The Timpanogus Cave Adventure

Our Timpanogus Adventure Group

My sister Heather and her family were here from Seattle.  While we were talking, Timpanogus Cave came up.  Heather said she wanted to go and hike to it.  Mindy was in on the conversation and said she would like to see it too, but she could only go on a Thursday because that was her day off.  Dale and I had already talked about it and decided that it would be a fun thing to do this summer, especially now that the kids are grown and old enought to walk up the mountain on their own.

Little Oakley

So Heather and her family, Mindy and her two kids, and our family all met up at mom's house and drove down to Timpanogus.  We got there around 10:00 and bought our tickets.  We had a little over an hour to hang around before we could begin our hike, luckily so because Oakley got sick all over Mindy in the parking lot.  Heather and I had to make a mad dash to the souvenier shop to get Mindy a new shirt. Mindy had clean clothes for Oakley in the diaperbag. Poor Oakley had "spewed her cookies" earlier that morning, but Mindy thought maybe she had tried drinking an old bottle that was found in her bed, of coarse that would make anyone throw up, and she had hoped that would be the end of the throwing up, because Oakley was acting fine otherwise.

We got that all cleaned up and still had an hour or so to wait, so we went to the snack shack and ate an early lunch.  The food was pretty good, the kids ate it all up.  We bought suckers for the kids to eat on the hike and then "made" them pose for a picture or two. 

Suckers anyone?

With that all finished, up the hill we started. It was one and a half miles up to the top.  It was still early enough to have some shade along the way, but we had to stop three hundred times to give everyone a break, and to get some water.  The kids would run ahead of all of us and then stop and wait.  One of the rangers didn't like the idea of the kids being without adults so he told the kids they had to keep us in sight.  This didn't make Dallon too happy.  He thought the ranger was being mean.  Mindy kept reassuring him that he was just trying to be helpful and that he wasn't really "yelling" at Dallon.  I'm sure Dallon told Ryan all about it when he got home. 

To the cave!

Marie the Hampster

Taking yet another break!

Mindy was packing Oakley on her back and was getting pretty tired.  Jordan offered to take her. Eventhough Mindy didn't want to pawn her off onto any of us, Jordan was getting ready for backpacking trip so he was up for the challenge.  He packed Oakley up the mountain the rest of the way and then back down again too.  The really irritating part was that he was hardly breaking a sweat.  The funny part was that Oakley threw up again.  It mostly got all over her, but there wasn't much left in her stomach and Jordan didn't seem to mind, what a trooper. 

Jordan Packing Oakley

We took a lot of pictures and found interesting things to look at along the way.  Marie found an "elephant" tree, and all of the kids were fascinated with the "do not stop in the red line" areas.  We drank a lot of water and talked all along the way.  Valerie and Olivia were connected at the ear with their shared headphones.  It was cute so I took a picture. 

Marie and her "Elephant Tree"

Valerie and Olivia connected at the ears

We passed the "last chance" bathroom and I asked Marie if she needed to go. Of course the kids all ran past.  Marie waited until we were in the first room of the cave to inform me that NOW she needed to go.  I told her she was just going to have to wait.  We were deep inside the cave looking at all of the really cool formations, everyone was asking the ranger questions and he was being a good ranger and answering all of them AT LENGTH.  Needless to say Marie was dancing by the time we got to the "heart" of Timpanogus.  It must happen quite often because the ranger said she could use the bathroom at the end of the cave and then come back in, so Dale took her.   Thankfully they didn't really miss out on much of the tour.  We were toward the end of the tour and one of the people in our group slipped and fell.  She got road rash on her arm and leg and swore she had broken her arm, but she was moving it so Mindy didn't feel she had been too compromised.  It took the ranger awhile to get her wounds bandaged up and the next group were coming up right behind us.  Which meant the tour was over.   

At the End

When we got out we had to take the group shot before heading back down the mountain.  Going back down was much easier on the kids and we didn't have to stop as many times, but it was a lot sunnier and warmer.  When we got to the bottom we all had ice cream cones and sat around for another hour. 

Heather and Mindy had to get home, but Dale and I had decided we wanted to take the loop through the canyon and see Bridal Veil Falls and then go to  Cabelas since we were in the area.  The kids were not to happy about the decision, Jordan was willing, but Valerie and Marie were miffed.  I simply told them that it was the grown ups turn to do what they wanted to do.  They came but it was begrundgingly.  It was a beautiful drive through the canyon.  Timpanogus was still covered with snow.  I noticed the huge quakies along the way.  It was a fun drive.

Bridal Veil Falls

The canyon loop ends at Bridal Veil Falls.  There use to be a tram to the top of the falls, but it was gone.  This surprised Dale and I, the last time we were there was on our second anniversary the tram was there at the time.  It was very depressing to see remnants of the buildings and tram that remained.  I later found out that the tram had suffered an avalanche in '96 and then a fire had taken out the resteraunt at the top.  People are currently trying to get it up and running again, hopefully by 2012.  The Heber Creeper use to run all the way to the falls too, but not anymore.  The track area has been changed into a walkway. 

Dale and Jordan hanging out on the walkway

We decided to take off our shoes and wade in the water.  It was so cold it hurt my feet.  This was no deterent to Marie and Valerie.  They were off climbing up the waterfall in not time.  I did finally make it across the river.  Dale took a few pictures of us, but then we decide we were getting hungry.

Valerie and Marie climbing the falls

Me, Valerie and Marie letting our feet warm up

We didn't know what time Cabelas closed so we thought we had better go there first. There had been a lot of hype about how big and "cool" the store was, so I was a little dissapointed that it wasn't as big as I had imagined, but it was still fun.  There was a shooting range in the back where you can shoot laser guns at targets.  We had fun trying that out.  Dale and Jordan found a water filter for their up and coming backpacking trip, and I enjoyed just looking at the displays. 

Valerie shooting at the targets in Cabelas

When we finished there, we were STARVING so we went to find a place to eat.  After much deliberation (because as a family you would never want to agree on something) we ended up at the closest burger joint we could find.  It reminded me a lot of the "Training Table," the food was good and we were fed.  We got home late that night, exhausted, but we had a great time, and we made a few more memories.