Utah - The Final Week

We are home! Our last week in Utah was fun and successful (both Pam and I finished our climbing projects), but the weather was definitely about to take a turn for the worse so we skedaddled. Here are some random shots that came off the point and shoot camera:

We spent a day climbing at the Compound cave. The approach was a 40-minute uphill hike in the hot, midday sun. Elise whined, but made it! Here's Pam and Elise preparing to walk.


The floor of the cave was covered in silty dirt. Elise had lots of fun burying all her polly pockets. She got super dirty.


I told her she might lose them, but she told me she was "landmarking" each figure by leaving the arms sticking out of the dirt. Morbid...


After all that dirt work, a shower was definitely in order. This is Elise rinsing off under our solar shower (a heated bag on the roof of the van). It actually worked quite well, but Elise HATED doing this when it was cold out in the evening.


Here's a couple more shots from the fishing day at the reservoir. Check out the colour on that albino trout!



Each day we climbed at the Pipe Dream cave, Elise and I would go spelunking in the cavern behind the main wall. This involved a short but steep climb up to the mouth of the cave. Here's Elise doing the approach with her headlamp ready!


The small cave opening revealed a massive cavern inside, big enough to easily fit a house. We enjoyed walking around the perimeter and waiting for our eyes to adjust. It was very dark. This is a view looking back out of the cave.


This is Elise inspecting a bird's egg on the floor of the cave. There were many nests and holes, evidence of the inhabitants of the cavern.


We are busy at home catching up with work and chores in preparation for the big trip: Turkey! We leave on October 18th and will be gone until December 16th. Elise seems excited for this trip and keeps talking about going on the "big airplane". Interesting times ahead...