Americans are really proud of their national parks and entering one is a really exciting experience, since the vegetation starts to grow more and more intense around, everything is neat and surrounded by an aura of respect.
Last weekend we planned a little trip to Kentucky to explore a little bit of it and in the end we picked the Mammoth Cave National Park as destination to visit.
The main attraction of the park is the cave of course, which represents the world's longest known cave system, with more than 400 miles explored. Other than that there are many trails that you can cover, easy or challenging, each one allowing you to spot different highlights of the park.
The Cedar Sink Trail brings you down to a sinkhole where you can admire wonderful plants and flowers, and you get an impression of the massive cave that surrounds the park.
The Turnhole Bend Trail is a really short, although fascinating path. From here you can see once again the impact of the immense cave on the territory and it has also a very nice scenic spot.
This season is about right if you're interest in nature and the flowers were so pretty! You can spot them in singular places and it is a lot of fun to try to take the right picture. You should also be careful though, personally I tend to be a little too adventurous sometimes and it can be quite dangerous if you are on a gorge, even if totally worth it.
Other trails we covered and definitely to check out are the River Styx Spring Trail, where you meet a fascinating little lake merging into a part of the cave, the Green River Trail, that runs along the river, and the Dixon Cave Trail, which dives you back in the forest leading to one of the past entrances of the cave, very exciting!
But of course one of the biggest highlights of the Mammoth Cave is the actual cave, where you can enter following different tours, from the family to the spelunking ones.
Even if normally we are all about challenge and discovery, since this time we weren't really prepared for it (we didn't book in advance and we didn't bring the right equipment), sadly we had to abandon the idea of the Wild Cave Tour, opting for a middle one, the Domes and Dripstones, which was really amazing anyway. Going down 500 steps in the cave, the trip includes a dramatic series of domes and pits, typical large trunk passageways, and a short journey through numerous dripstone formations, one particularly beautiful called "Frozen Niagara".
Honestly I could have spent so much more time exploring the cave, it is just so fascinating. One of the best moments is when they turn off all the lights and you just stay there in the COMPLETE darkness, that you never experienced.
Such a powerful moment.