the visitor center. it's was early morning it's already busy in here.
there is also a small museum in the visitor center
Entrance Fee is FREE and there are plenty of trails within the national park, however to enter the cave one must join the tours and there are many types from easy to difficult with different price range
more info of the tour visit ----- https://www.nps.gov/maca/index.htm
we did 2 tours....the Frozen Niagara tour and The Historic tour
initially we wanted to do the Wild Cave tour which is the longest tour which take up to 6 hours with a 5 miles distance but it's already sold out.....early booking for the popular tour are a must!!
our 1st tour the Frozen Niagara. Price $13/adult, $9/kid and $6.50/special access. We were take to the entrance which was a few miles away from the visitor center in buses
the entrance
gopro is really not built for dark places
going down a narrow metal ladder....feels like Lara croft now
water in the cave
the steps was wet and slippery and the temperature inside the cave is low best to bring along a warm jacket.....even in the summer time
after several minutes of going deep into the cave...we come to a large room where we were told the history of this cave and how it was rediscovered in 1798
the Mammoth Cave national park is the most extensive cave system on earth. After 4000 years of intermittent exploration, the full extent of this water formed labyrinth remain unknown
with over 365miles of surveyed passageways, Mammoth cave is over double as long as any know cave. Geologists think there could be 600miles yet undiscovered passageways and we only walked a tiny part of it
this bubble pocket passageways was really cool
going deeper
prehistoric people explored 10 or more miles of Mammoth Cave 4000 years ago. Archaeological evidence shows that these early cavers collected crystals and other salts in the cave
i don't see any crystals
more passageway
the highlight of this tour is the Frozen Niagara formation
these flowstones take up many many years to form even an inch takes a century
i took many photos with my gopro unfortunately it's badly lit down
the Frozen Niagara is 130ft below surface
there are about 130 forms of life can be found in Mammoth Cave and most are quite small. So far i only seen some algae and this big ass spiders which was hanging above the cave.....and it was really low....yucks...i bet Ron Weasley will freak out
and that was the end of our tour for Frozen Niagara which took about 1.5hours
our 2nd tour the Historic tour
cost: $ 14/adult, $9/kid , $ 5 special access
for this tour the entrance it's just a walking distance from the visitor center however access without a guide is not possible
it's really dark inside but at least this entrance is wide and dry
and it's really massive inside
as we venture further ,,,it gets narrow and narrower
those who is claustrophobic best not to take this your. As it's a large group,it takes time to squeeze in this narrow area
and not to mention people who like to take photos holding up the line.....hehe
then we come to a place which is The Tower...beautiful place......unfortunately it's too dark for me to take any decent photo
some graffiti
our tour lasted 2 hours
it was still pouring even after our tour
overall Mammoth cave is really something extraordinary, i'm really glad we did the extra 5 hours drive to Kentucky for our roadtrip.
and this conclude our 8 days road trip.... we had to drive 1.5 days just to get back to NY from Kentucky....i'm glad that we drove almost half way from Mammoth cave to Ohio after our tour.
There is another FREE entrance fee national park in Ohio....Cuyahoga Valley National Park(check out my post Cuyahoga Valley National Park. worth visiting on the way...but we have been there before when we did our Chicago roadtrip from NY
till our next adventure
~ bye bye ~
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