Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Lewis & Clark Caverns






(look it is Angela in a picture, she does exist, yes she does, AMAZING!...)

Last sunday we decided that it would be a fun day to explore a little Montana outdoors or rather underground so to the caves we went! It was Joel and Kadence's 1st time to the caverns and we all really had fun hiking and exploring together. Kadence did the 2 mile hike up and down very well and really had fun inside the caverns looking for bats. Which I don't think he really needs to look very hard as we have them in our own yard. I had fun exploring the use of very low lighting on my camera in the cave and I think Joel just like hiking and getting in trouble with the tour guide for having a backpack. The guy kept making him turn it to the front, it was actually quite funny as the reason he had the darn thing was stuff for me.

Exhibit A(how to carry a pack properly in cave):

On a more serious note this is a little history from Wikipedia on the caverns:


Lewis and Clark Caverns State Park is located in southeastern Jefferson County, Montana. The primary feature of the park is its namesake cavern.

The cavern was discovered in 1892 by Dan A. Morrison. The site was first established as "Lewis and Clark Cavern National Monument" on May 11, 1908, but was not fully surveyed and declared until May 16, 1911 by President Taft as 160 acres (0.65 km2). The limestone cave is named after the explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark since the cavern overlooks over 50 miles (80 km) of the trail from the Lewis and Clark Expedition along the Jefferson River, although Lewis and Clark never saw the cavern. It is located approximately 45 miles (72 km) west of Bozeman, Montana, and 60 miles (97 km) northwest from the northwest corner of Yellowstone National Park.
The caverns are also notable in that much of the work done to make the cave system accessible to tourists was performed by the New Deal-era Civilian Conservation Corps.
It was disbanded as a national monument on August 24, 1937, and transferred to the state of Montana. The site was formally dedicated as a state park in 1941, Montana's first state park.

1 comment:

Barb said...

How fun!!! Brings back memories of several trips we took to the caverns together a few years back. Looks the same though.