2008 09 10 Mammoth Cave National Park Hike and Driving Tour

We enjoyed spectacular weather today - beautiful blue skies and warm temperatures with low humidity.

Here's a bit of information about Mammoth Cave National Park - it's located just 85 miles from both Nashville and Louisville. It is of course a National Park, a World Heritage Site and a Biosphere Reserve. The cave system has over 350 miles of surveyed passageways and is more than twice as long as any known cave. It continues to be explored for new passages.

The park is quite peaceful this time of year as crowds are non-existent and we practically have it to ourselves. Wild turkey and deer are in abundance as there are virtually no predators in the Park. Due to over population the deer are extremely thin.


After the cave tour yesterday, we decided that today we'd take a road tour and do a bit of exploring around the Park. As we headed North on Green River Ferry Road we enjoyed the scerenity of having the highway to ourselves. Our route took us across 2 river crossings - our first use of the river ferry systems (one at Green River, the other at Houchins to the West.) Dense forests of hickory, ash and oak blanket this area that is in desperate need of rain.

We then took a hike along the Green River Bluffs trail which has lots of rock outcroppings. There were all the wild turkey calls along the way to keep us entertained.

Later in the day we met with a Park Ranger for a surface tour of Flint Ridge. We found out how the park accessed its water from 3 springs that converge on Flint Ridge and how the water was then hauled by wagon to the Park hotel back in 1925.

We visited Sand Cave where amateur caver Floyd Collins captured national attention in 1925. Floyd was pinned by a boulder 60 feet below the surface of the entrance for 16 days. Floyd had been exploring the cave alone, as he had done numerous times before. As he was making his way out, his foot was trapped by a boulder. It was 2 days before his son found him, but was unsuccessful in his attempts to free him. News of his entrapment spread quickly and within a few days 10,000 people made their way to Sand Cave - most of them intoxicated - attempting to free him. Floyd's rescue was unsuccessful as he succumbed to exposure. Floyd's body remained in Sand Cave and visitors were given the option of lifing the coffin lid to take a peek at poor Floyd during their tour. Rumor has it no one ever turned down a chance to look.

The publicity surrounding Collins' death was one of the factors Mammoth Cave became a National Park. It is quite a story, and a book written about the event can be purchased at the park gift shop. It's rumored that Billy Bob Thorton is considering making a movie about Collins' life. We visited his grave site a Mammoth Cave Baptist Church. You see, when Sand Cave was connected to Mammoth Cave in 1986, the government no longer wanted to be responsible for his body, so his family had his properly burried in the cemetery at the church.