Caves have always fascinated me. When I was a kid I dreamed of living in a cave next to a large waterfall in the tropical rain forest. There would be delicious fruit trees outside my cave door where colorful birds sit and sing. Oh, and of course then there’s my pet tiger that guards the entrance. Hey, let a kid dream;)

Cave Facts

Well Mammoth Cave is really nothing like the cave I dreamed of as a child, but it’s fascinating in its own right. If the name didn’t give it away, Mammoth Cave is an enormous cave system in southern Kentucky. It’s actually the longest known cave in the entire world. Currently about 410 miles have been explored and mapped. The process is ongoing so no one knows yet exactly how large the cave is, however estimates are in the 1,000 mile range. Not a place you want to get lost in.

Mammoth Cave didn’t become the longest known cave in the world until 1972. In that year a link between the Mammoth Cave system and the Flint Ridge Cave System was discovered. This was something that cave explorers had suspected and they searched out the link for decades so the discovery was very exciting. Today the cave actually extends well beyond the park boundaries and it’s still growing.

The oldest part of the cave is estimated to be 10 million years old. It was, and continues to be created by groundwater seeping down and dissolving the limestone beneath. This water then forms rivers that further erode the stone into passages and large underground rooms.

Experience

Gazing at the landscape, Mammoth Cave National Park looks like any other forested area. Unless, you’re skilled at spotting shallow sinkholes you’d never know there was a different world alive under your feet. The idea of an entire ecosystem and environment below the surface of the earth seems more like something out of a sci-fi story than reality. However, that’s exactly what caves are—underground ecosystems. They look and feel like nothing we’re used to on the surface.

The cave is obviously naturally completely dark. The areas open to tours are illuminated by strategically placed lighting. Overall it’s very minimal but it’s bright enough that you don’t need a flashlight or headlamp (although you should watch closely where you’re going—see below). The lights bring out the hard details and edges of the rocks and boulders as well as cast somewhat creepy and unexpected (but cool) shadows. They often have a yellow or red glow against the rocky walls and make for an eerie adventure. I wonder about the lighting planning because it was very impressive and really added to the experience. Is it some super niche field of lighting design? Can you take college courses in cave illumination?

The cave air feels very dry even though water created the underground labyrinth and there’s a riverbed at the bottom. At first, breathing in a cave feels slightly different than breathing above ground—or maybe that’s just my imagination. Also smells are much more potent in caves because of the lack of moving air. Wind does blow through the cave in areas, but everything is more compressed than above ground. Your fellow cave hikers will appreciate it if you lay off the perfumed products before entering.

Cave creatures are quite fascinating. There are the bats of course. Love ‘em or hate ‘em (sorry brother), they’re an important part of cave ecosystems. Because they venture outside they bring much needed nutrients from above down into the cave. Bat guano is also packed with organic matter that feeds other cave dwellers. Then there are the creatures that live further inside the cave. Many of them don’t have eyes—because what would they use them for? Instead they have sensory systems that mentally picture their environments. Also their bodies don’t contain color pigment so they appear a translucent white or pale pink color. Of course Tom wondered what eyeless fish taste like. Thankfully he didn’t find out. Take nothing from the park is one of the rules;) We encountered a number of cave crickets, which look like something from an old Star Trek episode.

Activities

Like many of the National Parks we’ve visited so far on this journey, admission to Mammoth Cave National Park is free. Then you pay to enter the cave via Park Service tours. There are over a dozen tour options during peak season. Everything from a self-guided tour over even ground and well lit areas, to historic treks using only lantern light, to actual spelunking wild cave tours where you squeeze through small passageways. We opted for two tours while we were visiting.

The first tour took us through the “new entrance”—a metal X-Files-esque door at the bottom of a sinkhole in the middle of the forest. Pretty sure that alien remains are being studied somewhere down here. Initially we descended a couple hundred metal stairs that twist and turn through narrow passageways. I learned the hard way that you need to consistently look up to avoid a head-on collision with the cave. Sorry bad pun, I know.

On this tour we’d stop every 15 minutes or so for the ranger to explain a particular room or feature. He’d tell us how it was formed and any known human history (of which there’s a lot since humans have been exploring and using the cave for at least 4,000 years). The tour ended with a series of impressive formations. One aptly named Frozen Niagara that looks like…wait for it…a giant waterfall!

The second tour we took was self-guided beginning at the historic entrance. This is a natural opening in the earth with stairs leading into the dark depths below. Once you’re down the stairs there wasn’t a lot of further elevation change. The passages here were very wide compared to the previous area of the cave. They open onto some of the largest rooms in the system. Giant rooms with flat, pitted rocky ceilings and old equipment still set-up. Again, there’s an otherworldly quality to the area. I’m convinced that sci-fi writers must spend a lot of time in caves.

The ecosystem below the ground is closely linked to what happens above. The Park Service strongly encourages visitors to explore both areas to get a full picture of the park’s ecology and ties between above and below. There are 84 miles of above ground backcountry, frontcountry, and Visitor Center hiking trails in Mammoth Cave NP. There are rivers, sink holes, springs, old cemeteries, and overlooks to explore. We planned to spend an afternoon hiking but unfortunately one of us had a run-in with a disagreeable ice-cream cone (at the far-end of one of the caves nonetheless). There are some down-sides to being 140 feet underground without restrooms. If you’re wondering (and not TMI’d out yet), disaster was averted. Apparently some things can motivate very fast hiking. We did however decide to cut our visit short and head back to Wisconsin.

Back to Wisconsin

We were disappointed to end our time at Mammoth Cave earlier than expected, but we were ready to be at one of our “home bases”. We smelled bad. Stan smelled bad. Things had broken and needed repair. Some things didn’t work well on a daily basis so needed replacement. And we were rather exhausted.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. We feel incredibly fortunate to be able to travel like we are and we know that our beginning enthusiasm is still present. I do want to be honest about life on the road though. It’s easy to look at #vanlife posts on Instagram and think it’s all rainbows, sunsets, and ocean waves. The reality is that you’re still living a life, just from a very tiny, truly mobile house. And sometimes life is stinky and you just need a good scrub and some stationary time. So we wandered back to Wisconsin slightly earlier and rather grimier than expected to clean up our act.

Have you ever had to cut a trip short? Or changed plans mid-travels/vacation? Anyone been on a spelunking adventure? Let us know in the comments below!

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