Fat Man’s Misery inside Mammoth Cave
Mammoth Cave National Park offers Ranger-guided cave tours year-round, though not every tour is offered year-round. There are sixteen different tours for the typical tourist plus two cave exploration tours for the more adventurous. Called wild cave tours, participants need to be in good shape and thin enough to fit through the narrow passageways.
Most of the tours of Mammoth Cave begin at the Historic Entrance. The difficulty of each tour once inside the cave varies, but they all require walking down a steep, .2-mile paved hill from the Visitor Center. It is even steeper on the way up, believe me. For a young person or those in great shape, the hill is probably inconsequential. But for those who are older, drastically overweight, or have problems walking up or down steep hills, it’s no picnic. At 59 years old, I dreaded the walk back up to the Visitor Center far more than anything inside the cave, including the hundreds of stairs that must be tackled on some of the tours. There are benches along the path, and there is no shame in sitting down and resting. I will say that if you get to the bottom and realize that getting back up to the Visitor Center is going to be extremely difficult, you should not be going into the cave.
Path from the Historic Entrance of Mammoth Cave to the Visitor Center
A few of the Mammoth Cave tours begin at other manmade entrances, and these require a bus ride to get to. While you don’t have to go down the steep hill on these tours, you may still have a short hike from the parking lot to the cave entrance. However, none are more difficult than the path down to the Historic Entrance.
There are over 300 caves in Mammoth Cave National Park that are not connected to Mammoth Cave, but the park offers tours of only two of them: the Great Onyx Cave and the Wondering Woods Cave. These were former private caves that the National Park Service purchased in more recent times. Both require a bus ride to reach.
Many of the Mammoth Cave tours have routes that overlap, some to the extent that they are complete duplicates of other tours. You don’t want to pay for a tour and end up visiting the same places you have already seen, so it is important to know about the overlaps. I took nearly all tours at the park, and I report this in my tour reviews. Visit the following web pages here on National Park Planner for complete details and plenty of photos of what you will see on the tours.
MAMMOTH CAVE TOURS
As mentioned above, not all cave tours are given year-round. See the National Park Service’s official Cave Tours web page for the current schedule. Schedules are usually posted between a month and three months in advance.
Regardless of overlapping routes, I suggest taking one of the lantern tours so you can see Mammoth Cave the way early visitors saw the cave—by lantern light.
OTHER CAVE TOURS
Since these tours visit separate caves, there is no overlap of routes with any other tour at Mammoth Cave National Park.
Great Onyx Cave Lantern Tour at Mammoth Cave National Park
WILD CAVING TOURS
TICKETS
Fee-based tickets are required to take any cave tour at Mammoth Cave National Park. Your best bet is to purchase tickets online in advance at Recreation.gov. Tickets are also available at the Visitor Center ticket booth, but during the summer season many tours sell out in advance. For most people, just seeing the cave in some fashion is fine, and it is certainly possible to get on a cave tour of some sort if you try to get tickets on the day of your visit. However, you may not be able to get on your first choice of tours. Regardless of where you purchase tickets, you will need a credit or debit card. No cash is accepted at the park.
Ticket booth inside the Mammoth Cave National Park Visitor Center
TOUR MEETING PLACES
There are two shelters outside the Visitor Center where all tours meet. Shelter A is for tours entering the cave through the Historic Entrance, which is just a short walk away. Shelter B is for tours that visit other parts of Mammoth Cave National Park via bus. To find out where your tour meets, there is a video screen above the main Information Desk as well as at the ticket booth that lists all tours and departure points, similar to the video screens in airports that list flight departure and arrival times.
Cave tours meet at the shelters outside of the Mammoth Cave Visitor Center
Tour bus at Shelter B outside the Mammoth Cave National Park Visitor Center
There is no rule about showing up early for your cave tour. As long as you are at the proper shelter before the tour departs, you are good to go. However, finding a parking space during the summer can be a challenge, plus you have to gather up whatever you want to take with you and perhaps use the restroom since most tours do not have a restroom stop. Therefore, I suggest arriving at the Visitor Center 30 minutes in advance of your tour just in case problems arise. There is a museum in the Visitor Center, so there is plenty to do if you end up having to wait around.
Participants must provide tickets before entering the cave or getting on a bus. Those purchasing tickets at the Visitor Center will have a physical ticket in hand. Those who purchased them online can either print them or have the tickets available on a mobile device. There is Internet service at the Visitor Center but not at the cave entrance where tickets are taken. Make sure you have access to the digital tickets without relying on the Internet.
WHAT TO WEAR
While the cave stays around 55º F all year long, for a tour I suggest wearing what you would wear outside of the cave. In the summer, unless you are a cold person, a T-shirt and shorts will suffice, but a sweatshirt or something you can tie around your waist if you get too hot is also fine. It is cool inside the cave, no doubt, but you will be walking around enough that you won’t get very cold. There are some stops on the tours where the group sits for a few minutes, and you might get chilly there, but not for very long. I wore a T-shirt and shorts on the summer cave tours and never regretted it. The thought of coming out of the cave with a sweatshirt on and into 90º F-plus temperatures outweighed any desire to wear one inside the cave.
I also visited Mammoth Cave National Park in mid-October when temperatures were in the 50s and 60s, and I wore a sweatshirt wherever I went within the park. I wore one on the cave tours as well and was perfectly fine.
I’m not sure what to suggest for the winter months since I did not visit during this time. You might get too hot climbing hundreds of steps and constantly walking around while wearing a winter coat. Perhaps bring a sweatshirt as well and change into that if you get too hot. Of course you’ll have to lug the winter coat around, but there’s no way to avoid it.
TOUR RULES
- No flash photography (photography is allowed if the flash is turned off)
- No child backpack carriers. Front carriers are permitted.
- No strollers, tripods / monopods, or walking sticks (except canes used to assist visitors who would otherwise have difficulty walking)
- No metal framed backpacks or backpacks that are higher than the shoulder or that extend below the hips (i.e. large trekking backpacks)
- No firearms or other weapons
- No pets are allowed other than service animals. Mammoth Cave does have a self-serve kennel where you can rent a cage by the hour. Proof of vaccination must be provided upon entering the kennel.
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Last updated on September 18, 2024
