Exploring Rat's Nest Cave with Canmore Cave Tours

What do you get the father / husband who has everything? That's the question I have every Father's Day when trying to decide what to gift my husband.

This year, I went with my usual go-to: the gift of a new experience. This is something I love to give to my husband, because he usually buys what he needs for himself and I also really am horrible at thinking of physical presents. But I can always give him a new experience! In the past, I've gifted Joey with dog-sled rides, helicopter rides over the mountains, hiking through frozen ice canyons, and soaking in grotto-style hot tubs. (Plus, I always get to tag along, so we both benefit from this! See what I did there?)

So for Father's Day 2018, the kids and I gave my husband a fantastic Father's Day gift of exploring Canmore, Alberta's 'Rat's Nest Cave' (with me) and then a day of fun and sun at Calaway Park (with the kids). You can watch the Calaway Park video here, but to hear about our amazing time spelunking in Rat's Nest Cave, read on!

Since children aged 10 and up are only allowed to tour the caves, we had to leave our littles in the hands of their cousins in Calgary, which absolutely made their entire day. They weren't even sad to see us leave! We drove from Calgary to Canmore in high spirits, knowing our kiddos were going to have a fabulous day. Thanks to Uncle Chris and Auntie Lindsay for helping us out!

Once in Canmore, we went straight to the Canmore Cave Tours office to make our 11:00 a.m. tour. We met our experienced and hilarious guide, Brent, and the other six members of our tour group. Everyone was friendly and we were all joking with each other quite quickly. We all had that same level of nervousness mixed with excitement, and were ready to get going!

Although the Rat's Nest Cave system is huge, we explored just the part inside the box.

Before we could leave for the caves, however, Brent spent about half an hour giving us some excellent and necessary information. He highlighted the geography of the area, and in particular the interior of the Rat's Nest Cave system, which is over 4 kilometres long, gave us some history of the area including the mining business that is still currently happening in the area, and some critical safety instructions.

Once we had all the information we needed at that point, Brent got us fitted for our overalls, gloves, and helmets, handed us out gear bags which contained our harnesses and carabiners, and provided us with an energy bar and bottle of water.

Getting fitted in our super flattering coveralls!

Stressing how important it was for us to all have extremely empty bowels, Brent ensured we all went to the washroom at least twice during our time at the head office. No one wants to be 200 meters underground, strapped to a harness inside bulky coveralls, needing to pee into an empty water bottle, which you then must carry with you out of the cave. No thank you!!! I made sure to hit the toilette several times before we left!!

Then it was off to the caves themselves. We drove as a convoy to the trailhead's parking lot, grabbed our gear bags, and started hiking up the hill. The cave entrance is located 1500 meters above sea level, up a fairly steep incline on a trail occasionally covered in scree, so this tour really is for people who are moderately active and physically fit. (This is not to say I'm in incredible shape, so you also don't have to be a bodybuilder to enjoy this tour!)

The view from our hike was stunning!

After hiking for 25 minutes, Brent had us don our helmets, as we were entering property owned by the mining company and we were required to take precautions. The entrance to Rat's Nest Cave is also on mining property, and the company does not stop operations simply because there are people exploring the cave system. For this reason, we'd had to sign a fairly lengthy waiver before embarking on our tour. (If you are nervous about this, I will say that our tour was extremely safe and uneventful. In case the idea of a waiver makes you anxious.)

Wearing our helmets through the mining area.

Within another 5 minutes, we were at the 'base camp' which was simply a tarped tent set up outside the gated entrance to the cave, 1500 meters above sea level. We put on the rest of our gear, with Brent giving us a safety lesson in harnesses, then hung our bags inside the tent.

Since we'd be squeezing through tunnels and doing a lot of climbing and sliding, Brent warned us to only bring the essentials with us into the cave. I left behind my snacks and water bottle, and chose to only bring my iPhone, which has a Lifeproof case on it making it virtually indestructible, and my GoPro, which I had strapped to my chest.

In our cave suits, with harnesses under the coveralls.

We took turns climbing the rope to access the front gate of Rat's Nest Cave. Once inside, we all clipped our carabiners to the safety rope, and Brent had us peek over the edge of the first drop in what is known as the Bonebed.

