Spelunking aka Caving near Rock Canyon

There are a few small caves around the Rock Canyon area.  One is right next to the trail on the north side of the canyon.  But on Thursday, a friend of mine took me to see a much less-well-known gem.


Here you can see our meanderings...we took the, umm... "scenic route" to finding the cave.  By that I mean, we went straight up the mountain and across a couple ravines before we finally gave up and headed back down, at which point we found the cave maybe 30 meters from where we started.

Fall colors in March?

Lichens!

As we are coming down...oh THERE it is!

The entrance

Tight squeeze

I'm actually proud of myself.  I am a bit claustrophobic and I was worried that I would get in there or half-way in and have a freak-out.  Almost backed out but pep-talked myself, "you can do hard things...it will be worth it."  I took a deep breath and closed my eyes and quickly shimmied myself inside.  The payoff was immediate and well worth pushing through my fear.  These pictures don't come close to doing it justice because they were taken using an iPod and a flashlight. lol

Opens up big enough to stand

Tiny stalactites

Dripping stalactite

Glassy yellow deposits on the wall - minerals? Bacteria excrement?

Green deposits on wall

Coming out took a lot more wiggling, but was less scary than going in. :P

 This cave looked natural except the back ended so abruptly I wonder if it had been dug out at least partly.  Really not sure.  But it was very cool.

Speleothems!

This is my newest vocabulary word (thanks, Andy!).  Amazingly I still remember it.  Speleothems are cave formations.  Stalactites, stalagmites, shields, cave bacon, cave popcorn, soda straws, and probably a couple others I forgot.  Here are a few from Timpanogos Cave.  We went there right before they closed for the season in October.
Sadly I have a really cruddy camera, these are actually the best ones I have.

Stalactites, and look!  Some Calcium Bicarbonate about to drip off the end of it too.

This guy was our tour guide and he's looking up at some "cave bacon"

Cave popcorn er suh-um (there may have been another name since they're more spiny, I can't recall at the moment.  This is why I have to take notes all the time, stupid memory.)

The heart of Timpanogos.  This was actually formed by two soda straws that got clogged, so then the rest of the calcium carbonate gets deposited around the clog, forming the bulges around it, and we end up with this anatomical heart looking formation.  Pretty dang cool.

Timpanogos' pet dog

Okay so that was a fun outing- I went with my kids and my oldest brother and it was good times.  Except for the part where the tour guide left the lights out for a little too long and I started to feel a little panicky and had to open my phone for some light.