Timpanogos Caves

My family and I went up American Fork Canyon and hiked up the big Mount Timpanogos today to tour the caves. It took us just under an hour to get to the top (they allow 1 1/2 hours) and about 45 minutes through the caves. It was just us and the tour guide so we had a pretty personalized tour and got to probably spend more time than normal looking at things. Did you know that any pool of water found in a cave is called a "lake"? I didn't know that! We saw 2 lakes in the caves and there was another bigger one that we couldn't get to or see, that she told us about.

The stalactites (from the ceiling of the cave) and the stalagmites (from the floor up) are pretty cool and have taken thousands of years to form. I think cavers must always be thinking about food because formations in the caves are often called food names: cave bacon, cave popcorn, and they had one area that looked like (and they call it) vanilla ice cream with caramel topping. Pretty amazing!
My littlest girls were kind of afraid to go in, but 1/2 way through thought it was pretty exciting. There is a story about how one of the caves was found by the guy (Hansen) following mountain lion tracks that went into the cave....I think this is partly what scared them. They did not want to run into any mountain lions!