Spelunking

Today we headed up to Mt. St.Helens to do some hiking and spelunking...cave exploring! Molly has been super interested in rocks and minerals this summer and has been begging to go in a cave. Neither of us had been to the Ape Caves in probably 20 years so we decided to make a day of it. We have also been anxious to get Axel out on a fun hike...we are just LOVING this little guy. He is up for any adventure and we get so much joy having him with us! When we got to the trail head we discovered that dogs are not allowed in the caves. We were feeling sad and unsure about what to do. The ranger saw Axel from across the way and came over for a pet. (This guy attracts a lot of attention!) The ranger said she loves pugs. I jokingly asked if she wanted to babysit him while we went in the cave. She said she would love to!!! Apparently they dog sit. Who knew? Ax had a great time in the interpretive center with the rangers and got LOTS of treats while we spelunked. The cave was super dark, super cold and super fun. The girls were go-getters and never even thought of being scared...they were too busy looking for rubies and diamonds! We made it all the way to the end of the lower cave...but only Mark and Molly were brave enough to crawl into the narrow part of the cave to actually reach the VERY end of the cave. FREAKY! I was not about to crawl on my belly in the pitch black. Although I was equally scared watching them crawl away while Lucy and I were left standing there...alone almost a mile into the cave. It took us an hour to get into the cave...but Lucy and I were outta there in nearly 25 minutes!!

Because Axel missed out of the hike, we took him on a sniffing adventure at another turn out just down from the caves. He was in dog heaven! Smells, lots of bushes to mark, new sights to see. He was also very dirty...more on that in the next post.