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| Spotlights illuminate some of the beautiful formations inside Minnetonka Cave. |
In the Cache Forest of southeastern Idaho lies a wonderful, unique experience I believe not many are familiar with, but should be. This experience is the tour through Minnetonka Cave. Being the largest cave in Idaho, it is not so much the formations that are spectacular, but rather the depth. In fact, the cave is so vast, my Dad said "this place makes Timpanogos look like a mousehole".
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| Heading up the steep stairs on the way back. |
You must enter the cave as part of a scheduled tour guide that runs every half hour; you cannot enter alone. The tour itself is approximately an hour and a half. It is a fairly strenuous journey; there are about 444 steps heading in the cave, and 444 going out. This makes for a grand total of 888 steps. A portion of the return journey requires a climb up 72 very steep stairs.
You will probably want to bring a jacket and some long pants - the temperature in the cave is a chilly 40˚ F. I remember very well the sheer chill of entering from an outside temperature of 85˚ F.
As we toured the cave, our tour guide, Heather, pointed out the many formations and chambers showcased with bright and colorful spotlights. I really liked how most of the formations were cleverly nicknamed - "Miss Piggy's Tail" and "Kermit's Castle" to name two. One I found particularly clever was "T-Bone Steak", named due to the red iron color. Another clever formation was the "Bride and Groom", the name of the stalagmite and stalactite (pictured below). The "Bride" and "Groom" got their name because they will eventually meet... well, in a few thousand years at least.
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| The Bride and Groom. |
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| The T-Bone Steak. |
We finally arrived at the deepest point of the cave, and Heather told us she would shut the lights off. This was the moment to truly experience pitch-black darkness in its actual form. The darkness is so extreme that, over time, you could go completely blind if you could not find light. To spice things up, she allowed us to make our way back to one of the chambers we visited earlier in the pitch black darkness, using only the nearby rail to guide us through. It was a bit scary for me, since I have a very slight fear of the dark, but it was fun at the same time.
We headed back up the steep stairs we first came down on our way through the cave, and at this point Heather did something she claimed most tour guides never do - sing a little opera to demonstrate the echo of the cave. It was quite the thrill to hear her song echo throughout the cave. As we headed back out the cave, we had a second chance to see the same fantastic formations on our way in.
Overall, this is a fantastic stop if you are headed towards Grand Teton National Park, Yellowstone National Park, or nearby Bear Lake. $7.00 is a very small price to pay for a truly, magical, one-of-a-kind experience. Tours run every day through June up until Labor Day (which is almost right around the corner!) You can find Minnetonka Cave only a few miles west of St. Charles, Idaho. There is a turnoff in the town that takes you to the cave and several campgrounds along the way. Larger towns nearby include Montpelier and Soda Springs, Idaho.
More pictures of Minnetonka Cave are available on my Flickr account for your viewing pleasure.
Some sites I found about the cave:
http://www.bearlake.org/cavexplore.html
http://www.fs.fed.us/r4/caribou-targhee/about/minnetonka_cave.shtml
Also a big thanks to Heather, our tour guide, for giving us an amazing tour, one I will never forget!
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| Minnetonka Cave is located in southeastern Idaho, west of St. Charles. |
