Underground Exploration

July 1, 2024 – Monday (Canada Day)

It was another rainy night in Canada.  So far it has rained every day we have been here.  And it was raining in the morning.  Today we had scheduled a tour with Canmore Cavern Tours.  Our tour was a 5-hour tour through Rat’s Nest Cave, a few miles outside of Canmore.  The entire adventure took 5 hours, but we were only in the cave for 3 hours.

Rat’s Nest Cave is what they call a wild cave.  There are no lights, paths, safety rails or stairs.  You must crawl, squeeze and belly through the openings.  The cave is close to how it was when it was discovered in the 1970s.  They estimate the cave to be 50 km long, but only 4 km have been mapped.  Our tour covers just ½ km close to the entrance.

We met out guide Jami at their office.  She is from the eastern part of Canada.  There was another couple from California that was part of our group.  They usually have 8 people per tour, but we were lucky to only have four.  At the office we collected our gear and then drove about 10 minutes to the cave parking area.  We had a steep 30-minute hike to the cave entrance, and it was raining pretty hard the entire time.  Fortunately we had our rain gear to keep us from getting too wet.

After 30 minutes of hiking we arrived at the cave entrance and put on all our gear; warm clothes (the cave is 40 deg), knee pads, climbing harness, waterproof gloves, red overalls and a helmet.  

The first challenge was climbing up the wet rock to the cave entrance and we all made it.  Once inside the cave there was a lot of climbing up and down slick rock walls, slithering on our bellies through tight chambers and even sliding on our butts down smooth rockslides.  We only had ½ kilometer (about 1/3 of a mile) to go and that took us 3 hours.  We were in a room that is called the Grotto and we turned off our headlamps and sat in the dark for 5 minutes.  The Grotto had 2 pools of water and a lot of water flowing through the rocks.  It was interesting to just sit and listening to the sounds of water dripping.

The climb out was a little faster as we were all used to the equipment and how to move through the cave.  The hardest part was climbing up the slick rockslide just below the entrance.  Eva struggled a little, but she made it to the top.

When we entered the cave it was cold, raining and we were hiking in the clouds.  When we exited, the sun was shining, and it was nice and warm.  The hike back to the van was very nice and we took a few pictures.  The adventure was a lot of fun, and we were happy we did it.

After the cave tour we drove back to Canmore to buy a few groceries and gas up the van.  We then continued up Hwy 1 into Banff National Park.  Because it was Canada Day and the park had free entrance, it was a very busy day in the park.  But it was late in the day by the time we arrived, so we didn’t have any issue at the entrance gate getting our park pass for the next 4 days.  We stopped at a lake near our campsite for a few minutes, but we were in our camp at Two Jack Campground by 6 pm.  It was a long and tiring day, so we will have a good sleep tonight.