Mammoth Cave National Park Day 4

We wake to another gorgeous morning. Have breakfast and clean up camp. The routine has been set, and we make quick work of it. Ian plays on the tree for a little while longer and we take our leaving camp photo sitting on it.


We hike up the opposite side of the hollow hoping that water is flowing closer to the source of the dry creek we crossed yesterday. After an hour we thankfully filter our water while sitting on a bridge. Another half mile and we pass the cut off trail for the elusive Bluffs campsite we couldn't find. A second half mile and we are back on the Good Spring loop trail.


We break on a high ridge overlooking a large valley, and an expansive view beyond the trees. We have a small lunch of trail mix and cliff bars. Enjoying our last restful moments in the wood. Nolan breaks out in front, the call of electronics beckoning him on. Isaac and I are bringing up the rear. Just after a short pack readjustment for Isaac, I notice a moth has landed on the inside of my left leg. He rides there for almost a half mile.


Another hour and a half and we are descending across the ravine that begins the hike. One final climb and our hiking adventures are over. I'm proud of everyone. I had a blast, and I hope they did as well. This adventure only makes me more excited for future possible hikes. We rest briefly at the church take a last look around the graveyard and away we go.

On the way down, when we passed through Louisville we noticed a sign that touted the "Whizzburger." So of course we had to try one. Angie hoped cheese whizz was involved, but there was none to be found. They were still good burgers, and thankfully for the other patrons it was a drive in. And on we drove. Great day, great vacation. I hope to someday see more of the great caves.

Mammoth Cave National Park Day 3

After the rough hiking the night before, I wasn't sure what to expect in the morning. I half expected to have to march to the car and end the trip right there. But a little morning beverage, and grits with bacon, and everyone was rather chipper. We took our time breaking camp. Turkeys were cackling all around us. Isaac and I attempted to mimic them and call them in, no luck.


Back on the trail we were keeping a good pace. The majority of the morning was spent on the Buffalo Trail, which is actually an dirt road that is used to access an old cemetery. We spotted our first deer of the trip. They didn't hang around long as our party was a little spread out. We were each hiking our own hikes today, except Isaac. He didn't like grits, so didn't eat much for breakfast, and didn't really eat many noodles from the night before due to exhaustion. As a result he was running low on energy, and was complaining and trudging along. A short stop for a first lunch, beef sticks and powerbars put a little spring back into his step. After two miles we made our turn onto the turnhole bend trail, or as my kids like to call it the turdhole bend, my sister would be proud.


We hiked down the turnhole trail, a double wide trail running along a ridge, with a few small changes in elevation. We spot a few more deer. Ian was a monster and a ways out in front most of the day. We stopped for lunch under a cedar at the junction between the Sals Hollow trail and Turnhole. Pulled out a couple airmats and sat for a relaxing lunch. Bananas with nutella on a tortilla, and then our random smorgasbord of snack filled our bellies and we rested. A mountain biker passed through while we ate. We saw a total of 9 people on the trail during our trip, so in essence we had the woods to ourselves.


A sign at the trail junction proclaimed we had 2.2 miles until our stop for the night at the Sal Hollow campsite. I was saddened because I thought we had 3.5 miles remaining for the day. I put together this weird loop together because the Bluffs campsite and Sal Hollow campsite are only a mile apart, but I was trying to get at least a 7-8 mile day in to see how everyone could handle miles. Turns out I was correct and the sign was wrong.

Angie and I both noticed that the trails, at least those we were on, are remarkably engineered. They weave back and forth and gradually switch back with little to no real excruciating climbs. They make the hiking almost too easy.

I made everyone wear whistles to assist in finding someone if lost, or in trouble, but we've also discovered that they can be a useful tool in notifying the group ahead of a needed break, or give everyone behind hope when someone has reached a milestone. Isaac and I are bringing up the rear when we hear a whistle from ahead. After rounding the corner back into a ravine we see Angie and the boys playing in a small waterfall that has a reasonable sized cave as its source. The boys proceed up into the cave to explore, and I allow them a few feet (within site) in with their headlamps to peak around a corner.


I wash my dirty shirt, and we sit and play in the cool water. A refreshing, needed, break but we still have around a mile and a half to go. We walk through green hillsides with contrasting stark white limestone protruding up out of the ground all around us. The group breaks up, and I begin to notice the wear on everyone's energy levels as we leapfrog past each other. Little individual breaks are becoming more frequent. Especially as we descend, cross a dry creek and begin our final climb to the campsite. Angie is feeling the hurt of what will eventually become bruised toes. The monster Ian is out in front, for no other reason than he wants to be the one to give the 2 tweet signal that we've reached the campsite cutoff.


