Mammoth Cave - Grand Avenue Tour

Mammoth Cave Grand Avenue

Last night, we did the Star Chamber Tour. This morning, it was the Grand Avenue tour.

The Grand Avenue Tour is the longest walking tour they offer at 4 miles and lots of inclines.

The NPS advertises 1,600 stair steps. And there are the inclines beyond that. Well, to set the recorde straight, there are 1,600 stair steps (up and down), but that only tells part of the story. The other part is that my Fitbit registered 51 flights of stairs climbed - it counts walking up an incline 10 feet as a flight too.

It sounds really hard, but it wasn't as bad as it sounds. The rough tour (that we will not be doing) is a hike where you spend a good bit of time crawling through holes - really small holes. Definitely not for us.

This tour, like last night's tour, was to a large extent about the stories they tell - the history. But there were 2 awesome highlights.

The first highlight was Boone Avenue. We spent a decent amount time trekking through what one could best describe as 'wide crevices', slot canyons in the cave. It was really neat and definitely better than the Grand rooms of vast space.

The second highlight is at the end of the tour. And after doing almost all the stairsteps and inclines mentioned in the 2nd paragraph, when they get to this part of the tour they call it OPTIONAL STEPS, because, if you want to, and you are up to it, you can see "Frozen Niagra", if you choose to do an extra 97 steps. Optional because it is a little side trail down a staircase.

Well, the first thing I have to tell you is that 97 stair steps is 49 steps down. And 48 steps up. Not too bad.

The second thing I have to tell you is that it is spectacular. That 1 stairwell was 5 times better than the rest of the day combined - and it was a good day.

The light is low, and with nature, pictures never do justice, but Frozen Niagra (which is neither Frozen nor a waterfall) is fabulous.Read more