The Caverns

Tuesday Aug 23, 2011

Lewis and Clark Caverns

This morning is so exciting - we get to tour the caverns today.  They were discovered not  by Lewis and Clark, but by a hunter in the late 1800’s.  The hunter saw something like smoke rising from the mountain so decided to check it out.  He found a hole in the earth with steam (condensation) coming out of the hole.  He and his hunting partner threw a rock down the hole, and soon discovered it was a deep deep hole.  The hunters decided to make a trip back to explore the “hole”

About 6 years later one of them came back to explore the caverns. He discovered that the hole he threw the rock down was more than 90 fee to be exact.  When he explored inside, he told all his friends, and started tours of his own.  The rest is history.

The walk to the caverns was a warm hike today as it was 33 degrees, for the 3/4 of a mile hike up...but a cold cave welcomed us.  It is a 2 mile walk all together, and a 2 hour tour, which included 600 stairs, over, around and underneath cave walls.  So fun!

The caverns were awesome.  We were so excited to finally be here! The caverns did not disappoint! They were fantastic!  However...my camera did disappoint - it on the fritz!  My flash just would not work inside the caverns. Thus, our memories will need to be locked away in our minds, and I only have a couple pictures that kinda turned out.  BIG disappointment for me.  We comforted ourselves by the fact that they would have a picture book at the info & gift center-they did not, much to our chagrin.  So we have the experience, and the sights locked to memory.

After the caverns we were off to Virginia City, which was a little south.  This was also a surprise - if anyone comes in this area and thinks they should see it - don’t bother.  Nothing really to see that you haven’t seen in Barkerville, and I must say Barkerville is 100 times better. Other than a few things in a couple of widows which were of interest (fits like a glove corset was my favourite... something to aim for....how did they breath!)  there just wasn’t much here of interest.

Yellowstone National Park is our destination for Wednesday and Thursday, so we are so looking forward to doing some hiking and seeing the natural beauty.