This past week I went to the Spirit Mountain Cave for some spelunking! The cave was at the top of one of the mountains in Cody, WY. The origins of the cave are unknown, but the Native Americans used to believe it had some spiritual significance. The cave was a lot larger than I was anticipating and we spent about 2 hours wandering around and crawling deep into the cave. The rock formations inside were beautiful. There were shiny crystals and deep pink and white colors to the rocks. The cave went up and down for several layers so you could explore wherever you felt like going. If you didn't have a light source you could probably get lost in there for days!
View from top of Spirit Mountain
The day before exploring the cave I hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon on the Seven Mile Hole trail. The trail is actually 9 miles total, but the trail leads to a point at the bottom that is 7 miles from the lower falls of the Grand Canyon. The views on the way down of the Canyon were beautiful. The colors of the Canyon were bright and spectacular.
Half way down the Canyon:
Made it to the bottom!
After hiking to the bottom, I made my way up the steep trail huffing and puffing. About 3/4 of the way back the trail meets with the Washburn Spur Trail which leads you up to the summit of Mt. Washburn. Of course for some reason I made the decision to go up this trail, even though it meant adding another 8.5 miles onto my hike for the day. About 3 miles in it started to hail pretty heavily on me while I was hiking through an open meadow. I couldn't look up without the hail pelting me in the face, so I started to get pretty nervous that a bear might jump out from the woods at any moment! Finally the hail stopped and I then hiked past a thermal area and started to ascend up the mountain. The trail was the steepest trail I've hiked yet. There were no switchbacks and it was extremely difficult. It started to rain again and I was getting really cold by the time I made it to the summit. Luckily the rain cleared and I was able to get some awesome views up the top. Mt. Washburn sits right in the middle of the Hayden and Lamar Valleys, so there are amazing 360 degree views from up top. On the way down, I decided to take an old abandoned jeep road to the bottom since the other trail looked snow packed. By the end I was exhausted!
Views of the Grand Canyon, Hayden Valley, and the Meadow where I got "pelted"!
Views from near the summit:
My final hike this week before heading back to work (yes, I do have a job out here!), was through the Sentinel and Imperial Meadows to Fairy Falls. The hike was about 10 miles and mostly went through open meadows until coming up to the falls. The meadows had lots of elk grazing and had quite a few thermal features. Fairy Falls is an impressively tall waterfall, but is on a popular hiking trail, so I had to share the view for once with other people!
Imperial Meadows:
Hiking up to Fairy Falls:
Fairy Falls:
Sentinel Meadows:
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