Timpanogas Cave Hike

Will's parents are in town for 6 days this week they came in to celebrate Ariana birthday. Wills Mom and I decided to hike to the Timpanogas Caves yesterday afternoon. The hike is a mile and a half and has an increase elevation of 1100 feet. We are both very out of shape and were unsure of we would even make it. We thought we would try it and see how far we could get. The last 3/4 of the hike was extremely strenuous when we were done we had seen how far we had gotten and it wasn't worth trekking back down the mountain do we pushed ourselves and Ariana. We took out slow and easy it ended up taking is an hour and 20 minutes to hike up. Once we got to the to we were 300 or so feet from the very top of the mountain.

There are 3 caves total the first is the Hansen Cave then Middle Cave (which to me was the largest) then Timpanogas Cave. We went into chambers which had doors on both ends they are man made carved in the rocks and are used to separate the caves. The caves are about 45° so we brought jackets and pants for Ariana, and only assessable by the hike and a park ranger guide. Inside the caves there are bats, centipeeds, and other little critters, we didn't see any critters. Inside the caves there are speleothems, helicitites, stalactites, and stalagmites.

Ariana did amazingly well about half way she started complaining and saying she is so tired. When we got into the cave she was scared to death and holding onto us but once we entered the cave she was amazed and marveled at the beauty of nature she exited our if the cave happy, excited and full of knowledge. On the way down she commissioned of her feet hurting. She had new shoees that haven't been broken in well so we walked down the trail in her socks.

Here are some pictures. The pictures begin with the end of the hike, after the cave, then Timpanogas Cave, Middle Cave, Hansen Cave and the beginning of our journey. I loaded the pictures from my phone and this is how they uploaded. It is much easier to keep them in this order than to rearrange. Also, if you click on a picture it will bring up a larger picture so you can really enjoy the beauty, the pictures shown on this blog are thumbnails.

Enjoy!

 

 you can see how steep our hike is

 The canyon and valley below      

 Just a nice area to take a picture  

 another beautiful view of the canyon

 the very end of the cave before we exit

                                                              

                                                               

                                                             

                                                   

 We nicknamed this the Dinosaur Head  

 Another cool formation.

The brown is from the materials that make up rust (no I don't know what it is I am not a scientist)

 really cool wormy like formations

 The ranger talking                      

 Another cool formation

                                    

                                  

                                  

 Green color formation

 Popcorn formation

 The Heart of Timpanogas

 Another view of the Heart

 I really thought these were cool

 more cool brown formations

the drooping formations are made by the 100% humidity and water falling (stalagtites)

                                           

                                           

                                     

 This formation is so huge

                                   

                              

                                

                                                           

       getting ready to go inside                      

 almost to the end          

 this mountain is so steep

 A cool hole we walked thru

                          

      part of the trail

 cool hole we walked thru

 the beginning of the trail. we went almost to the top

 the map of our hike

 an up close look at this map

 

I hope you enjoyed our pictures. Will's Mom has some cool pictures I might post some on here at a later date.