4 Days at Carter Caves State Park in Eastern Kentucky - Day 1

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Peering down a dark part of Cascade Cave, lit up with flashlight lighting.

Note: Some links throughout our site are affiliate links, which means we may receive a small commission at no cost to you.

This is the first post in a series for this trip. You can view links to the other posts at the bottom of this one.

In addition to traveling to the park, getting settled in, and enjoying our first day of activities, we had several expected animal adventures. Keep reading for the tale! In the realm of adventuring, we toured two guided caves - Cascade Cave and X Cave, and hiked two trails, Box Canyon Trail and Mulligan’s Trail, the former of which is home to one of the five natural arches/bridges within the park.

If you just want to skip to our adventure, scroll on; if you’re looking for some packing tips, here are our top gear recommendations for this trip. You can view more recommendations on our Ultimate Guide to Hiking Gear.

Comfortable hiking clothes - Our favorite options all come from REI. My favorite pants are prAna Halle and these are my favorite lightweight hiking t-shirts. Dustin has a couple of pairs of pants from prAna and the REI brand.

Light-weight raincoat - if there's a chance of rain, you won't regret bringing a lightweight waterproof jacket with you. My favorite is this GORE-TEX jacket, and it has seen many damp trails!
Hiking boots - Our current favorite brand is Oboz. Dustin has their Sawtooth model, and I have the Sapphire.
Hydration backpack - unless you are going for a very short hike, bringing water is a must. Dustin has a very old Camelbak circa 2000, and I have a new-ish one from Gregory that I have used on multiple hiking trips and love. While the Gregory Sula 16 is not currently available, here are some other options. We each have a 3-liter water bladder.
Headlight style flashlight - A headlight, like this one from REI that we each use, was a must for the self-guided cave tours. I’d also recommend bringing a small, bright hand-held for greater versatility.

Arrival at Carter Cave State Resort Park

Travel from roanoke, VA to carter cave state park, ky

We got an early-ish start to our five hour, late May drive, knowing that stopping to eat and walking the 3 pups a few times would add a reasonable amount of time to the trip. We headed south from Roanoke on I-81 until we hit Blacksburg, where we veered west on 460, wending our way up and over the mountains that create a natural boundary between Virginia and West Virginia. We eventually met up with I-77 and hugged the mountain highway through Charleston, WV. The entire drive was beautiful with lots of countryside, rolling mountains, and the green of late spring forests. We passed three toll locations on this route, each $4.25/car for a total cost of $12.75. We’re not always great at having cash on us and don’t have an EZ Pass but luckily had the cash to make this relatively painless. Check out the map of our route at the bottom of this post.

All day, we’d been tracking the weather. The prior day had held significant, tornado-spawning storms through the central park of the country, and we were headed towards them. By mid-day, we could tell we would run squarely into a wall of a thunderstorm system right around Huntington, WV, and sure enough, we did. Luckily we’ve driven through worse. No hail to dent our cars, though we definitely had to slow down below the speed limit, and no noteworthy wind. Wisely, we had stopped prior to the storm hitting to let the pups out. And, by the time we arrived at Carter Caves State Resort Park, we were in a lull between rain bands.

Carter Caves Location and Check-In

Carter Caves is located near Olive Hill, Kentucky, and is very accessible from major highways that run through the area. The park is a mere 4 miles off of Interstate 64 and is under 20 minutes from Olive Hill, Kentucky, where we had to make an unexpected visit to a Walgreens for a dog-related situation on our last night of the trip (of course). Our post about day 4 will fill you in on that one.

We arrived at Carter Caves a bit after 4pm on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend. Check-in time for the cabins is listed as ‘afternoon’ and somewhat dependent upon how quickly they can turn the cabins around from the prior guests. We called the day before and were told that anytime after 3pm would be fine.

In our experience, state parks are typically not overly descriptive in explaining where and how to check-in upon arrival. So, we’ve learned to go with the flow and have never had an issue. Upon driving into the park, we meandered on a road that followed a creek and was surrounded by tall trees, creating a green canopy. There is no entrance fee to enter the park.

