April 19, 2024
A soggy spring morning greeted me after a night of pretty gentle rains. Aside from the loudest thunder clap I have EVER heard waking me up at 9:30pm, the severe storms held off. Happy I put my rain gear in my tent with me, I was slow to rise, and took my time in between bouts of rain making breakfast and preparing for my day.
On the agenda would be the 9:45am Grand Avenue Tour of Mammoth Cave. This is one of the longest cave tours offered (if not the longest) at four hours and four miles in length. Go big, or go home, right?! The National Park Service rates this tour as strenuous due to the length and the 1500+ steps that are navigated. Though there are two restrooms (!!), there is no food allowed. This tour is definitely a doozy, even I was worn out at the end, despite being fairly conditioned for big adventures!
After packing up my campsite (and bravely removing a caterpillar from my coffee mug… I am TERRIFIED of caterpillars), I headed back to the visitor center, where all Mammoth Cave tours leave from. We met our guide, Ranger Emily (I think? Goodness I shouldn’t blog so much after the fact! Either way, she is referred to as Emily from here on out), under a pavilion and she gave us a safety briefing and set expectations before we boarded buses for a ten-minute drive to the Carmichael Entrance. (Fun fact – Ranger Emily surprised us at the very end by announcing it was her first ever time guiding the Grand Avenue Tour! Great job, Ranger Emily!)
Same with what I noticed during my tour the day before, these are more of a guided, underground hike than a tour. There is little stopping, and the walking pace is decently brisk (brisk enough I found myself stripping off my sweatshirt and wandering around in a tank top halfway through as I was working up a sweat). I definitely noticed some tour participants struggling with what boiled down to approximately three hours of nonstop walking. Just something to be aware of if booking a tour as four hours underground (without snacks) is a long time!
We started out breezing through Cleveland Avenue after pausing at the Rocky Mountains near the entrance. Cleveland Avenue is wide and paved, and leads to the Snowball Room and the last chance to ditch the tour as there’s an elevator here (which allows an accessible tour of Cleveland Avenue area to be conducted).
At the Snowball Room was our first bathroom stop, so at the urging of my new tour friend, Darcey (and her husband Jimmy), I took the chance to go pee 267 feet down – her words being along the lines of “When are you going to pee underground again?”
Next up we swiftly moved through Boone Avenue, an area of slot canyons that felt like being in southern Utah, just without the red rock and with being hundreds of feet underground. The pace was high and it was quite dim, so photos weren’t all that great, but I really enjoyed the slot canyons.
Boone Avenue turned into Kentucky Avenue as we continued along. I was happy for Darcey’s and Jimmy’s company, as we swapped travel stories and just general shenanigans (even better, we connected on Instagram, so they were not my typical single serving friends!). I had to admit, I was starting to get hungry, but since I am a rule follower to the T in caves, I did not bring any snacks to sneak. So I just got hyper fixated on the idea of eating instead….
On Kentucky Avenue we entered the “mountains” of the cave, which includes both Mount McKinley (I wonder if it’ll ever become Denali of the Caves?) and the Grand Canyon. Summiting a mountain, but underground! The summit of Mount McKinley includes the second restroom stop of the tour. Which, the restrooms in the cave are fully equipped with flush toilets and running water!
We regrouped at the Aero Bridge for a bit more history lessons from Ranger Emily before blowing past Grand Central Station to the grand finale.
Mammoth Cave is mostly a dry cave which does not lend to a lot of cave formations like one can be use to seeing in other caves. However, there is Frozen Niagara, which is one of the more famous sections of Mammoth Cave, chock full of beautiful formations. Here one will see the cave formations caves can be known for – flowstone, stalactites, columns, and draperies. Just as I was given in to being completely hangry, I got some cave goodness to take my mind off of food!
And suddenly, after nearly four hours, it was all over. We boarded waiting buses back to the visitor center, where we walked across White Nose Syndrome decontamination mats. I parted ways with my tour friends, and made a tuna salad sandwich in the car.
If you want to spend it all and get a feel for “seeing it all,” I definitely recommend the Grand Avenue Tour. I think my combo of both the Extended Historic Tour and Grand Avenue Tour gave me a good overall visit to the cave and I left without feeling like I missed out on something (maybe just River Styx?). Damn, though, it is a lot of walking!
Next I needed to head east a few hours, stopping at Mill Springs Battlefield National Monument before camping at Lake Cumberland for my final night in Kentucky. Mill Springs Battlefield National Monument was authorized in 2019, and preserves the site of the first major U.S. victory during the Civil War. Thanks to driving back into the eastern time zone, I would miss the visitor center being opened by twenty minutes or so, but I knew they kept a passport stamp in a box outside, and I could still do a bit of the auto tour route. Much to my surprise, a ranger saw me outside when I was fussing with the brochure box and invited me inside to stamp my passport books and obtain a unigrid brochure. Woohoo!
After thanking the rangers profusely for inviting me inside, I set out towards Zollicoffer Park, which is the second stop on the auto tour. Though I didn’t budget time to do the whole tour, I figure this would make my visit to the national monument “count” a bit more. Here is where the heaviest fighting took place during the Battle of Mill Springs. There is a short walking path to stretch the legs (I opted not to after hustling through a cave all morning), a monument to Confederate General Zollicoffer, and markers for Confederate mass graves and casualties. Still not one for Civil War history, I still didn’t stay long.
Hindsight is great, because I should’ve continued down the road to the third stop, Last Stand Hill, as this is the national monument high point (another silly checklist thing of mine), but alas, after Zollicoffer Park I set out towards my campground for the night.
Home for the night was Waitsboro Campground on the shores of Lake Cumberland just outside of Somerset. I reserved site #20, which was right across from the restrooms, but since it appeared to be a very quiet Friday night (maybe the campground is always quiet), it was not too much of a hassle. (Campsite #22 looked extremely private, for those interested!). A perk to this campground was available showers, and the facilities were clean and hot water plentiful.
The rain held off, and my rainfly dried out surprisingly quick as I set up camp, made some Mountain House pasta primavera for dinner, showered, and settled in with a book after trying to get things arranged and packed up to make a smoother departure to the airport the next day.
But don’t worry, before I’d be leaving Kentucky on an airplane, I’d go chase waterfalls, natural arches, and fire towers first!
Read more about my Kentucky adventures! Part 1 here (Camp Nelson National Monument) and part 2 here (Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site and Mammoth Cave National Park and the Extended Historic Tour).
The Adventuring Heidi 
I believe we took the four hour tour when we were there a long time ago. That’s what I remember. I recognize a lot from your photos, which are great. I have no photos myself. Interesting reading. Thank you.
LikeLiked by 1 person