a three mile round trip but more or less a flat walk.

Our second tour was the "Domes and Dripstones" tour. It was my favorite of the two. This one took us down narrow passages and many, many stairs to about 250 feet underground, ending in a cavern named "Frozen Niagara." Fortunately, the trip back up took the incline in smaller increments, giving us plenty of time to recover between each set of stairs or ramps. Still, my legs felt the exercise the next day!

If we ever get a chance to come back again, there will still be plenty to see.

Before we explored Mammoth Caves, we hopped across the road from our campground and took a tour at Diamond Caverns, which is a separate cave system from Mammoth-- at least there's currently no known connecting tunnel. In fact there are several separate caves in the vicinity, though we didn't get an opportunity to visit any others.

Diamond Caverns is what's referred to as a "wet cave," which means it is still forming. Most of Mammoth Caves are "dry." Finished. Dead. At Diamond Caverns, they are so particular about keeping the cave from human touch that we were forbidden to bring in anything but our own bodies...and a camera. No bags, no walking sticks, nothing that might inadvertently bump against the cavern walls. This tour took about an hour, but was only about a half mile of walking-- mostly standing around listening to the tour guide chatter about the history of it.

We had a great time here at the Diamond Caverns RV Resort. Between the caves and Bowling Green, there's plenty to see and do. We'll certainly come back again if we get the chance.

I've dumped all my pictures below for the curious. This silly blog downloads pictures in reverse order, so for the best viewing, I recommend you start at the bottom and work your way back up.

As always, until next time, safe travels to all!

Domes and Dripstones exit door

Mammoth Domes & Dripstones (D&D)

Mammoth D&D

Mammoth D&D - that's a pool at the bottom

Mammoth D&D - going down to the "Frozen Niagara" formations

Mammoth D&D

Frozen Niagara formations

More of the Frozen Niagara

More Frozen Niagara

Mammoth D&D - many of the passages
were quite narrow. We had to squeeze
around this rock.

Mammoth D&D - Watch your head!

Mammoth D&D - heading up again

Mammoth D&D - "Grand Central Station" - our first
rest stop after the long decent.

Mammoth D&D - Fish graffiti

Mammoth D&D - looking down.

Mammoth D&D - down, down, down

The unremarkable entrance to the Mammoth D&D

Mammoth Domes & Dripstones tour starts with a short
bus ride

This is the natural entrance (in this case, exit)
to Mammoth Cave

Gothic Avenue tour - The Minnesota Monument

Gothic Avenue (GA) monument and graffiti

GA - "Devil's Armchair" formation

GA - "Loaded Camel" formation

Old sign in Gothic Avenue

Gothic Avenue formation (forgot the name)

GA - nameless formation, different view

GA - leaving their mark

GA - much of the passages looked like this

Gothic Avenue ceiling

GA - Saltpeter mining

GA - Looking back at the natural entrance

Coming down into the natural cave entrance
for the Gothic Avenue tour

Diamond Caverns ceiling formations

Diamond Cavern used to be a popular wedding venue

Diamond Cavern formations

Diamond Cavern - See the damage above -- this was part of
a cave tours "war" where competing cave owners would
come in and do deliberate damage to make their opponents'
caves less interesting.