The first building we came upon within the park was the welcome center and gift shop. This was a place we’d visit several times and is where visitors can purchase tickets for cave tours and get (free) permits for self-guided cave tours, rappelling, and other activities that require permits. The small gift shop had various local food stuffs, some general snacks, park clothing apparel, and country store style toys for kids. There is also a restroom located to the right and behind the shop, which I believe is open 24/7.

The welcome center was not, however, the check-in spot for those coming to stay in a cabin or at the lodge. So, we were redirected up the hill to the lodge. The lodge, located at the top of a curvy park road, is exactly what you’d hope for in a rustic state park lodge. The building is brown, festooned with bunting (presumably for Memorial Day), and has a peaked roof over the main entrance. The lodge houses a number of rooms for guests who prefer that accommodation option, and it has a full service restaurant that offers breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Dustin went in to check-in while I remained in the car with the pups, who become very worked up when one of us leaves the car. Dustin returned with a handful of helpful brochures and information – trail maps, cave maps, a restaurant menu, and info about other park goings on.

overview of our cabin at carter caves state park

Our assigned two-bedroom, one-bath cabin was one of a couple of cabins off by themselves instead of in the cluster of cottages. One interesting feature of this park is that while you can reserve the type and size of your accommodation (e.g., one bedroom cottage), you don’t select a specific cabin number. Ours, #239, was a lucky assignment. Perhaps because we have three dogs or perhaps because we booked early or perhaps because we would be staying for five nights, which is probably longer than most . . . In short, we have no idea how we got this secluded cabin, but count us happy! The cabin is right around a bend just a short drive from the welcome center, walkable to one of the trails, and backs up against fern-filled woods. There is a patio out front with a table and chairs, a great spot for people (car) watching as all mode of pick-up trucks, motorcycles, and RVs head by.

The cabin itself is one of the nicest state park cabins we have stayed at. We’ve stayed at several in the states of Virginia and West Virginia previously. What makes this one particularly nice is that the family room is quite large and comfortable (others in our experience have been quite small), and it has totally separate (though connected) spaces for the kitchen, dining room, and family room. The two bedrooms and one bathroom are in the back hallway clustered near each other. Each bedroom houses two double beds. While the furniture is definitely state park cabin-esque furniture, it’s a tad nicer than others we have experienced. Linens are never a given at state park cabins, but Kentucky includes them – pillows, bedding, dish towels, bath towels, the works. Always make sure you know if linens are included before you show up for a stay at a state park!

itinerary planning, our first night and unexpected visitors at carter caves

After unpacking the car and getting the pups settled in (new smells, so exciting!), we ate an early dinner (if it’s not yet scientifically proven that 6+ hours in the car makes you really hungry, here’s an idea for someone’s thesis).

We then planned out how we would spend the next four full days at the park. Between caves and a multitude of hikes, we figured it would be smart to identify which we wanted to do, cluster them according to location, and make sure we spent our time wisely. Because the next day was supposed to be rainy until early afternoon, we prioritized a couple of the guided cave tours (Cascades Cave and X Cave) and decided to hold off on another (Saltpeter Cave) until Wednesday in order to enjoy the lantern tour version of it. Once we’d set our itinerary, it was time to have a relaxing evening reading on the couch. With several years of periodic state park trips under our belts, I’ve learned to wait until we get to the park and get better maps than most of these spots have online and then plot out the itineraries for our time. That ensures we are thoughtful about which things we want to prioritize, that we’re not doubling back on trails in nonsensical ways, and allows me to basically do the work once: after setting the itinerary, we just follow it the rest of the week as a general approach, though we obviously flex the plans based on weather, changes in our interests, etc.

And then our first night presented some . . . unexpected guests. While we were reading on the couch, we heard a clinking sound in the kitchen and got up to explore. Sure enough: a mouse. This particular fella was in the sink, licking a dish (I mean shame on us, right?). Upon seeing Dustin, the mouse panicked, ran around on the counters, dropped a few presents, and then disappeared behind the oven. Dustin pulled the oven out and discovered a see-saw mousetrap (a humane trap for catch and release), and a teeny gap in the drywall where the mouse was accessing the kitchen. We put some food in the trap (a small sliver of cheese and a nugget of dog food to appeal to him regardless of his palate), and placed it back in front of the hole.

