Cave Tour at Mammoth Cave National Park

We visited Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky and went on a cave tour. We were traveling through Kentucky on our way home from Indiana with the Riedels, and stopping at a National Park seemed like a great idea to everyone. Here are a few scenes from our tour.

Did you really visit a National Park if you did not take a park sign photo to prove that you were there? Yes you did, but I took a photo anyway.¹

The tour we chose was the Historic Tour, and we chose it for a variety of reasons. First off, it sounded like something we could do. There were to be a lot of steps to climb, but we could handle that. It was not one of the crawling tours, and we did not really want to crawl, anyway. There were a few notices for people with fear of heights² and claustrophobia, but the four of us figured we could handle all of that. But also one of the main reasons we chose this one was because it had room for us. We only planned our visit a few days in advance, and apparently some of the tours sell out quickly.

The cave is named Mammoth Cave because of its size, and not because any mammoths, wooly or otherwise, were found there. Instead, it was named for some of its large rooms, such as in the previous photo. And it was also named because the total length of the cave network is over 400 miles. We only saw a small part of it, but that was okay.

Caves are cool, both figuratively and literally! The temperature was in the mid 90s that day, and we had hiked for almost six miles on one of the park trails before lunch, so the 50-something degree air in the cave felt great! I did work up a little bit of a sweat going up some of the steps near the end, but that was more because of my heart rate than because of the temperature. Several people had jackets or sweatshirts, but I was enjoying the cool air in my t-shirt and shorts.

Much of the part of Mammoth Cave that we saw was just large, open rooms and rocks. But near the end we did encounter a few dripstone formations, such as this one. Most of this cave is dry due to the thick layers of rock above the cave preventing water from seeping in, which means that much of the cave does not have the stalactites and stalagmites that you would see in other caves (such as Fantastic Caverns in Missouri, which we had visited a couple of years earlier).

This photo gives you a better idea of the size of the dripstones, as you can see people photographing them from down below.³

This photo also gives a sense of scale to this part of the cave, as you can see people walking in the center of the photo. But as I mentioned above, there were also some tight spaces in between the large spaces. How tight? Tight enough that they are named Fat Man’s Misery and Tall Man’s Misery. But to my knowledge, no one in our tour group was left behind.

Two hours of walking through Mammoth Cave went by quickly, and then it was time to depart the cave and go back above ground. And thanks to the heat and humidity of the day, my glasses and camera lens fogged up quickly when we came outside. But that’s okay, because the warm temperatures outside reminded me not to complain about the cool temperatures inside!

Follow the Signs

At first, we were not sure if we could get a photo with the main National Park sign, so we took some photos at the Visitor Center sign, just in case.

But then we did manage to get photos with the actual National Park sign after all, so here are Laura and Karen with that sign.

It was a fun visit to Mammoth Cave National Park! Fun enough that we went back for another visit later on. But more about that another time.

More Amazing

Natural things such as Mammoth Cave always remind me of God’s amazing creation. How cool is it that there is a huge cave network under Kentucky, of all places? Yes, they will tell you that the caves were formed by underground rivers and such, but I still believe that God was the designer of all of that.

It is good to have those reminders, too. Otherwise, we would spend all of our lives staring at phones and computer screens and televisions and whatever else and miss the amazing creation that is all around us. Yes, you can see pictures of it all on your screens, but seeing it in person is even better.

Sometimes life can get the best of us, or it can distract our attention and drag us down, and we need those reminders of God being in charge. Maybe that reminder is as simple as a leaf from a tree, or a summer storm, or the changing of the seasons. Sometimes, it takes a bigger reminder, such as a cave that is mammoth in size.

The same God who created all those amazing things loves you and me. And that amazing love should cause us to pass on that love to others, too.

Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting! - Psalm 139:23-24

About the Photos

As you might imagine, it was rather dark in the cave. And then they did the usual cave tour thing of turning out all the lights so that you could see total darkness. But when the lights were on, they did not seem to be quite as bright as the Fantastic Caverns lights.

So on my camera, I set the ISO to 1600 for some photos and 2000 for some other photos. That meant some noise reduction was necessary in the processing of these photos, but it was not too bad.

I also used my 35mm prime lens with its wide f/1.8 aperture to let in as much light as possible and to keep the shutter speeds manageable. Tripods are not allowed on the tours, and I would not have had time to set up anyway, because our group was always moving.⁴

Photo: Each photo is a single Raw exposure, processed in Raw Therapee and GIMP.
Camera: Sony Alpha A7 II
Lens: Rokinon 35mm f/1.8
Date: June 22, 2024
Location: Mammoth Cave National Park, Kentucky