Mammoth Cave Backcountry Camping

Mammoth Cave National Park is always a wounder full and clean experience, especially with the volume of visitors that the park has to manage.

Mammoth Cave National Park is always a wounder full and clean experience, especially with the volume of visitors that the park has to manage.

Bluffs campsite is a cool spot. Wish we had more daylight to explore around the site. Both topo map and OnX phone app said total route would be 10 miles. Ended up being 12.4. Not a big deal, but we would have started earlier had we known. Now we will add up to 25% mileage to our routes when planning. Bluffs site has a dripping water fall close to camp where you can get drinking water and wash dishes/wash up if you wanted to. Several cool rock formations around. Only one tent pad big enough for 3-4 person tent. There’s at least one other spot for a smaller tent.

Bluffs campsite is a cool spot. Wish we had more daylight to explore around the site. Both topo map and OnX phone app said total route would be 10 miles. Ended up being 12.4. Not a big deal, but we would have started earlier had we known. Now we will add up to 25% mileage to our routes when planning. Bluffs site has a dripping water fall close to camp where you can get drinking water and wash dishes/wash up if you wanted to. Several cool rock formations around. Only one tent pad big enough for 3-4 person tent. There’s at least one other spot for a smaller tent.

Very nice backcountry campsite with fire ring and a very handy lantern post for hanging gear. You can obtain water from the Green River or from one of the three springs. The springs are located on the McCoy Hollow trail past the turn off to the campsite. I recommend sourcing water from the springs as the river bank is steep.

Very nice backcountry campsite with fire ring and a very handy lantern post for hanging gear. You can obtain water from the Green River or from one of the three springs. The springs are located on the McCoy Hollow trail past the turn off to the campsite. I recommend sourcing water from the springs as the river bank is steep.

Beautiful site, don't depend on the "lake" next to the site for water. When you get to it, it's more like a field of grass and muck. You can see open water, but it's pretty inaccessible due to plant growth. So bring plenty of water unless you're really committed to getting dirty. The shorter trail (from temple hill trail head [1.5miles]) had 3 LARGE treefalls. The first is very early into the trail and makes you go off trail. It's so large it resulted in losing the trail for like 15 minutes because it was hard to see where it was when trying to go around the fall. Later down the trail, 2 more falls but are much easier to navigate, can just go over/under them.

Beautiful site, don't depend on the "lake" next to the site for water. When you get to it, it's more like a field of grass and muck. You can see open water, but it's pretty inaccessible due to plant growth. So bring plenty of water unless you're really committed to getting dirty. The shorter trail (from temple hill trail head [1.5miles]) had 3 LARGE treefalls. The first is very early into the trail and makes you go off trail. It's so large it resulted in losing the trail for like 15 minutes because it was hard to see where it was when trying to go around the fall. Later down the trail, 2 more falls but are much easier to navigate, can just go over/under them.

Terrible bugs (spiders, mosquitos, ticks, gnats, etc.) made the already overgrown trail pretty unpleasant. Campsite (Sal Hallow) was absolutely overrun with ticks, so much so that we didn't even spend the night and immediately hiked out.

Terrible bugs (spiders, mosquitos, ticks, gnats, etc.) made the already overgrown trail pretty unpleasant. Campsite (Sal Hallow) was absolutely overrun with ticks, so much so that we didn't even spend the night and immediately hiked out.