Our home for the night is a large flat area, 100 feet down from the ridge overlooking a switchback in the trail we just ascended and further below the green river. We waste no time in making camp, and decide to head down to the river to filter water and play for a while. It's probably around 3:30, 7.5 miles in about 5-6 hours, not bad for us slow pokes.



We wander down overgrown trails to the Green River. The name is perfectly suitable. I've never seen a river so green. During our cave tour Ranger Jerry talked about how a deep banked river, with a limestone base is what makes the emerald green color. The bank is overly steep and there is no nice way to get the 8 feet down to the river. We slide down the hill deciding we'd figure out how to get back up later. The kids are quickly in up to there waists, Angie soaks her sore toes, and I'm in up to my knees. The steepness of the bank continues into the water and we can't get more than a few feet away from shore. Nolan, accidentally, on purpose, quickly slides in up to his neck. The water is fridged and I thought for a moment I was going to have to dive in after him as the cold water shocks him and takes his breath. We casually fill all of our water containers. We don't really want to have to repeat this water gathering expedition. We make our way back to camp after an hour or so.



We play guess who I am around the campfire, eat a meal of mac-n-cheese followed by marshmallows and a fabulous strawberry apple crisp. Ian falls in love with a large fallen birch on the backside of our campsite and sings to it for the majority of the night. He might have slept there. I think everyone is finally adjusting to life on the trail, and we are on our last night. Going home after these trips is always bitter sweet. I'll enjoy regaining all the creature comforts, but the simplicity of being in the woods taking/having the time to look and listen is blissful.

Mammoth Cave National Park Day 2

The Fun Day and the Long Day

After a quick breakfast of oatmeal. We refilled our water. Instructed the boys in the proper way to break camp, and were off. Of course we were heading back to the car. What would a trip to Mammoth be without some cave tours. That is really why we only hiked a short bit on Sunday. We were trying to make it back to the visitors center by 10am, missed that, and the 4 hour tour. Oh well, the sun is out and it looks like we are going to have a beautiful, if not hot, spring day.

So we reorganize. Tours are selling out as we are planning (lesson: make reservations if there is something you really want to see.) We decide, after conspiring with a volunteer, to do the self guided historic entrance, and the 1pm new entrance tours. That way we see the widest variety of cave possible.



We take off for the historic entrance. The boys bouncing with excitement. Get the LNT and safety/medical condition speech, and descend into the cool air rising from the cave mouth. Down the steps into what feels like a ravine with a roof. After 100 feet or so you pass the gate the park uses to close the cave. Once past the gate the cave feels more like a tunnel. I follow the railing closely as we pass through dim pools of light, on the way out i notice that the same tunnel is much easier to navigate once my eyes have adjusted. The tunnel undulates between 12-15 ft wide and 6-10 foot tall. After a quarter of a mile opens into the largest underground space I've been in. 25 foot ceilings and roughly 100-150 foot in diameter, it is a roundish trianglish shape, with 3 main corridors. The cave is vast and dry, and bizarrely comfortable. After wandering as far as the park system lets you, and nosing around using our camera flash as a flashlight, who would have thought to bring one with us, we return to the surface and find a suitable place for lunch.



Our second tour is guided. Interestingly enough by the only ranger who is a native and descendant of the park property Ranger Jerry Bransford. His tour is informative and interesting, and his personal knowledge and love of the area show through his drill sergeant demeanor and delivery. The new entrance is a strangely diverse tour. You enter through a 2 doored airlockish series of steps, and quickly descend through a twisting turning staircase that squeezes and seems to float out of the rock. Water is falling everywhere, sometimes on you, as you duck bounce and cajole yourself down the 280 foot vertical shaft. We stop for a presentation on cave development and a brief lights out in a room called Grand Central Station. We continue on the second section being a stable dry cave it is similar to the historic entrance. The third and final section of the cave is through the Onyx and Frozen Niagara rooms of which the major features are the stalactites and stalagmites deposits. Truly otherworldly, the boys, actually all of us, are excited to see the variety of different structures around every corner. A quick visit with some cave crickets on our way out, and we are back to the hiking at hand.


Back on the trail around 4:30 and we have 2-2.5 miles to hike to our campsite, or so we thought. Which brings me to another lesson. I was flying by the seat of my pants on the route organization of this whole trip, and had a number of options flying around in my mind and on my computer. I printed an old trail map, never got topo's and never, and here is the real lesson, checked with the rangers as to how current my map was, or trail conditions. Well. My map was wrong. So we hike, past our campsite from last night, everything's ok. To the junction of the Buffalo trail and the Good Spring Loop, everything's peachy. And we hike, along a flat and follow the contours of the hillside. And we hike.


