2015 Summer Roadtrip: Day 42—Saturday—7/25: Banff, Caving with Canmore Caves Adventure, awesome caving, slithering, sliding, scrambling, mtn bike ride to see elk (all 4 of us), town for dinner at Banff Brewery Co.

Today was another adventure day, caving through a really fun, narrow, dark cave system outside of Banff. We were suited up with a coverall, harness, knee pads, and helmets with lights. Then we climbed about 30 minutes up a steep hill to the entrance of the cave. Once inside, Sarah and Ryan wanted to lead. Our awesome guide, Diana, first clipped onto a rope, and then slid down about 12 feet to a blind curve where she then turned the corner and slid down another 15 feet and out of sight. We couldn’t see her but she called for Sarah to slide next. Without hesitation, Sarah clipped onto the rope and off she went around the corner and out of sight. She yelled “Free” indicating she had unclipped and the rope was clear for the next person. Ryan clipped in and off he went too, disappearing around the corner and into darkness. It was great to see the children loving the adventure. I went next, followed by Andrea and then Denise. There were animal bones in the cave that captivated Sarah’s imagination. At one of the narrow passages, our guide called for Sarah to crawl/climb head first down a tight hole into the darkness. Andrea and I thought she was kidding. But Sarah simply said “OK” and down she went crawling disappearing around another corner. She was great leading the pack. Then Ryan went, followed by the rest of us. We crawled, climbed, scrambled, shimmied, and slithered for 2.5 hours in the underground system. Some of the passageways could only be navigated by crawling and shimmying on your belly all laid out, inching slowly along. It was awesome. We loved it. After that, we drove back to the RV park and finally saw a small herd of elk in Banff about 1 mile away from our motorhome. So the 4 of us got on our mountain bikes and rode along a fun single track bike trail to get a closer look. We got fairly close to see 2 beautiful female elk with a baby. We went into Banff for dinner and walked around the cute town. We had a great adventurous day.