Penn Vacation - Penn's Cave

William and I have been to a few caves. They are always fascinating, but it's hard to get excited over the next one when you have already been to several. When I found out that Penn's Cave was only tourable by boat, I got way excited because we had yet to a cave in that fashion.

The cave is down this long flight of steps, and stays really cold all year long. The water is so cold in fact the no fish actually live inside the cave...plenty at the mouth, but none inside. Here is a ceiling shot.

This is the inside of the next picture.

At one point all the lights were turned off and so we were left in complete darkness. I tell you, there is nothing quite so dark as a cave with no lights. Then they presented this pretty light show.

This is out the other side of the cave. Can you see the blue of the water? It was pretty cool because you could look down in the water of the lake we were turning around in and it was full of plant life, and then you see this line of teal/blue leading to the cave that is void of plant life and really stands out against the murky brown of the rest of the lake.

As we were turning around to have another go through the cave (only backwords)we got a glimpse of the neighboring wild life refugee. Since leaving Idaho, we don't see too many elk these days.

The heart of the cave. Can you see it?

The end it near! The cave was so smoky because of the difference in temperatures between the outside of the cave and the inside of the cave.

I would say this cave is worth touring. We didn't do the wildlife exhibit, because let's face it, when you've been through the Yellowstone Bear World when bear can climb into the back of your truck, this just didn't seem that it would be up to par.