Ape Caves

The last weekend of September we had a small high adventure activity with our ward's young women. This is something that we have thought about and planned for a couple of months now and it was fun to see it happen. We only had 4 young women go but it was worth it to those that came and it was such a cool experience. The summer was just too busy with other activities so that is why we planned this overnight activity for September. Because it was during the school year, we just had one night. I took Paige out of school after lunch and we went down early to get camp set up. I rented a cabin for my family and it was so fun to be able to take my whole family with me. We stayed at Cougar RV Park & Campground. 

Our little cabin for the night. It was nice to have our own little space especially with the baby. It had 2 bunks beds and one had a full sized bed and there was enough space for the porta crib for McCall. It was a very nice cabin and it was super nice to have heat during the cool night.

There was a burn ban which was a little disappointing but our cabin had a firepit and a picnic table with it so I brought a dinner that we enjoyed right outside our cabin. Then Nate and I worked on setting up the tents for the young women and other leaders that were coming since they wouldn't be arriving until late. Since they couldn't leave until about 5 because of afterschool activities, they didn't arrive until about 8:30. I had brought some treats and we were going to have an evening devotional around the fire but since there was no fire and by the time we got everything set up and chatted for a bit and a long week of school, the girls were ready to go to bed and everyone was pretty much in bed by 10 pm. 

It was a pretty relaxing morning since we didn't have to check out until 11. We had breakfast, did the devotional that I was going to do the night before, we packed our lunches, and cleaned up.

We then drove up to the ape caves and ate our lunches first.

And did a little team building activity before going into the caves.

Then it was time for exploring the caves. They are lava tubes and we ended up climbing over 27 big rock piles in pitch black and had to even climb up a 5 foot wall. It was so cool literally and figuratively. I would totally go again. Nate kept McCall and Baylor and did some of their own exploring while Paige and I went with everyone else through the whole thing.

We all had headlamps and some of us had small flashlights too. At one point we were led the wrong way and ended up on our bellies but soon realized it was a dead end. We did end up splitting up into two groups which worked well for our circumstances.

These girls are pretty amazing and so fun to be with!

Paige was my exploring buddy and it was a really fun thing to experience with her and makes her even more excited to be in young women's.

There was this opening that was towards the end that was pretty cool to see. Then there was a ladder that you had to climb up to get out of the cave. It was pretty crazy to feel the temperature difference as you climbed up. 

Our view as we hiked back to the parking lot.

It was a quick trip but so worth it and it was such a fun way to spend the weekend. I would love to go back again once McCall is a little bigger. I'm grateful for my calling with the young women and the experiences that we get to have together. They are pretty amazing and help me realize that teenagers aren't so bad and can be pretty fun. I'm also grateful that my little family got to experience this with me and how supportive they are.