All of us begin wondering where are turn off is. 2.5 miles, 3 miles, 3.5 miles, ummmm, still no turn off. The trail swings widely down into the hollow. and cuts arcing back up the other side.

Ian and I catch up with the rest of the group just over the ridge. The group moral has turned into frustration. I leave them to break, and scout ahead picking up my pace. In about a mile I reach the intersection with the collier ridge trail. Unsure how we missed the turn off I begin to scout the collier ridge campsite. It's between 7-7:30, and I'm thinking we could squat there, but I spot a small group heading up that trail. So I head back and meet the family coming at me a little more than a half mile from the intersection. The order to turn around is not met with happy faces.


We get back down to the stream bed, and I'm trying to decide if we venture off trail in the general direction of the campsite, or continue our hunt on trail. We decide to stick to the trail. Which is best as the little topo info on my map is horribly inaccurate. Lesson 3 get a map with good feature information. Angie's feet are hurting her and the boys are just generally exhausted so I once again bust out in front to see if I can make some heads or tails of where we went wrong. A short time, a mile and a half or so I have returned to the other trail intersection, completely dejected. We figure it out later that we should have made a left not a right, but we did what my map told us. It is getting real close to sunset, and my crew is miserable. I decide I'll hike back to them, we'll hike to the closest water, we've crossed 2-3 small streams. Then head down over the hill out of site of the trail and make camp. We find the flattest spot possible 150 feet or so off of the stream about two flats down from the trail.


We make camp quickly, and begin dinner all of us hanging out in one tent. The noodles with peanut sauce hit the spot for all but Ian, who has crashed in the corner of the tent. We are all short for the world, cleanup and quickly to bed. It has turned into a very long day!

Total expected miles: 3 plus cave miles 2
Total actual miles: 6 + 1.5 cave miles

Mammoth Cave National Park Day 1 Travel

Awoke for an early, 6am easter. The boys wouldn't let the easter bunny just skip us this year. On the road by 8am. A quick bite to eat in Cincinnati, and we arrived at Mammoth between 3:30 and 4. A quick stop at the visitors center to get our permits, one small change of itinerary, and we were on our way. Just for the record, Isaac carried 10 lbs, Ian 14, Nolan 20, Angie, 25, and mine was 35 lbs. For a full 3 days.

I'm not sure how many places still use a ferry to cross a river, a first for all of us. We park and get ready at the Good Spring Church trailhead. An old single room church, and a graveyard (many of the graves date around the 1850's) are our last signs of civilization for the night.

Since this is a shakedown trip, and the first backpacking trip for my two youngest we are going to take it easy. We begin our hike on the "Good Spring Loop" to our first campsite named 'Homestead'. The trail initially decends into a couple small ravines crossing two small streams. After climbing back up to the ridge line the boys decide it is time for a break when we hit the junction with the 'Turnhole Bend Trail." We all get a laugh when our campsite trail splits off of the main trail not 50 feet down around a bend after returning to our hike.

A young couple are breaking camp as we arrive. The sites are nice. A fire ring, this one complete with about 2 nights of wood pre-collected. a single tent pad, and a few hitching posts. Many of the trails and campsites are horse friendly. Ask the boys about the mud pots and horse poo. This campsite is on a large flat ridge looking north over a couple intertwining hollows. just over the ridge is a rock lookout, 8-10 foot tall, and a spring waterfalls down 15-20 foot below that.

We set up camp, and the boys and I went to fetch our evenings water. After finishing our chores we bushwack a small dayhike down to dry prong creek. It is interesting how the streams here appear flow, pool, and fall for a short period only to dry up a few feet later, and then maybe reappear some fifty feet after that. The woods are very open, even for this time of year, maybe i'm just too used to the multiflora choked woods of Ohio. The only real thick understory we come across is the small bamboo patches. We circle back onto the 'Good Spring Loop' trail just as sounds of mutiny and questions of being lost begin to spring forth from the troops.



Mexican beef and rice burrito fixings, and a few roasted marshmallows fills our bellies as the coyote begin to make a ruckus off in the distance. Isaac is unsure, having never heard a coyote before. We settle watching the fire, picking out constellations, and noticing how positively quiet the woods are.

I sleep soundly, waking only for the occasional coyote, or bard owl hoot.