Hike and Bike Trail at Mammoth Cave, KY

Mammoth Cave National Park, Park City, KY     High: 81.  Low: 58

We are settled in at Diamond Caverns RV and Golf Resort after pushing hard the first traveling day leaving Spring, TX, and then two shorter journeys on the way thru Louisiana and Tennessee, a hop, skip, and a jump to get here. The golf course is down the street a little ways...Eldo will be checking that out for you later in the week.

This is a nice Thousand Trails park. The driveway into the RV park is within the boundaries of Mammoth Cave National Park,  but the campground itself is on the outskirts of the park boundaries. 

Site A-2

 We have a nice back in site with full hookups   for three weeks, FREE, with our Thousand Trails membership. (We do pay a monthly fee but we have more than recouped that monthly fee with all the TT parks we have stayed in since we left Florida. We sure have gotten good use out of that, we feel!

There is some shade with a big ole tree at the back of the lot. The pool is empty, there are no amenities open here right now because Kentucky is a little more stringent on COVID precautions.  The playground is closed off and kids are not allowed in it yet. They are at 60% occupancy in restaurants as of March 1.

Sites in the "A" section are not too close together, and long enough for our big rig and the truck to fit easily. There is a huge concrete pad behind us--use to be a site, maybe for a park model or seasonal, but now it's just a big slab. We could have a party back here, haha!

The weather is beautiful spring weather....70's to low 80's during the day, 50's to 60's at night. All the spring trees are flowering, especially the redbuds. 

Sparky has ridden the Hike and Bike Trail three times, three days in a row, 8.5 miles one way from the Diamond Caverns Gift shop just across the street from the campground, to the Mammoth Caves National Park Visitor Center and back, 16 miles each day. The trail actually extends a little further down from the campground to Park City, the other direction, about three miles further.

The trail is a railbed trail from the old Mammoth Cave railroad company, but it it NOT a rails to trails. It's a rough gravel trail with embankments on both sides. The gravel pieces are very large in some places, and you really have to watch your speed and the size of the gravel, along with spring rain ruts. 

There are worn smooth places in the trail, but they are few and far between. Sparky rides Eldo's Trek Dual Sport bike for this type of trail because of the puncture resistant Bontrager tires and suspension fork. 

There are a LOT of hilly sections, and places with steep grades where you are supposed to get off and walk your bike or risk losing control of the bike and the brakes not holding your speed back. A lot of RVers are going to electric bikes, but Sparky is holding out. Those kind of bikes are SUPER heavy, and Sparky thinks she's not there yet as far as age and being stubborn. (HAHAHAHAHA.....Eldo is cracking up. And that's all he's going to say, because he's a smart one, that Eldo.)

Great spots for stopping and taking a break on the trail....Signage that explains the history of the area, overlooks...

Pretty little bridges and boardwalks...Sloan Pond is a little walk along the way that has a boardwalk all the way around the pond, about .4 of a mile.

And that's about it for the Hike and Bike Trail. It's a rough trail and not for the faint of heart or someone who's expecting a nice paved trail. Nope. But Sparky likes the challenge and the elevation changes, about 950 ft. elevation change, according to her watch. We hope to do a cave tour next week, and take some short hikes leading into bigger hikes around the Mammoth Cave park area. We'll see you on the trails later! Thanks for stopping by....