Let's Spelunk!!!

It was our goal to do a little caving this summer!!  We accomplished our goal...sort of.  We didn't make it to all the caves we wanted but the 4 we went to were amazing!!!  Well worth it!!!

First to the 17 Mile Cave...17 Miles from downtown Idaho Falls head west on Broadway.
Abbie took Hailey and Cierra took her friend Annika.

On another day we went to 40 Horse Cave - Up Wolverine Canyon
This time we took a crew! Abbie and Hailey, Cierra, MacKayla and Annika, then Michelle Farnsworth and her kids. It was a pretty steep climb and the shale rock made for slippery climbing.

 The older kids crawled up to another cave that was a little higher on the hill.  Inside they saw a bat.  Then they waded in the creek for a while and we had a picnic lunch!

Then in August we took a day and went up to the Civil Defense Caves and Rexburg Ice Caves. Not too hard to find and they were way cool!!!

 Again we went with Michelle Farnsworth she is now my spelunking buddy!! This time Cierra took Alivia.

 The inside of this cave was pretty cool.  There was a lot of graffiti on the walls...I think as long as people keep it relatively mild I don't mind it!

 This was at the Ice Caves....This road was absolutely miserable to drive on...only go on it if you have a truck...I think we beat the crap out of Michele's van and almost got her high centered a couple of times.  That being said...this cave was absolutely cool!!!!

 Some places you had to crawl or sit on your butt and pull yourself through...wish I would have taken snow pants we were kinda cold when we got finished.  It also wouldn't have hurt to have a pair of cramp-on's for your shoes because a couple of places were super slippery, even if you only had one pair and two people had one each just to help stabilize when helping others.

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At the end of the cave there was an ice hill that had foot holes to climb to the top and a little hill to slide down, the kids had fun sliding, but again we were super wet and pretty cold.  The middle picture is the hardest part, climbing down the rope and ice block to get down into the cave.  Michele's little one is the only one who had any trouble.