Around 2am, I stirred. I kept hearing a noise but in my grogginess and desire to put my mind at ease, I decided it was our pups moving around on the wood floor in their dog pen. A while later, Dustin woke up, asked what was making the sound and was not convinced by my theory. We went to the kitchen and discovered absolutely no mouse in the trap but felt like it had been trying to get through the hole and kept hitting the metal trap, hence the noise. Dustin re-situated the trap, and we decided we needed to take the dogs out since they were wide awake.

I went back into the bedroom to change into warmer clothes and found a reasonably sized spider. On my pillow. Dustin tried to kill it but it fled, and he gave up. Hell if I was going to go back to bed with a location unknown, pillow-loving spider so I moved things around until I found it again (it had veered inside the pillow case) and crushed it with my shoe. Okay so mouse problem resolved, spider gone. We got about our business taking the pups out so they could do their business. A success, which meant we could go back to bed.

As we headed back inside through the back door, Dustin said to be careful so we wouldn’t get moths in with the interior light glowing. Well, in flew a medium sized moth. Followed closely by a bird. Yes, a panicked bird was now inside the cabin. The creature had been nesting above the back door. Inside it flew from room to room in panicked fits and starts. I mostly hid because while I think birds are cool outside, they terrify me when they’re panicking indoors. Dustin managed to get it back into the laundry room, next to the back door. After it flew in nonsensical circles, it finally darted outside. Around that time, I looked at my phone and saw we had a tornado watch in the area through the morning. Obviously we were not going to have a mouse, a pillow spider, and an inside bird all on the same night as a tornado hit, so we went back to bed and woke up to a beautiful day with no rain on the horizon.

And, yes, we caught the mouse in the trap in the morning. He happily enjoyed the cheese slice and dog food. Later in the day, we released him far, far away from our cabin in another part of the park. He leaped out with glee and new-found hope for his future, and I watched the little guy dart off into the forest, no doubt in pursuit of a path back to our cabin.

Itinerary for Day 1 at Carter Caves State Park

Our first full day in the park was Monday, May 27th, Memorial Day. So, the park was the busiest this day of our entire trip but still not really crowded.

Luckily all the rain moved through in the night and the day was no longer going to be rainy; however, it was still going to be the warmest day of our trip, so we decided that sticking with our itinerary and focusing on cave tours was a smart move.

We went to the Welcome Center and bought tickets for the 10:30am tour of Cascade Cave and for the 1:30 of X Cave before taking the short (3.6 mile) drive to the entrance of Cascade Cave, which is a bit down the street from the main park entrance. Our tour group was quite small. It was the two of us and a group of about 8 people who had come together. Note: Cave tour dates and times vary by season, so always check the park’s website for their current schedule. Certain caves are only open seasonally in the warmer months since bats hibernate there during the winter. Memorial Day weekend is the start of the summer season where more cave tours become available.

touring cascade cave at carter caves

The Cascade Cave tour took about an hour. Though it is indicated in park materials to take about 75 minutes, a portion of it is currently being repaired due to storms and is expected to be reopened in October. From the parking lot, there is a short walk downhill and down some stairs to the cave. In total, the walking distance is about 3/4 of a mile.

In our experience, some caves tend to have big, open rooms, others are more narrow spaces, which can be either short or tall in height. The 3 guided tours we took at Carter Caves included one of each type.

Cascade Cave is the one I’d classify as having big, open room. There are a few large, beautiful rooms, and a small in-cave creek. In the first room of the cave, we saw a couple groups of bats – maybe 10-20 in each cluster. The tour guide told us they didn’t see them in that particular cave all that often and that it was the first time he had seen them there (for what that’s worth, as he just started working for the summer season). This cave used to be privately owned before it was turned over to the state and this first room is now called the ‘ballroom’ because the prior owners literally held dances in the space. The stalagmites had been removed from the floor to make the floor flat for dancers, and apparently they would bring in musicians, too. Destruction of thousands of years of stalagmite growth aside, what a cool place for a dance.

