Trip Overview - 4 Days at Carter Caves State Park in Eastern Kentucky

A clearly marked rocky section of Carter Caves Cross Country Trail

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

Planning our Trip to Carter Caves State Park

how we determined our destination: carter caves state park

As those of you who have been following along on our adventures for a while know, we have three Labrador Retrievers who are seniors, ranging in age from 11.5 to 14.5. At this stage of their life, we’re not keen to board them, so we’ve been planning trips that are within a driving distance of our home in Virginia at places that allow multiple large dogs, no easy feat! We’ve found state park cabins to be a surprisingly wonderful option, one that frankly wasn’t even on our radar before.

We’ve visited several state parks in Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky and so started scanning anything within a 5-hour drive of our home and were intrigued by Carter Caves State Park because it has hiking, which we love, but it also has amazing caves and natural bridges/arches. Those aspects helped that park stand out, so we went ahead and booked a cabin!

where we stayed: cabin accommodations in carter caves state park

Carter Caves State Park is in Olive Hill, Kentucky, about 45 minutes from Huntington, WV, and about 20 minutes from the actual town of Olive Hill. It’s right off Interstate 64 so is easy to find. The park offers multiple accommodation options: RV and tent camping, hotel-like accommodations in the Lodge, and private cabins/cottages.

We booked in a 2 bedroom, 1 bath cabin and found it to be more spacious than what we’re used to at other state park cabins. The way the reservations work at this park, you can reserve a cabin type (e.g., one bedroom) but cannot select the specific cabin. The park will assign you a cabin at check-in. We ended up with cabin 239, which sits by itself off the main park road and is far away from the main cluster of cabins, so I’m not sure how similar ours was to the others. We felt incredibly lucky to get this one off by itself.

The cabin entered in to a large family room with a large fireplace. We used it two nights with wood purchased from the Lodge. (Due to various infestations, you cannot bring your own wood from home here or at any other park we’ve visited). To the left of the family room is a small hall that holds two bedrooms and the bathroom. From the right of the family room is a stand-alone dining room space that connects back to the kitchen. The kitchen also connects back to the bedroom area. Off the dining room is a reasonably sized laundry room with full-sized washer and dryer and a back door that leads outside. Off the front of the house is a slightly raised porch with a table. We enjoyed sitting out there several evenings. The back of the house has a more rustic patio space without any furniture but with a basic campsite style grill.

Tara wasted no time getting comfortable - we took this photo before making her get off the sofa, and you can see the guilt in her eyes

There is a nice driveway that can hold multiple vehicles, making loading and unloading a snap.

The kitchen was moderately stocked with pots, pans, utensils, plates, and glasses. It did not have any cooking supplies (not even salt or pepper), so make sure to bring your own. There was a glass pyrex 2-cup measuring cup and one measuring spoon, which I think was a tablespoon, but not typical measuring cups and spoons for anyone planning to cook more complex dishes. There is a dishwasher and both dish soap and dishwasher soap are provided, as are dish towels and oven mitts.

The cabin included linens - towels, bedding, extra pillows, and blankets. You should always confirm whether a state park cabin includes linens. Virginia, for example, stopped providing them at the start of COVID and never restarted, so we make sure to bring all of that with us when we visit a Virginia state park (and yes, it is annoying for packing!).

The bathroom has dispensers in the shower for shampoo, conditioner, and body wash. The laundry room did not appear to have any laundry detergent, though we didn’t check closely.

If you forget basics, like a toothbrush, the Lodge offers them for sale, and if you run out of items provided (e.g., dishwasher detergent), they’ll happily provide more upon your asking.

where we ate: dining options in carter caves state park

Housed in the bottom floor of the Lodge is Tierney’s Cavern, which serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner. While the hours vary by day and possibly seasonally, it is generally open from about 7:30am to 8 or 9pm with a 30-60 minute closure between each meal. The restaurant offers carry-out and sometimes offers a salad bar.

