Mammoth Cave, Day 2

For our second day in Mammoth Cave we decided to do a tour that went into the other side of the cave, for which we needed to take a bus. For this tour we went in and out man-made entrances and saw very different types of cave formations than we did on the first day.

The first section was very tight, and very vertical. We went almost straight down very narrow cracks that made Kathleen very claustrophobic. This section is also still very wet and active, meaning the water is still actively eroding parts of the sandstone. It was incredibly beautiful but much tighter than anything we experienced on our first day's tour. It's hard for any of the pictures to do it justice, in part because we weren't taking pictures in the tightest bits.

 

The second part of the tour was similar to the cave sections we saw on the first day. It was mostly fairly open horizontal passages with large rooms. It was dry and dormant because the ground water level has receded considerably over the years.

The third part was probably the most spectacular and included the feature called the "Frozen Niagara." There are indeed other tours that go in and out the way we went out and focus completely on this section of cave. This section was wet and active again, in fact it was extra wet because the area had been experiencing a lot of rain.

Not the Frozen Niagra, just water flowing in

It also featured the classic cave formations that often come to mind. Frozen Niagara is a giant flow stone, "cascading" down the wall. From the Frozen Niagara you could take an optional addition 48 stairs down into the draperies room, which has these flow stones coming down all around you.

This is the Frozen Niagra

There were also lots of the classic stalagmites (pushing up from the ground with all their "mite") and stalactites (holding on "tite" to the ceiling). As well as places where they came together to create columns. All of these formations are made even more spectacular when you factor in that they grow about an inch in one hundred years...

Just like after the first tour we had to walk across mats soaked with soapy water in order to "cleanse our souls" and prevent the spread of white nose syndrome. Overall, even though this tour was a little tough on the claustrophobia, we thought it was more visually spectacular than the historic tour. It had more information about the formation of the cave, and was more scientifically based as well. However, with sufficient time, we would definitely recommend both.