Timpanogos caves

WARNING: This is NOT a hike for the fainthearted. No really. I've been in Utah for over 2 years, and I still had to hard time hiking up.

But it was SO WORTH IT.

My sisters, Vickie (past roommate) and I went to the Timpanogos Caves the Saturday before school started.

They (as in... the park rangers) gave us "plenty of time" (hour and a half) to hike from the base of the mountain to the caves. They lied. I think an hour and a half wouldn't be enough.

Okay, it was partly our fault. We arrived there late and as a result, only had an hour to hike up the 1.5 miles. We barely made it on time. As a result, we didn't have much time to admire the scenery although we still managed to take some cool pictures along the way, such as

The climb is really steep though, so I bet we would still have been tired out even if we had taken the full hour and a half.

The hard climb was worth every drop of sweat once we went into the caves however. Did I mention how freaking awesome it was? Who knew that Utah was so cool?! Wish I'd known about this earlier because we got to see loads of cool geological formations such as

Stalactites everywhere!
We also saw lots of stalagmites (the ones that "grow" from the ground)

The GIGANTIC HUMONGOUS stalactite I term "The Beast"
It's really named "The Heart of Timpanogos Caves"... for obvious reasons

Called "Slabs" as in "slabs of ice"
Not the most creative name but hey, it fits!

I learned also learned that caves also have other cool features such as "beacon strips." 

Click here for more pictures.