The restaurant has a bit of a lodge/diner feel to it and has a wall of windows overlooking a porch with pretty potted flowers and trees beyond. We ate there three times for lunch and while it had diners, it was never loud or crowded. It was well staffed and had friendly, responsive servers.

The menu for lunch and dinner is the same and has a number of southern-inspired recipes, sandwiches, wraps, burgers, and salads. While we didn’t eat there for breakfast they had a variety of the standard breakfast fare you’d expect - eggs, bacon, pancakes, breakfast burritos, etc. The restaurant serves wine and beer.

Since we brought our food with us for this trip, we didn’t really need to get any food out so didn’t seriously explore other options outside of the park. The towns of Olive Hill and Grayson are each about 20 minutes away and have multiple dining options.

Lodge at Carter Caves State Park, which houses Tierney’s Cavern restaurant on the ground floor in the building’s rear

what were the highlights of our trip to carter caves state park

With lots of hikes, caves, and natural bridges/arches, this is a park with a lot more versatility than many others! The park also has a number of other activities that we didn’t explore - mini golf, a swimming pool, kayak/canoe rentals for the lake, and more.

If you want to read more about your trip, we offer you two options: (1) you can follow our day-by-day itinerary, replete with all the stories of the trip (and this one definitely had some stories!) by clicking on Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, or Day 4; or (2) if you want to get down to the basics about the hikes and caves in the park, you can check out our post dedicated to each.

The highlights of our trip were:

The lantern tour of Saltpeter Cave - This cave is only open for tours in the warmer months when the hibernating bats have moved on their merry way, and even then, the lantern tour is only offered a small number of times per week. I love history so touring this cave that played a role in the production of gunpowder for the War of 1812 by lantern-light, which is what people of that era would have used, was a super cool experience!
Self-guided cave treks through Laurel and Horn Hollow Caves - Getting permits and heading into two caves with no information of what to expect and only our own flashlights to light our way was just a smidge outside of my standard comfort zone. Both caves were totally different from each other and absolutely amazing experiences.
Three Bridges Trail - This 3.5 mile loop hike offers just the right amount of challenges and in return offers views of three of the park’s six natural bridges/arches.
Box Canyon Trail - Coming in at the short distance of 0.8 miles and taking us only about 20 minutes, this is one of the most beautiful hikes in the park. It is also home to one of the natural bridges/arches.
Carter Caves Cross Country Trail (“4 Cs Trail”) - This 8.5 mile trek into the backcountry of the park was really enjoyable. We had views of the lake, crossed two suspension bridges, saw one of the coolest arches in the park, Shangra La Arch, and enjoyed the elevation climbs and falls along the way (about 1500 feet elevation change in total). This trail isn’t for everyone, but we really enjoyed it!

Three Bridges Trail at Carter Caves State Park

Would we return to Carter Caves State Park?

Probably not but only because we really saw everything we wanted to see in our four full days there! We hiked all the hiking trails plus a couple of the multi-use trails, saw all 6 natural bridges/arches in the park, took all the guided cave tours, and toured both self-guided caves. We would absolutely recommend this park to everyone else!

Trip Do-Over: What would we do differently?

I can honestly answer my favorite answer to this: Nothing. Four full days was exactly the right amount of time to see all the things we saw. While we covered a lot of ground (literally), I still think we did a good job of pacing ourselves with a mixture of cave tours, hikes, and the like so that we didn’t get worn down from too many miles in one day. That said, we are fairly active people and reasonably experienced hikers. Others may prefer a different pace and more or less time.

Visiting at the tail end of May was absolutely the perfect time: the weather was nice and not buggy, the caves closed during the winter opened a few days before our visit, and the park wasn’t dead but it wasn’t crowded by any stretch.

The only potential (minor) note is that two of the standard cave tours (Cascades Cave and X Cave) had brand new seasonal hires, both in high school, leading the tours. They both did a great job but were clearly nervous and still learning the ropes. I’d imagine by later in the season the guides have had more experience. If you’re just coming for a day trip to tour some caves, later in the summer may be better from that perspective.