Welcome to the Park of the Week Newsletter for August 15, 2024. This week we’re featuring a park that protects part of the longest known cave system in the world.
Mammoth Cave National Park
Location
South-Central Kentucky, United States
Claim to fame
The sheer size, impressive geologic features, and ease of accessibility of its main chambers has made Mammoth Cave a popular tourist destination for hundreds of years, even before it was renowned as the longest cave system in the world. Archaeological evidence shows that it was visited for thousands of years by Native Americans, who left artifacts and even mummies in its depths. This is a cave with a rich cultural heritage in addition to its mammoth geologic wonders..
Reason to visit
Mammoth Cave National Park offers several popular tours of the cave system: wheelchair accessible tours, long and short hikes, lamplit tours, and crawling tours. All cave access requires a ranger guide.
Above the cave system is a natural landscape of over 50,000 acres (20,000 ha) where visitors can hike, birdwatch, kayak, fish, or bike. The park is one of the largest areas of contiguous forest in Kentucky.
Wild Fact
Mammoth Cave is a “solution cave,” meaning that it formed when water, naturally containing traces of weak acid, dissolved rock. Over millions of years water carved channels that cut deep into the limestone of central Kentucky, forming sometimes massive tunnels under the earth. Mammoth Cave is still forming; water from the surface still seeps down to fill underground rivers and streams within the cave system.
Thanks for reading. Each Thursday, we send out an image and description of a unique natural or cultural treasure like the one above. Learn new things, explore special places, and find your inspiration: sign up for the free newsletter today.