An Exhilerating Experience!

My friend Adam and I have been talking recently about doing something outdoors that will give us some exercise and help us to relax. What I'm about to share with you is not for everyone. If you are claustrophobic then this is probably something that you may never do. I still recommend everyone to try it though. It is called "spelunking."

I was telling Adam about the time I went a few years back and we are going to go within the next month. Spelunking is an activity also known as caving. It is where you crawl, climb, rappel and journey through tight crevices and tunnels deep into a mountain. We are very blessed to only live 2 1/2 hours away from the beautiful Rocky Mountains. We will be travelling to Canmore, Alberta to a place called Grotto Mountain to experience the Rat's Nest Caves.

The first time I went was with my Dad and it was awesome. We hiked for about 45 minutes up the mountain to get to the entrance of the cave system. From there we began our journey to the "Heart of the Mountain." The Heart of the Mountain, as our tour guide liked to call it, is a big rock that looks like a human heart located about 600 feet into the caves. It has been formed by thousands of years of dripping water wearing away the rock. As the water drips on it it looks as if the rock is pumping like a heart. It was a breathtaking site. Getting to this point is the hard part.

To reach our destination we had to venture through many tight spaces and sometimes we wouldn't even know which way was up. The cool part about it though was that you could crawl through an extremely tight tunnel going for 20-30 feet and then reach a rooms with 50-100 foot ceilings. These rooms within the caves contain hundreds of mineral formations, some over 300000 years old. We even got to do a 60 foot rappel into a black hole.

This is such an amazing experience and I'm really exciting to go again. For anyone who has ever been to the Canmore/Banff National Parks in the Rocky Mountains then you know how breathtaking the trip is, for those of you who haven't you must go. If you are interested in taking on the Rat's Nest Cave then i recommend checking out this website for more information. It WILL be an experience like no other.

Fun Idea for a little Bit of Exercise

Getting a bit of exercise and spending times with friends is always beneficial. It's nice to be able to get out the house and take part in activities that many people can play. Since I was in high school an activity my friends and I enjoy is to play hackey-sack.

If you are unfamiliar with a hackey-sack it is a small, round, sewn bag that is filled with anything from rice to beads to sand. It is meant to make contact with different parts of the body and to have a little bit of bounce to it. It can be played alone or with a large group. By moving around and bending yourself to hit the sack with different partsof your body, gives you a good cardiovascular workout as well as helps to allow the body to become more flexible.

There are many games that can be played while using a hackey-sack. One of my favorites is called elimination. The object of the game is to set a limit within the group and go around the circle. Everyone in the circle must hit the required number of "hacks" if they wish to continue playing and everyone that doesn't is eliminated. My friends and I had an intense round of this one night and got up to about 160 hits. This is a very tiring workout. Please comment if you have any good games that can be played.

Since most people work during the day, here is an idea if you want to get together and play at night. Find a school or business parking lot that leaves their lights on. You can play all night and can usually be as loud as you want because there usually aren't many houses around. This is a bonding time that my friends and I do quite often and recommend it to anyone.