Minnitonka Cave

This cave tour was so cool. I've never done a cave tour before but the sites were pretty awesome! If you ever have a chance to go to Bear Lake, you should also schedule a time to go to the Minnitonka Caves. They have really cool rock formations inside. Be sure to bring a jacket and I would also bring gloves because the hand rails are very cold too. You won't freeze to death in there but you will definitely have a much more enjoyable time because you'll be comfortable inside. There were 444 steps inside the cave going in. Some went down, others went up. Jordyn, who is 4, was able to handle the hike very easily with our help holding her hand. 

The mouth of the cave. 

Jared 34, Courtney 32, Lex 9, Kenzie 10, Eli 7, and Jordyn 4.

Jared, Kenzie,Jordyn, Eli, and Lexie inside the cave.

Inside the Vandalism room. This room is the first "room" in the cave. Most people would come in the cave and have fun breaking down the stalagmites and the stalactites. Unfortunately, they reuined a bunch of amazing formations. The government came in and thought, "hey, we could make some money off of this place if we make it part of the national forest and protect it." So they did and came in and built hand rails and steps to run 1800 feet into the cave. They even took some of the formations and tried to glue them back together. If you go, look and see how they put two different colored pieces together...like we wouldn't notice!!

These columns are called "The Three Sisters"

Deeper in the cave....in the heart of the beast!

This one is called Kermit the Frogs Castle.

You are warned not to touch anything except the hand rails. They don't want you to touch the formations because the oils from your hand will clog the pours of the rock and kill them. When a drop of water drips onto the rock, a mineral is deposited on to it and it grows a centemeter every 100 years.  However, there is one stalagmite that we were allowed to touch because it was already dead. 

There was a room called the ball room which was the largest of the rooms. The accoustics were really good in there and the tour guide asked if anyone was in show choir or band. Jared said that he use to be and she invited him to sing. We ended up singing Lean on Me and got the whole group to join in. It was pretty awesome!!

The end of the tour...sad....it was so cool!