Last week on Adventures in Kentucky, I took a hike through the woods with the Kentucky State Park Service. Tonight, Monday, April 9, 2007, my adventurous side takes me back to the park at Mammoth Cave for a meeting with a few, four-legged friends.

Most residents of South Central Kentucky know about the park at Mammoth Cave, but horseback riding is often over-looked.

The park has over 50 miles of trail reserved just for horseback riding. Gene Birk and I were invited by Kevin Davis and a few friends to explore the park from a new vantage point, but in order for the park to offer such a great opportunity, they must have volunteer support.

“We are a volunteer organization. We have an agreement with the National Park Service to do volunteer work in the park and basically what we do is have trail volunteer days and work days and we go out and rehab the trails and cut back brush and do clean up days and pick up the trash out at the park and our objective is to improve the overall horseback riding experience in Mammoth Cave National Park,” Davis said.

Gene is quite at home on horseback, as for me, it was certainly a new experience. After a little instruction, I am to enjoy the beautiful scenery of the park with my faithful steed doing most of the hard work. The horses are fairly quiet and riding the trails is truly a serene and peaceful way to spend a day. Like other trails in the park, the path is very well marked and maintained thanks to volunteers like Davis.

“It’s just a great way to get out and see nature,” Davis said.

After only a few hours on the trail, I felt pretty comfortable in the saddle. The only down side to spending time in the saddle and getting comfortable on horseback, is that once you are no longer in the saddle, you find that, once again, you are uncomfortable.

For Adventures in Kentucky, I’m Brandon Lokits.

As always, if you have any adventure ideas you’d like for me to try, you can e-mail me at brandon.lokits@wbko.com.

And to join in on a benefit trail ride at Mammoth Cave National Park, get more information by clicking here.