Have you ever been inside a cave? I've been in a glacier before in Switzerland which is basically like an ice cave...but I was 6 years old so it was time to go inside the earth again for sure! Plus, I really love visiting our National Parks! Mammoth Cave was a no-brainer hit on the way home from Michigan.
We did two tours each two hours long. We did the historic tour and the Cleveland tour. I am really happy we did two separate tours because we got to see different parts of the 412 known miles worth of passageways inside the cave. Each tour provided us with new sights, new history, new perspectives. I would recommend two things to you:
1. Book your tours in advance. We did, but about a month in advance as we decided to visit late in our planning. As such, even booking a month prior, there were some tours that were sold out, like for us the Extended historic tour was booked.
2. Which brings me to my next point: My sister did the extended history tour when they visited this Spring which was of course, an extension of the tour my family took. I felt like on our two hour tour we got a ton of information and I was really impressed. Then my sister told me that on the extended tour they were shown a mushroom farm, old Methodist church, and tuberculosis hospital. And this was just so much more than we saw and we saw a LOT! I so wish it had been available for us, too, so take my new found knowledge and book your tours as far in advance as you can. You can do self guided...but...I think you'd really be missing out on something wonderful.
Inside the caves. Y'all!!! Oh my goodness. So first off, as we approached the cave...from the super humid muggy outside of the earth, we felt like a blast of ice cold air flow. Wow! But I was prepared with my coat. Bring layers. Wear jeans and closed toe shoes. Don't bring too much stuff, a small bag would be fine. I had my backpack purse. We entered inside and it was quite the sensation pulsating through my veins of excitement. There were times inside the cave that were narrow and times when the cave were wide open, high, and vast. Breathtaking. It also makes you hold your breath when you see some of these teeny tiny holes that people actually crawl through with no part of their body circumferentially untouched. I mean I'm not claustrophobic but....laying on my back or stomach in a dark cave hole with my arms above my head and not having a choice but to finish what I started freaks me out. And that's with gear and a head-lamp. Can you imagine the actual explorers back in the day when all they had was the light of a candle?! Mercy! I was good doing a long walking tour for sure. Eric wanted to go crawl through a hole though. Bless.
We saw gypsum which made the cave walls sparkle and glitter. Gypsum flowers adorned the walls in long tendrils. It was beautiful.
There were two times, once on each tour where we went completely and totally dark. Total silence. No sounds but the beating of my heart and the blood rushing through my body. Not knowing of anything around me. It was quite an experience. It was true darkness like you have never seen unless you have been in a cave or the bottom of the depths of the ocean...so dark that when one lantern was illuminated by a single flame again, the cave seemed almost actually bright.
You can look at the night sky and feel so humbled and so small. You can look upon the horizon of the ocean and feel that you are so insignificant and little. You can also enter the depths of a cave and realize how truly small you are and it is so humbling.
When we exited the cool 54 degree cave, the outside met us with a smack of wet heat that grabbed a hold of our throats and lungs with its thick hands. It's amazing the difference in temperature and wet/dry.
We went I believe they said 150 feet below earth at one point and we know the caves dive as far as 450 feet deep.
Some of the pictures you will see below show names etched on the cave walls by means of candle smoke. Tours in the cave actually began in the early to mid 1800's after the cave had been pretty well used up for it's gypsum and saltpeter resources. Stephen Bishop was the tour guide in this time and was a black man who was owned by those who ran the cave and sold the tours. Stephen was used to lead the tours and allowed and encouraged in his free time to explore the cave all he desired to find new passageways and anything wonderful to show guests. Some of his tours would take 6+ hours as there was less light, fewer people, and he would grant any request made of him to further explore something a guest pointed out. One thing Stephen did on tours was offer small candlesticks to paying customers of which they would use to write their names dot by dot of black soot onto the walls of the cave. Stephen would sometimes do it for them and they would spell it out for him. This helped him learn to read and spell and write. Stephen was granted his freedom when his owner died as it was written in the man's will. But Stephen Bishop only lived about a year longer and as a free man for he died the next year of complications with a bad tooth which were suspected to now be sepsis. He explored the caves until his dying day even as a free man.
My favorite part of the cave tour was on the Historic tour where we ventured through what is known as "Fat Man's Misery." Y'all. This passageway is low and incredibly narrow. Eric and I had to duck and walk the entirety of the passage. To give you an idea of how low the height was...Ellie had to duck once...and the rest of the time her hairbow scraped the top. The width...so narrow and curving. I am a slender woman with no hips to claim and I was hip bone to hip bone with cave wall every step. The curves actually allowed me to curve and move my body with every step to have more flexibility to move through. I thought this part would test my limits and actually it was the most exciting and fun part to me! It wasn't as scary as my anxiety tried to make me feel when they warned us on top of the earth, haha! I really liked it. But I also really just love an adventure.
The national park also has a really great exhibit area that was super interactive. Ellie did her Junior Ranger program and got her badge! This was her third badge! Woop Woop! There is also a hiking trail to walk that takes you to the actual sink hole which I didn't have time to do but I'll go back again one day because they offer so many different explorations and I need more!! It was all just so truly awesome and something you should definitely add to your bucket list!
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