Frozen Niagara of Mammoth Cave
For reviews of all Mammoth Cave National Park tours, how to get tickets, what to wear, and rules for the tours, see the Cave Tours web page here on National Park Planner. Keep in mind that not all tours are offered year-round, and the schedule of what tours are available changes often. Be sure to check the National Park Service’s official Cave Tours web page for the current schedule.
OVERVIEW
Anyone who has been inside Mammoth Cave has certainly noticed that the large majority of the passageways accessible to tourists lack speleothems, the collective name for stalactites, stalagmites, and other calcite formations most people associate with a cave. This is because speleothems require slow, dripping water to form, and a sandstone caprock covers most of Mammoth Cave, preventing water from leaking in. However, the caprock is patchy in some areas of the park, and in a few places where it does exist, it has developed cracks.
At the southeastern end of Mammoth Cave National Park is a section of cave that is full of spectacular calcite formations called the Frozen Niagara. This section is visited on the Frozen Niagara Tour, one of the easier tours of Mammoth Cave. It lasts 1.25 hours, covers a quarter mile of the cave, and only has 64 stair steps plus an additional 96 for those making an optional side trip into the Drapery Room (most tours have hundreds of stair steps). All ages are welcome, though those under 16 must be accompanied by someone 18 or older. Infants cannot be carried in a back harness but can be carried in a harness attached to the chest.
The Frozen Niagara Tour begins at the Frozen Niagara Entrance, a manmade entrance blasted through the rocks back in the 1924 by the property owner George Morrison. He first created the New Entrance to Mammoth Cave in 1921 when he purchased property he suspected was over a cave. After discovering the Frozen Niagara in 1923, he created an entrance the following year specifically to get tourists to and from the Frozen Niagara faster. More tours per day, more money.
Many tours of Mammoth Cave have overlapping routes, some to the extent that they are complete duplicates of each other. The Domes and Dripstones Tour also visits the Frozen Niagara, but it begins at the New Entrance and requires a .75-mile walk that utilizes hundreds of stairs to get there. The descent into the cave from the New Entrance is spectacular in its own right, but if you are limited physically, the Frozen Niagara Tour is the better choice. For those with no physical limitations, unless there simply aren’t any tickets left for Domes and Dripstones, there is no reason to choose the Frozen Niagara Tour over it. Domes and Dripstones is definitely the better tour.
The Grand Avenue Tour also covers the Frozen Niagara, but it is four hours long, covers four miles, and is one of the two most difficult tours at the park. Obviously if you take it you don’t need to take the Frozen Niagara, but the Grand Avenue Tour isn’t for everyone, even those in great shape. Check out the Grand Avenue Tour review here on National Park Planner.
INSIDE THE CAVE
The Frozen Niagara Tour requires a short bus ride from the Mammoth Cave Visitor Center and a short walk from the bus stop to the cave entrance. From there participants take a 32-step staircase to the bottom.
Stairs when entering Mammoth Cave through the Frozen Niagara Entrance
The trail used on the Frozen Niagara Tour was refurbished between 2022 and 2023, so it is much smoother and easier to walk on than before.
Refurbished trail on the Frozen Niagara Tour route into Mammoth Cave
Long before reaching the Frozen Niagara, stalactites, stalagmites, columns (stalactite and stalagmite that grew together), and flowstone (limestone formations that drip down the walls) line the sides of the trail. On some sections of the cave ceiling are tiny tubes that are newly forming stalactites called Soda Straws or Icicles. Such formations may only grow a cubic inch every few hundred years.
Speleothems on the route to the Frozen Niagara formation in Mammoth Cave
Ranger points out newly forming stalactites on the cave ceiling near the Frozen Niagara in Mammoth Cave
The Frozen Niagara Tour route also passes Crystal Lake. Most of the water flowing through Mammoth Cave is via rivers 300 or more feet below the surface. Crystal Lake is a pit where rainwater collects.
View of Crystal Lake on the way to the Frozen Niagara formation in Mammoth Cave
When you enter the Frozen Niagara section of Mammoth Cave, much of what you see is flowstone. Frozen Niagara itself is a 50 foot by 30 foot section of flowstone that looks like a frozen waterfall. Cave operators promoted their tours by giving the formations within their caves spectacular, theatrical names. Because many people who came to Mammoth Cave in the early days were from the north, Morrison named the most prominent feature in his cave the Frozen Niagara, playing upon the northern tourists’ familiarity with Niagara Falls in New York.
Frozen Niagara inside Mammoth Cave
There is an option to take a detour down 48 stairs (and 48 back up) for those who want to journey into the Drapery Room. Drapery is flowstone that hangs from the ceiling to create curtain-like formations. You can see the sides of the drapery without venturing down the stairs, but you can’t look up into it without taking the detour.
Drapery Room and staircase at the Frozen Niagara section of Mammoth Cave
View straight up at the Drapery Room ceiling in the Frozen Niagara section of Mammoth Cave
Formations in the Drapery Room in Mammoth Cave
Once done at the Frozen Niagara and Drapery Room, the tour group exits the cave the same way it came in.
Participants on the Frozen Niagara Tour exit Mammoth Cave
With a few exceptions, use of any photograph on the National Park Planner website requires a paid Royalty Free Editorial Use License or Commercial Use License. See the Photo Usage page for details.
Last updated on October 11, 2024