The “ballroom” in Cascade Cave in Carter Caves State Park. The former owners used to hold actual dances in the space, hence the lack of stalagmites.

The next room was home to the in-cave creek and had a large opening where the water exited to the outside. There was a sandy area near the creek inside the cave (a cave beach?), and the guide told us that the room flooded up to and over the walkway we were standing up, multiple feet higher. He said that one inch of rain outside leads to 10 inches of water depth in the creek, so I’m sure there are times visitors can’t tour this cave during times of substantial rainfall. Beyond this cave, we briefly exited to see where the creek returned above the surface. This is the area of the trail that is temporarily closed, but we could get a quick glimpse.

This tall-ish walkway in Cascade Cave becomes submerged during heavy rains. To the left is the sandy beach and beyond it you can see the dark creek further left.

Looking back into the second room of Cascade Cave after the lights were out, the blue glow of daylight is visible through the creek’s outlet.

After leaving the main cave rooms, we took a short path outside to another cave area. This area holds a short hallway-like cave that culminates in an in-cave waterfall with a solid stream of water coming down from above. The waterfall travels down the cylindrical cave it has formed with the rushing water. The tour guide told us that they have been unable to identify the source of the waterfall despite testing various hypotheses. They even used dye in water sources they thought might feed it and had no luck. So, most likely, it is groundwater seeping out from somewhere, which is also maintaining a constant rate of the water flow. For those who enjoy waterfalls, seeing one within the confines of a cave is a cool experience!

Because of white-nose syndrome in bats, which entered this particular park in 2013, the last stop of this and all local cave tours is to clean visitors’ shoes with a mixture of water and woolite to clean off any bits of fungus and prevent further spread. For two of the caves (this one and X Cave), this is accomplished by walking over a vat holding what is essentially a giant sponge. This activity may have been the highlight of the tour for a little girl in our group.

hiking box canyon trail in carter caves

With a little extra time to spare since the tour was a bit shorter than expected, we decided on a whim to tackle the Box Canyon Trail, which is located at the same spot. We’d had it on our itinerary for later in the week. The 0.8 mile trail took us just over 20 minutes and was absolutely gorgeous. The park brochure calls it the prettiest hike in the park, and I wouldn’t argue with them! The path was very hilly, very green (in late May), rocky at times, and provided amazing vistas of rocky outcrops. One of the five natural bridges/arches in the park is on this trail, so it was the first one we got to enjoy.

Cascade Bridge, a natural arch, is a highlight of the Box Canyon Trail at Carter Caves State Park. It’s one of 6 natural bridges/arches in the park!

touring x cave at carter caves

After lunch at our cabin, we met up with our 1:30pm tour of X Cave at the Welcome Center. This tour is supposed to take about 45 minutes and covers a distance of ¼ of a mile. The cave’s name comes from its shape. It was once two separate, parallel caves, one dry and one wet, and one much older than the other (as evidenced by its depth). At some point a section crumbled between them, which is now the central intersection where the two prior caves cross and form an “x”. The tour first covered the wet cave, went outside, where we hiked downhill for a bit until we got to the entrance of the other half of the cave, and then we hiked the dry cave. This cave was much less expansive rooms compared to the first cave and instead was more like hallways and passageways that were tall and narrow. I actually think I preferred this one more, though they’re both very different and are worth experiencing.

The entrance (right) and exit (left) of the X Cave at Carter Caves State Park. The cave gets its name from its shape.

hiking mulligan trail at carter caves

After plenty of time indoors in cool cave temperatures, we hiked Mulligan Trail, which is 2.2 miles of a former golf course’s golf cart path that is now in disrepair as nature takes back over. There was a vague feel of urban decay to it (which made it cool, in my opinion), and the fields and trees were pretty, albeit quite sunny! While this is not exactly a traditional hike, it was a nice way to spend a little time outdoors in the afternoon. We spent about 45 minutes on the path. It certainly wouldn’t have made our list of top hikes to take in the park, but with 4 full days here, we had plenty of time for everything.

According to my Garmin fitness tracker, we walked a total of about 6 miles, which includes all walking, including that of the pups.