And The ADVENTURE Continues...: August 3, 2015 Hike to the Craters, Indian Tunnel and 3 Caves

Monday, August 3, 2015 Hike to the Craters, Indian Tunnel and 3 Caves

We were at the Craters of the Moon at 7 am. We wanted to beat the heat of the day. We first started with a 2 mile hike to see the Craters. I was okay with one but we actually saw 3. These craters were very deep and different colors. It was very enlightening.

Next hike was to the Indian Tunnel. You had to climb down over the lava rocks to get to the bottom and then continue to the end and climb up some more rocks and climb through the hole. This was pretty cool. Didn’t find any bats!

We continued on to the caves. Our first cave, Dewdrop Cave, was pretty easy. We still had to do some rock climbing but it wasn’t too bad. Next, was Boy Scout Cave, Mike decided to go down this one on his own. It was pretty cold down there and there were some small tight places. Mike did find something strange down there that he brought to the attention of the Rangers. It looked like a banana covered in frost. Our last cave, Beauty Cave, this was the biggest one yet. I did crawl down into it but once I got to the bottom there was a huge room. We were only able to go down so far as the other half was unsafe. After all of this visiting to the tunnels and caves we ended up walking 4 more miles giving us a total of 6 miles this morning.

We then went an hour down the road to the Indian Ice Cave. This was very unusual cave. They told us that it was a ¾ mile hike one way and 160 steps. Oh my!!!! As we descended into the cave it just kept getting colder and colder to the tune of 28 degrees and it was 80 degrees at the top. There was definitely ice in this cave and it stays frozen year round.

This has definitely been an interesting and informative day. Tomorrow we are headed to Grand Tetons. Wonder what we will see!!!!

Total miles that we walked today was 7.5 miles. Before we know it we are going to hit 10 miles.