Timpanogos National Park

I am afraid I have inherited my mom's habit of forgetting the camera when we go places. We have done some really fun things that would've made some really cool pictures and I do not have a single picture to document them. Sad day. I will try to be better. Until I am better, however, I will just insert in a few internet pictures so you get an idea of what I'm talking about.

A few weeks ago Jake and I dropped off the kiddos bright and early with my in-laws and we drove to Timpanogos National Park. Our tour time was scheduled for 10:10 so we wanted to make sure to give ourselves plenty of time to get up there so that we could do the hike and be to the cave at 10:10. Well, when we arrived at 9:10 the park ranger informed us that the 10:10 time was the time we were supposed to leave the visitor's center to start our hike. Luckily they had some available spots earlier and we started hiking at 9:30.

The view of the valley from the hike
Picture source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/Valley_at_Timpanogos_Cave.jpg

We kept a pretty quick pace up the mountain and started to realize after hitting the half way point why there were warnings about the hike being steep and strenuous. There were times we felt like we were climbing stairs going up that mountain! I was feeling it in my thighs and Jake in his calves but we maintained our steady pace and reached the top of the 1.5 mile hike in 45 minutes. We were feeling pretty good about our time and started wondering when the actual cave tour would be. We asked another park ranger who said our time was listed on our ticket. Imagine our surprise when we saw 11:00! We had been allocated an hour and thirty minutes to do the hike and only burned away half of the time. We didn't really want to sit around and wait for the 11:00 tour so we joined the 10:30 tour.

The cave was incredible. I have never seen anything like it. If you haven't ever gone I would encourage you to go. No picture or description could do it justice. The natural formations are just incredible and it was a really neat experience to be there with my sweetheart. Just be sure to take a light jacket as it is only 43 degrees in the cave!

The Heart of Timpanogos Cave
Picture Source: http://www.nps.gov/tica/naturescience/index.htm

After the hour and a half cave tour we started our descent. If we thought the steepness of the incline was bad on the way up.... the blows to your knees are pretty jarring on the way down. I was doing pretty good on the actual descent and wasn't feeling pain or soreness but man oh man did I feel it for the next couple of days!

We met up with one of my best friends, Sam Bostwick, and his cute wife, Kendra, in Pleasant Grove for lunch at Costa Vida. It was pretty good although it wasn't as good as Cafe Rio. We had a long and very pleasant conversation and it was great to catch up with our friends.

This post has already gotten pretty long so I better wrap up here. Look for posts soon about Weird Al Yankovic, hiking Ensign Peak and more updates on the life and goings on of the Jacob Bentley Family!

Love, Shayla