Day 85 Craters of the Moon National Park

We have had a full day at Craters of the Moon NP. We learned about different types of lava flow and what caused the shapes. It is a large park and was fairly crowded to be out of the way.  Some areas you drove thru, while numerous trails were all around the park. We started first thing climbing a steep hill to overlook the area.  Another small world moment at the top. While at the top a group came up and were taking pictures. I offered to take a group pic and they were glad to get everyone in it. I happened to have my UK hat on and they said is that UK Kentucky, I said yes it is. Well you guessed it they were from Ky. One was from Somerset, but now living in Utah, the others were from Shelbyville and Shepherdsville!  It is always nice seeing people from Ky. Well after this hike we decided we would do the caves since there was a couple we thought we could do. The first cave hike resulted in a small opening then rough rocks down to the bottom, well after checking it out from surface we all ended up waiting for Carvel to go thru. I saw banged up knees at best. Well on to the next trail, well this one seemed to be larger and hold more potential for us to go thru. We started out going down steep stairs then onto rocks sorta made into steps to cave floor, got this. There were several openings in ceiling to let light in so we thought we got this and won't even need our flashlights. Okay we are in the first room feeling okay about this and start moving on, next area we start losing our natural light and go to flashlight, that's cool, we are prepared. Next we start noticing how rough the bottom was and us old folks saw a twisted ankle for somebody before we got out, but we traveled on. Next we could see another top opening and the opening to next section, but to get there required climping up a huge bunch of lava rocks that were easily moved and rough....hhmm, not looking too good and we were maybe halfway thru. I was still considering the crawl up the rocks when we started noticing yellow jackets just swarming at the top.  Decision made, I am going back. All I needed was an allergic reaction in a cave, out in no where, probably hours from a hospital. Well once again Carvel said he was going on, the rest of us went back. I love caves, but these were pretty rough and even Carvel said at the end was so tight his backpack  rubbed as he crawled thru.  Although all of us didn't get thru caves, we had some great hikes thru other areas. It was a nice place to visit. On to see Yellowstone the next few days. Here are some pics from today.

Overlook after the long hike up the hill

Carvel was the only successful caver