Hiking The Sinkhole And White Cave Trails At Mammoth Cave National Park

After our Domes and Dripstones cave tour on our second day of visiting Mammoth Cave National Park we decided to do some more hiking.

We combined three more trails again to make this hike a total distance of 3.70 miles with between 300-400 feet of elevation gain.

Pets are allowed on all surface trails in Mammoth Cave National Park so we brought our dog Dexter and cat Everest along as well.

The three hikes we did were Sinkhole Trail, White Cave Trail and Echo River Springs Trail.

I didn’t included Echo River Springs in the title, because I did a separate post for that trail earlier. It can easily be done as a stand alone so just click on the name to see my detailed post on that trail.

Starting from the visitor center we cut through some parkin lots to reach the Heritage Trail. Normally you can access the Heritage Trail from a footbridge behind the visitor center, but it was closed for construction.

I talked about the Heritage Trail in my post yesterday (there’s a cemetery).

From the Heritage Trail follow the signs for Mammoth Dome Sinkhole Trail.

During this section of the hike as you travel through the woods you will pass White’s Cave and Mammoth Dome Sink.

White’s Cave is a tiny cave that’s been blocked off which I assume (may be wrong here) leads down into the Mammoth Cave system.

Mammoth Dome Sink is one of the many sinkholes that can be found in this region. You can walk down into the sinkhole, but it’s not very impressive.

I’m beginning to think I just don’t get all the hype about all these sinkholes.

Keep trekking down the trail till you reach an intersection and see a sign for Echo River Spring. As I mentioned earlier just click on the name for details on that trail.

We walked down to Echo Springs, did the loop, then turned around walked back up Sinkhole until we reached the intersection once more.

There’s a sign that says “to campground”, which is the White Cave Trail, so we followed it through the forest.

There’s a lot of gradual uphill during this section of the hike. At about 1/2 mile you’ll reach the Campground Trail and from there you can choose from a variety of short trails to reach your vehicle.

So technically I guess this hiking trip was more than three trails.

If I had to do it again I would skip the Sinkhole and White Cave trails and just drive to the parking lot and do Echo River Springs. That trail is handicap accessible, more interesting and you get to see the ferry.

I highly suggest picking up a trail map from the visitor center before you begin hiking. All the trails near here intertwine with each other and may be hard to navigate without a map.