The stench inside the cave entrance is a little strong: it smells like acrid skunk. In fact, I was worried we were going to be sprayed by a lurking skunk, that's how strong the smell was. Brent explained to us that it was merely the smell of dried pack rat urine, and pointed out the bushy nests that lined the roof of the cave.

An actual rat's nest in Rat's Nest Cave.

The pack rats are what gave the cave the name 'Rat's Nest Cave'. They spray their nests with urine for a couple of reasons. The first is to help them scent their way home after leaving the nest to hunt for food and nest materials, but the second reason is more interesting. Their urine actually dries to form a thick shell on the nest, protecting the interior. The more the pack rats spray their nest, the thicker the shell becomes. Some nests are so effectively coated that they can last for tens of thousands of years!

So, long story short, the cave kind of smelled. But that was okay, because the nests were only in the front porch of the cave so to speak. After that, we did a combination of climbing on our butts and sliding down a 15 meter drop to access the first 'room' of our tour: the Bonebed.

Bones can be found everywhere in the Bonebed room.

Because the first room is such a drop down from the entrance, it isn't only humans that could fall over that 15 meter drop. Many animals over time have plunged down into the first room, become injured and died inside the cave. Some bones are left there by the pack rats and other animals that may have lived in the cave. And some bones are even remnants of First Nations groups who either made sacrifices or disposed of bones using the drop into the Bonebed room like a garbage chute.

Brent showed us a collection of bones that were deposited down in the Bonebed. Some displayed gnawed chew marks: bones left by the pack rats. Some were broken in a jagged fracture along the centre of the bone: animals who had fallen into the Bonebed and broken legs. Some bones were broken in a "U" shaped pattern and the bone marrow had obviously been scraped out until the bone was hollow: evidence of First Nations use. It was very cool how the bones told the story of their origin.

The hole in the floor leading to the next room, known as "The Box".

Sunk into the floor of the Bonebed room was a hexagonal-shaped hole. This was the access point into the next room of Rat's Nest Cave, and Brent informed us that the narrow passageway was dubbed "The Box". It was a man-made hole created by one of the first avid explorers of the cave, who had actually dug the Box out from below with a friend. They took turns digging each other out of the rubble that would sporadically bury them alive while creating the Box. Now that's hardcore caving!

The Box was indeed narrow and a little claustrophobic, with a wooden ladder built into the rock leading into the darkness below. At the bottom was a nearly 90 degree turn that you had to manoeuvre your body into, and the rest of the way out of the passage was navigated by scooting along on your bum.

I was the first of our tour group to enter and exit the Box. Emerging from the Box's tunnel, I was met with sheer darkness except for the beam from my headlamp. It was pitch-black down below in Rat's Nest Cave, but everywhere your headlamp beam shone, something beautiful and interesting was revealed.

Sitting in the dark, looking at the sights of Rat's Nest Cave

We saw a lot of moonmilk, a white, sparkling substance left on the rocks by small bacteria eating the minerals that are part of the limestone cave walls and leaving the milky deposit behind.

We saw soda straws, which are tiny stalactites hanging from the cave roof. They take 100 years to form 1 centimetre. It was amazing how old some of those teeny tiny soda straws would have been.

We saw what Brent dubbed as 'nubs'. They were fat, relatively flat, very smooth stalagmites on the cave floor consisting of solid calcium carbonate. (Their official term is calthemite stalagmites.) They look like they are made of ice, and you'd expect them to begin melting under your touch, but they are hard and rocklike instead. They are really cool!

Soda straws hanging from the ceiling of Rat's Nest Cave.

After checking out the first of our cave formations, Brent introduced us to the "Squeeze". It is what it sounds like: a narrow portion of the cave passageway where you must squeeze your body through.

This first squeeze was not tight at all, but it was a small space and a perfect place to practice squeezing for the first time. You basically had to dive-bomb downwards into the space, either head first (Bren't preferred method) or feet first (my preferred method because I was pretty nervous to perform a squeeze). Once inside the small space, you had to angle your body upwards and crawl out another hole that enabled you to exit the squeeze.

I did the first squeeze no problem. It really helped to squelch the anxiety I had been feeling about crawling through the cave's tight spaces.

I hope Joey liked his Father's Day present!

The second squeeze was an elevated squeeze. You had to enter a narrow space, find your footing, then belly flop your body onto a waist-high ledge with a very low roof. Once you had made it up on to the ledge with your belly, you had to remain flat because of the roof. The only way to exit was to slide your body so you were lying flat on the ledge, which boxed you in like a coffin, then James Bond roll your way out of the space.

