Mammoth Cave Hikes

After some questionable luck lately, our visit to Mammoth Cave National Park was lucky. We arrived just in time to get the best campsite in the park. The campground is mostly tent camping. The few RV sites have water but not electricity. The one that just happened to be open when we arrived had electricity, water, and sewer plus a pad and table. Nice!

The questionable part was that we arrived on Friday. We were too tired and late to do a cave tour on Friday. However, the Saturday tours were already booked by people online. The internet is wonderful and all, but it’s hard for us to know exactly where and when we’ll be too far in advance so it would have been nice to have some tickets available for walk-ups. Anyhow, we were able to get a tour on Sunday. After 3 days of driving, John was happy to stay at the same location for several days.

Plus, this gave us time to hike and bike in the park. The park has 66 miles of trails. I have to say, the trails are in good condition but the signs are difficult to understand. We got a bit lost and met several other groups that were trying to figure out where they were too.

I saw two cemeteries. One was for local families while the other was for people that died in the cave or a famous cave guide.

The trails took us to a couple of small caves, a spring, and the Historic Cave Entrance.

Cold air rushes out the opening so it was quite wonderful standing nearby after a few hours of hiking.

Green River is actually green.

Saw a guy carving initials into a tree with his girlfriend standing nearby. Several people were nearby and said nothing. Me, being me, told him he shouldn’t be doing that. He seemed surprised. A ranger later told us this isn’t just a rule but is illegal. The penalty is up to $20,000 and 20 years! Of course afterward I realized that telling a guy with a knife he was being bad was probably not the smartest thing I’ve ever done.

Also saw a large turkey running on the path ahead of us and this fawn in the campground area.