The rain stopped and left behind some very chilly weather; woke up to 36°. Months ago, I booked a cavern tour for 10:30 am. It will be 50° in the cave, making it warmer in the cavern than outside. We put on every longsleeve shirt and sweatshirt that we brought and made our way up another thousand feet to the Lewis and Clark Cavern’s entrance. Actually, Lewis, Clark nor Sacajawea knew that this network of caves were even here; the explorers just camped nearby. They were discovered by two local ranchers in 1892 and were developed for tourism by CCC workers in the 1930s. We hiked the 1/2 mile on the side of Boulder Mountain to the cave opening. Once inside we walked another 500 feet in a very narrow tunnel that opens to the first “room”. There is 4 miles of passageways and rooms filled with stalagmites, stalactites, flower stone, and “popcorn”. We only saw a small portion of this underground wonderland. Our final destination and the most outstanding room in the system was the “Paradise Room” with its vast amount of formations. Because of the minerals and chemicals, these grow one inch every decade which is much faster than the rest of the cave’s formations which only “grow” one inch every hundred years. Then it was back through the long tunnel and a 1/2 mile to the parking lot. The views from the trail and road were breathtaking. There was snow on top of the mountains that weren’t actually much higher than our elevation. Just enjoyed the sun, mountain views and our neighbor’s company for the rest of the day. It got up to a toasty 56° then the rain came again dropping temperatures, eventually going down to 34° tonight. Tomorrow we stay at a brewery in Missoula, MT.
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