Bone Cave

RD was asked to be a Scoutmaster for the 12-13 year olds in our ward, and immediately started to plan a camping trip to get one in during April. He wanted to take them to an awesome site, Bone cave, a cave up in a canyon. It'd been 8 years since he was last there, so on his day off between semesters we took a drive up to the canyon. Aubree was excited to go find a cave. We had some directions, and went up a trail, passing by rock climbers.

We'd been hiking for a bit and were pretty high, with just the rock face ahead of us, when RD decided it was too high, so we backtracked down. We drove and walked up and down the road, but couldn't find the cave. Aubree and I hung out by the river as RD scrambled around trying to find the right trail. We found a snow bank! Brrr!

After her hands were too cold to play in the snow, Aubree of course started to throw rocks in the river, and loved it, saying 'this is so fun!"

We eventually decided to go home and try again Monday with a gps. It was still a fun morning together, getting out into the mountains for a bit of a hike, and time together.
So Monday morning we headed out. Aubree was a bit annoyed going in the car again, but was a good sport, bringing her dolls along and taking care of them during the trip.

With the right coordinates and a gps we found the trail right away, hooray! There had been rain that night, and was misty still, so the rocks were dark and glistening.   Aubree insisted on walking instead of going in the backpack, so we let her hike herself. She wasn't quite prepared with the right footwear, but she was a total trooper.

She kept saying "I got this!" or "I got this all by myself", it was so adorable. It got steep quickly though, and RD kept a hand on hers most of the time. We had to climb and use roots to get up some places, and she wasn't deterred. There were 2 steps I got nervous, with a sheer drop down the mountain. I don't like heights. But we soon reached the cave, yeah!!!

There were a couple guys camping there, but they let us go in the cave. Aubree didn't really want to go in the dark clear back in the cave, but with some persuasion we all went in, it was so deep! Pretty cool place to camp.

 We made our way back down, and drove up to check out the reservoir.

Beautiful mountains, we love it! A few minutes after we got in the car it started to pour. Perfect timing :)