Mammoth Cave National Park - Wild Cave Tour

Mammoth Cave National Park offers a unique glimpse into a truly awe-inspiring subterranean world. With the distinction of being the longest known cave system with over 390 miles of explored passageways, Mammoth Cave has something for everyone. There are about a dozen walking tours available for people wanting to view sprawling caverns, interesting cave formations and to learn about the storied history of the caves and their exploration. For the most part, these tours are short, family-friendly walking tours but for the adventurous there is the Wild Cave Tour.

This six hour tour covers about five miles of the cave system and gets you up close and personal with passages off the beaten trail. The Wild Cave tour covers about five miles, much of which is traversed on your hands and knees or in a belly crawl. With a maximum of 14 participants per tour, it gives a more intimate introduction to the Mammoth Cave system.

Wild Cave Tour Gear:

We also brought a small hip pack with a couple water bottles and a camera. There was a stop during the tour for lunch at an underground cafeteria and bathroom breaks (I'm still not sure exactly how works) but it seemed like six hours of cave exploration might require some hydration. It was actually a huge pain to drag that pack through the caves. Most of the time the passageways were too tight to wear the pack and I ended up pushing it in front of me. Try your best to travel light and just enjoy the experience of the caves.

Into The Belly Of the Beast:

It's important to note that the exact route you take during the Wild Cave tour is up to the discretion of the guides not ever tour will be exactly the same. Though the purpose of this tour is to focus on the spelunking experience, the guides were still a wealth of information about the cave history and noteworthy landmarks. As our paths began to narrow and we began crawling through the cave, it was easy to feel connected to the stories of the early explorers who first began charting the tunnels and passage ways within the Mammoth Cave system. It was also inspiring to think of the bravery of these explorers crawling into the dark unknown with lanterns instead of headlamps. Particularly impressive were the tales of a 17 year old slave named Stephen Bishop who created a particularly accurate map, sometimes dragging a log behind him to help cross gaps in the tunnels.

Going into this trip, I didn't have any reason to think I had any claustrophobic tendencies but I really had no idea how it would feel to wiggling my way through the narrow tunnels, totally surrounded by solid stone and with other people both in front of me and behind me. Surprisingly, the tight quarters never felt uncomfortable (crawling on the sharp rocks was a different story). I found my full focus was on taking in the experience and navigating through the terrain so that the conditions quickly seemed natural.

Not everyone took to spelunking quite as readily and within the first hour we had our first and only withdrawal from the tour. After a fairly long belly crawl we crossed paths with one of the main tour routes. We stretched our legs and waited for the rest of the group to surface but after a while we were still missing a couple people. We could hear them in the tunnel and one person was definitely struggling. It seemed the exertion was a little more than he had expected and he had some difficulty squeezing through a couple spots. One of our guides tracked back and led him through an alternate route but he decided that the Wild Cave tour was a little too wild for him and he joined up with a walking tour that traveled along that path.

Though we had only begun our journey through the caves, we were already covered in a heavy coating of dirt and to the passing tour; our group of spelunkers became part of the attraction. After a brief rest, one of our guides had us follow her away from the walking tour trail until we came upon a small hole in the ground. The small opening was completely invisible from the main trail and even up close none of us would have expected it to be a passable pathway until our guide quickly disappeared into it.

The trails we crawled varied in size the majority of our time was spent on our hands and knees. There were some stretches of true belly crawls that were the most strenuous portions of the trip but truly narrow gaps we had to pass through were usually just an entrance or exit from a tunnel and not a long portion of the trail. The tunnels segments had some creative names like the Birth Canal, Castration Rock and the Bare Hole (it’s “bare” not “bear” after a rock that snagged an early explorer’s belt and took his pants with it). We found that the Cheese Grater and the Hell Hole really lived up to their names. The Cheese Grater was a belly crawl through some really sharp terrain. Though we were happy to have good kneepads, our elbows had little padding to protect them from the jagged points. The Hell Hole was probably the longest continuous belly crawl on our tour and after crawling that long seeing nothing but the feet in front of you; it's nice to be able to stretch out again.

Part way through the tour we caught up with one of the main walking trails again and made our way to an underground cafeteria. Though the selection was pretty limited, the idea of having food service, electricity and bathrooms with running water so deep underground was a pretty amazing feat.

After lunch, we continued navigating the tight passages of the cave system. During this segment of the trip, the tunnels opened up a bit and we had to climb up a couple feet to connect to the next tunnel system. At one point we entered a larger chamber and our guides had us all turn off our headlights and stand in silence. In the depths of the cave where no light can penetrate, we had an opportunity to experience true darkness. There was really no visual distinction between having your eyes open or keeping them closed and it was certainly a unique experience. One of our guides took out a lighter and showed how much difference even a single flame can produce.

Eventually, the tour came to a conclusion and after six hours underground we returned to the surface. Overall, it was a great experience that was both physically and mentally stimulating. At the end, I did feel like it would have been nice to have some even smaller or more challenging passages to work through since nothing we faced was overly difficult but not everyone would agree with me. Even with a small group, we still had a lot of variety as far as size and skill level and at the end of the day you have to maintain a pace and route that everyone can handle.

We didn't encounter many critters in the caves. Though we saw a handful of bats during walking tours, during the Wild Cave tour we only encountered a handful of cave crickets. While not particularly attractive, the cave crickets certainly weren't threatening in any way. The dirt in the cave was not only omnipresent but it was also quite abrasive. Our water bottles and camera all had a little more "character" after their time in the cave. Everything washed out pretty well. Our guides were friendly, knowledgeable and managed our group well.