Mammoth Cave National Park

Go deeper into this national treasure with “a sumptuous collection of photographs [that] captures the wonderment and majesty of the cave system” (Louisville Courier-Journal).

Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave National Park is home to the world's longest cave system, boasting over 350 miles of explored and mapped passageways—and geologists estimate that there could be many more miles of this vast subterranean world that remain unexplored. In addition to the renowned Mammoth Cave, the park also includes over 50,000 acres of hills, streams, and forests with nearly seventy miles of scenic trails.

The Green River, which plays an integral role in the cave’s ecosystem, winds through this impressive landscape. As an artist-in-residence at the park, nature photographer Raymond Klass was granted access to the cave and the surrounding wilderness. While living at the park, he took thousands of photographs of famous cave formations, such as Frozen Niagara and the Drapery Room, as well as scenery and wildlife not often seen by the general public. Mammoth Cave National Park: Reflections is a record of Klass’s unique visual exploration of the above- and belowground ecosystems within the park.

With more than 100 dramatic full-color photographs, accompanied by Klass’s commentary and extracts from the journal he kept while living and working in the park, this book captures the sights and surprises of the vast underground world of the cave system—its labyrinths and mineral formations, remnants of human visitors and gypsum miners, streams and rivers hundreds of feet below the surface, and more.

“The detail in the photographs lets the reader absorb the wonder of Mammoth Cave perhaps more than a simple day trip to the park could ever provide.” —Kentucky Living