Because I'm short, I had to really leap up onto that ledge - thank goodness for the helmet because I struck my head while doing that. But beyond that, the second squeeze was a lot of fun. I really liked the James Bond roll out to the other side.

We then entered the Grand Gallery, which was the largest room we visited during our tour. This room can fit three semi trucks from end to end inside its walls, and one semi can stand vertically before hitting the roof. It was hard to see the immensity of the room because nine headlamps can only provide so much light. The room, being huge, was darker than dark, and only if multiple people focused their headlamps in the same direction could we see anything significant.

At the far end of the Grand Gallery was the third and final squeeze of the day. I did not do this one, because it looked simply terrifying. Joey tried it though, much to my admiration. This tunnel was only big enough for your body, so you had to tuck your arms into your sides and army crawl on your belly and elbows to slide through. Sorry, but that's not for me!!

Joey inside the third, tight squeeze. No thank you!

Noting the tight squeeze and the possibility of being trapped, we began to discuss a current event that was happening at the time - the young Thai soccer team stranded in a monsoon-flooded cave in Thailand. Brent gave us some interesting tidbits about cave rescues.

Fact One: If you are trapped long enough inside a pitch-black cave, you begin to hallucinate because your eyes and brain need to feel they can see something. Many times, people will hallucinate that they are actually outside the cave, walking around in open air. Crazy what your brain will trick you into thinking!

Fact Two: For every hour that you enter a cave, you will require ten hours of rescue time if you get hurt or stuck. So always be aware of your surroundings, don't attempt feats that are beyond your abilities, don't get too cocky and try too difficult of a squeeze or go into unknown territory without safety measures, and never cave alone!

(Side note: All of the boys and their coach were eventually successfully rescued, although one very brave and noble Navy Seal passed away during the rescue efforts. RIP to the heroic Saman Gunan.)

We had such a wonderful time exploring Rat's Nest Cave.

Past the Grand Gallery was my favourite room on the tour: the Grotto, at a depth of 256 meters below ground. This room was very damp and led to a pool of water at the far end. Had we been more experienced and enthusiastic cavers, as well as certified scuba divers, we could have continued the cave tour to a whole other segment of Rat's Nest Cave, as long as we plunged into that pool of water and scuba dived through underwater tunnels. (Also, probably not for me!)

But because of the Grotto's dampness, there were other amazing things to see. The constant trickle of water was continually leaving behind mineral deposits, forming some beautiful flowstone, draperies, soda straws, and stalagmites. Everywhere you looked in the Grotto, there was an amazing formation to be seen.

There were some amazing flowstones and draperies in the Grotto.

At this point in the tour, in the lowest spot we could go beneath the surface of the Earth, we all turned off our headlamps and closed our mouths. The darkness was absolute, and the quiet was only interrupted by the drip, drip, drip of cave water. It was a magical moment.

Then the silence was broken by someone making an inappropriate joke, and we all erupted into laughter and clicked our headlamps back on. Before we knew it, it was time to turn around and return to the cave entrance along the same path we had taken to arrive.

Going back to the entrance was a bit more work as our route was predominantly uphill. At many points I found myself crawling on hands and knees to scrabble up the rocks. The worst part was going up the initial 15 meter drop we had scaled to enter the cave at the beginning. The rock there was steep, smooth as glass, and more slippery than oil.

We made it out! A fun couples adventure indeed!

I hauled my body up using mainly my arms, with my toes scrabbling for purchase on the slippery slope. At one point I launched myself up to a wee ledge, trying to get some balance, and smoked my head SUPER hard on the roof. Had I not been wearing that helmet I probably would have dented my skull!

We finally emerged into the sunlight, panting, but so excited by what we had just seen and experienced. During the hike back, we compared notes, chatted about the formations, and just marvelled at how amazing Rat's Nest Cave was.

I would highly, highly recommend Canmore Cave Tours if you want to try your hand at cave exploration. Brent was an energetic, knowledgeable and personable guide with a great sense of humour, but he was always making sure we were safe, and feeling stable both mentally and physically. Not once did I feel scared or panicked. So thank you Brent!

To really get a feel of what it is like to go spelunking in Rat's Nest Cave, watch the video!