Saturday, December 19, 2009

Lehman Caves Campout

After getting a late start both Colton and Ethan crashed after we left Delta.
 

It wasn't too cold last night, but this igloo cooler had a slow leak in it.
 

Our tents did pretty well, but we camped where we were suppose to park the car and since we couldn't stake in the corners of the tent we just put huge chunks of wood inside and it seemed to do the trick.
 

Finishing off a soda before we start the tour...
 

This was the original opening to the caves that they would go down and explor around in the 1880's with candles. Little too spooky for me :)
Boys are kind of paying attention to the tour guide.
Cool stalagtites...
More learning.
This cave system and pretty nice access with concrete pathways and lights shining on important "treasures" as they were called. Some parts even had stairs with steps.
Right about now I'm remembering that I need to take these guys to hike the Narrows in Zion's this summer.
This feature was the boys favorite and they were waiting the whole trip to see it... CAVE BACON!!!
Looks like it should be in some anatomy text book or something.
The boys kept asking, "What do you call it when a stalagtite meets a stalagmite?" The tour guide, Brian, would answer "Column" - "No... what do you call it when they meet?" "We call 'em a colum..." After a minute or two they got it.
The writing on the ceiling is from candles that the early explorers used between 100 and 80 years ago.
Cave visitors over a hundred years ago would write their names and stuff on the ceiling in the soot from candles...
It turns out it creates food for a specific type of orange bacteria and that's the only place in the world they've found it.
Ryan found his name written.
This called the parachute or Jellyfish formation.

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