Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996 05:50:07 MST Subject: The Saga of a Steel Magnolia in Utah

Hi All,

The weather here is still great. Hot and dry with the sky clear and blue all day long.

We went to the Timpanogos Cave National Monument on Sunday. It's located south of Salt Lake City in the mountains and about an hour from my apartment. The drive up the canyon isn't too bad and the visitors center is standard Park Service issue. Nice, but not fancy. The visitors center sits at an elevation of 5638. You have a 1-1/2 mile walk to the cave entrance through some spectacular country. The brochure defines the walk as strenuous and should take 45 minutes to an hour. Well...the first mile is strenuous. The last half mile is brutal. The cave entrance sits at 6730 feet and the 1,065 feet that you have to climb really gets tough at the one mile mark. We were scheduled for the 9:30AM tour and managed to get there by 8AM cause we were late puppies and didn't leave when we should have. The trail you are walking along is a paved trail that is wide enough for two adults to walk side by side. Now, as in most parks, there are no hand-rails to keep you from going over the edge of this often narrow trail and there are sections marked as extremely dangerous due to rock slides. The view is worth the pain at this point. You reach the last section of trail by a series of switch-backs, 30-50 feet kinda straight (but not always) and then a switch-back with a gain of 10-15 feet with each turn. It takes a lot of these turns to get to the cave entrance and the first mile has two mini-tunnels to go through. By the way, there's no water so you have to carry it with you and if you don't...you won't make it. The trail is mostly in shade right now, but later it's in full sun and bake your brains hot. Okay, we're at the entrance. View still great. The ranger leads the group (20 max.) into the cave. It looked like a cave, smelled like a cave, and was cold like a cave. We knew that we were in the right place. I also checked the earthquake maps before leaving home which contributed to our being late, Salt Lake had a 2.0+ shaker last night. No problem...right? Now this cave straddles the Wasatch Fault. The Wasatch Fault is very active, are we worried? Naw. The tour isn't terribly long, you walk about another windy twisty 1/2 mile through the 3 main chambers. Since this is an active fault, there is water seeping through the cave every where and the formations are really neat. It took a little over an hour to reach the other end and exit into the hot sunshine. Now what? Well, the long walk down with a good case of noodle-knees. We stopped at every bench, and some places that didn't have them. There were two small rock slides while we were on the trail. You just keep walking and it's no problem. It's noon by now. We had a picnic across from the visitors center in a nice grove and listened to the water in the creek. Yes, I had chocolate in the picnic basket. You can't eat fresh strawberries without Mexican chocolate. After all, it's energy food. Right? Katherine wanted to wade in the water, she changed her mind when she put her hand in it and it and her fingers turned blue. The creek is glacier fed, mom was smart and knew how cold it would be. Well, onward. We drove out beyond the park into the back country. There are some creeks beside the road that scream, "WADE IN ME!" Wide creeks over gravel with moderate water flow, just perfect for wading. Well, Katherine wanted to wade so we stopped. She was in the water maybe 30 seconds. Not mom. Actually, I would have tried it but I busted my foot yesterday and didn't want to risk possible infection from all the dirty worms that were being thrown into the creek by people trying to catch fish. It's amazing what you can do with duck tape, a couple of butterfly bandages and you don't even need stitches. Ya walk funny, but so what? At least I didn't actually/really break anything this time. Okay, enough of that. The road is windy, twisty and a lane and a half wide all the way up the mountain. When we met another car/truck (RV's prohibited cause of the sharp turns), every one had to put a tire off the pavement or trade paint. Now, the truck has these mirrors that stick way out from the side and they made funny whoppity whop sounds when we went through the weeds along the road. It woke Katherine. Did I mention that she fell asleep? You know how kids are. You run them up and down a mountain, feed them, put them in a car and they nod right off. Presto! Up...up...up we went. Through the aspen groves, by the glacier fields and down the other side. The scenery is great. Did I mention that?

The next leg of our drive took us up through Park City. (Park City: aka mega tourist trap) There aren't any trees up here. I think they cut them all down to have more room to ski. Oh well, we came back over the mountains on I-80 through Parley's Canyon. Last week we drove Immigration Canyon into Salt Lake City before heading north to Layton. Home again by early evening.

Next weekend we are planning to go to Antelope Island. It sits in the middle of the Great Salt Lake. In a few weeks, we might try to climb to the top of Mt. Timpanogos. I understand that it's a good day hike and you can go onto the glacier fields.

See ya then.

Jan Noble, steel_magnolia@mindspring.com

OH!!! I almost forgot! We are collecting rock hammers, chisels, sledgehammers, and stuff to take to Topaz Mountain. Topaz Mountain has it's own web page so look it up. Sounds like a neat place to go. I'll find out!

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If you would like to trade stories, email me at steel_magnolia@mindspring.com

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