Mammoth Cave National Park

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Mammoth Cave, located in the state of Kentucky, holds the status of being the longest cave system in the world. It is truly massive, with over 400 miles of it documented and explored.

We’ve been roadschooling in Kentucky recently and this place was on our bucket list while we were here. It was definitely a unique experience that my kids were just in awe over. I think Stephen Bishop, slave, and tour-guide for Mammoth Cave, put it best in his famous and descriptive quote.

“It’s a grand, gloomy, and peculiar place.”

Stephen Bishop

 

 

Junior Ranger Program

When we arrived we decided to fill out the Junior Ranger booklets, so our kids could earn their Mammoth Cave Junior Ranger badges. This is a great program that the National Parks offer just for kids. Each park has its own booklet with various activities, like crossword puzzles, mazes, word searches, labeling, and others. Once they complete enough activities kids are able to earn a park ranger badge. The booklets require a certain number of activities be completed, broken up by age. For Mammoth Cave’s booklet, My daughter needed nine “bat” points and my son needed twelve “bat” points.

After completing the booklets my kiddos were sworn in as junior rangers and presented with their badges. My daughter has only taken hers off at bedtime since she got it:) And, I kept both of their books so we could do the rest of the activities at home.

 

 

Visitor’s Center Museum

I highly suggest taking the time to go through the visitor’s center museum. It has an excellent walk-through museum and the interactive exhibits it has explaining the science, history, and culture surrounding Mammoth Cave.

Below is one of the exhibits. I love that it doesn’t just tell us about the sandstone and limestone layers in the cave, but shows us. These were floor to ceiling, 3-D cross-sections of the cave that really make it easy to understand the geology. This exhibit even had a button my kids could push that turned on the twinkling blue lights and showed them how water carves out the cave system. And, many of the other exhibits had similar features and interactive aspects.

 

 

Exploring Mammoth Cave

The temperature dropped noticeably as we walked towards the top of the stairs that lead into the cave opening. We had dressed in pants and long sleeves in anticipation of the cool temperatures inside the cave. And, although it was warm outside the day we went, it was really cool inside. One of the park rangers told us that the temperature inside the cave stays at around 54 degrees year-round. So, definitely dress in layers.

 

 

Inside Mammoth Cave

I wrongly assumed there would be more lighting down there. It’s really dark and I definitely stumbled a few times. The kids, of course, loved it. My son told us he felt like Indiana Jones exploring this cave;)

 

 

The park offers different tour options for exploring the cave. We chose to do the least expensive, self-guided Discovery Tour option. No matter what we’re visiting we tend to choose the self-guided options so that we can go at our own pace.

However, I was a little disappointed with this self-guided tour. It did provide little stops with history and science information for us to read about the cave, but it was short and we didn’t get to see as much as I was hoping. If we go back in the future I would probably pay for one of the guided tours. But, I will add that I was the only one who felt this way. My kids loved it and weren’t disappointed at all.

The Discovery tour leads down a large passageway into the giant Rotunda, one of the largest rooms in the cave. It was truly impressive.

 

 

Mining History

Back in the early 1800’s slaves were tasked with mining saltpeter from Mammoth Cave. Saltpeter is an ingredient used to make gunpowder and as the war of 1812 ramped up so did the need for this mineral.

On our walk, through the cave, we were able to see remains of the mining operation. One of the park rangers inside explained how huge wooden vats were used to leach the mineral out of the soil. After filling the vats with dirt, water was poured over the top to filter out the saltpeter. He compared it to making coffee, a very explosive cup of coffee.

 

 

Stephen Bishop

In the 1800’s Mammoth Cave was privately owned. And, the owners employed slaves, like Stephen Bishop, to give tours to the travelers who made their way to this unique site. He didn’t ask for this job, but he became very good at it. Stephen was known for his excellent and exciting tours. And, not only led tours but continued to explore further into the cave passages during his time there.

One of the things that people did back then was to write their names on the cave ceiling using candles and soot. Of course, this you can’t do this any longer, but the picture below, from the visitor’s center, shows what the names look like inside the cave. If you’re interested in seeing them in person, the park’s historic tour does offer that.

 

 

We have been reading an excellent picture book called, Lift Your Light a Little Higher: The Story of Stephen Bishop: Slave-Explorer by Heather Henson to learn more about Stephen Bishop and his life of cave exploration inside Mammoth Cave. The book has given us an opportunity for discussions about Stephen’s life as a slave and his lack of choice in his daily life and work.

The book uses some cool multi-media art combining paper and paint. So, we’ve made some of our own illustrations as a project. We also have plans to make a model of the cave system using the one we saw at the park.

 

Have you been to Mammoth Cave National Park? Let me know in the comments.

Heidi

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