June 2020 Vernal visit

I don't remember why exactly we went to Vernal, but we had a great time.

It had started raining the night before, and so this day it was way colder and we were wildly unprepared as we had left on a 90 degree day, so we didn't think to pack for a wet, rainy 50 degree weather.  We borrowed some jackets and sweaters from grandma and grandpa that were too big for us, and Orrin actually was just wearing a bag from the van, which was funny and inadequate, but what could we do?

Brett took us to a cave.  This was the first one.

We were inching and inching our way down this extremely muddy slope to get down to the cave,

And then I just SLIPPED (flip flops = not ideal for for muddy hiking, just a little tip)  and slid on my bottom ALL the way to the bottom.  Oh my gosh, if we had had that on video somehow... we'd be rich because it was HILARIOUS.  Everyone just laughed and laughed at me.

And then they went the rocky way, instead of the muddy way.

Kind of a rainy, drenched beauty.

We all squeezed through this tiny little opening

into a big, black room.

Ghosty family!

Can you spy Hazel in this picture?

Climbing back up the rocky way.

Brett helping pull Ethne up.

Hahaa, good times.

Second cave.  (I love this picture.)

This is called 'the sack of potatoes carry.' :)

It was hard finding a way to get down to second cave.  We went one way, but when we looked down, we decided it was a little too treacherous for us with the mud.  So then Brett was ready to go back, but I started walking the other way, just to see if there wasn't some other way... and there was!

It was also slightly treacherous, but less so, and only for a moment.  And Brett helped us all as we went down the rope part, and there was another rope that we held onto (it was sooo slippery) more of the way.

And into the cave!

I was actually super disappointed because we've been to this cave before, and there used to be a gigantic ice column that was so impressive and amazing, but it was gone.  So sad!  Here it was back in 2013 when our family was a lot littler:

If you want to see more, you can click here: http://somethingsclever.blogspot.com/2013/08/cool-cave-and-big-rock-thingee.html

We went back farther and Brett and someone (Hazel? I can't remember who) went down into the lower part that you had to really duck and crawl to get to.  We waited for them.

And then the frightening part.  As we were all walking back towards the front to go out again, I started hearing something, and when it registered that it was water running, I was like, "Oh, there was no water running in here when we came in..." and then we got kind of spooked and we told everyone to get out quickly, and we had to carry some kids across the new creek that was running through the cave, and I carried Navy and I was actually totally shaking, which means you should not call me in the event of an emergency.  But Brett carried the other little kids and we all got out and there wasn't really any big danger or anything, but it did pump some adrenaline there for a minute.

It was such a fun and grand adventure.  Moral of the story-- if you are heading out on an adventure and it starts to rain, don't go home even if you're tempted to, because your adventure might become even more fun.

Then Wyatt went into the trees to go to the bathroom and found a geocache. 

Good view of Redfleet coming back.