We went on the Mammoth Cave tour today - there are several tours available ranging from 1 hour to 6 hours in length, we took the two hour tour. Evidence of habitation in the cave dates back 4000 years and several artifacts from 2000 to 4000 years ago have been found. Written historical records date back to the late 1700's and the cave has been an active tourist destination since the mid-1800's. The cave has over 400 miles of explored passageways with an unknown amount left to be explored - estimates are that there may be 200 to 300 more miles of cave yet to be explored but they really don't know.
The original opening to the cave - no longer used due to a cave-in in the 1800's (this was not part of the tour - we hiked to this yesterday)
Our first stop after descending to over 300 feet and the ranger who guided the tour - he was an excellent tour guide
One of several large chambers 300 feet underground
Dripstone formations (limestone)
Interesting limestone formations
More formations
More formations formed by millions of years of dripping water
I have been to Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico and in my opinion Carlsbad is much more impressive with more stalactites and stalagmites, more color and more random formations plus it has several larger chambers. Having said that, Mammoth Cave is many times larger and has a very interesting history and is quite worth seeing.
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