Kepler Track

March 11 to 13 was the Kepler track. Sixteen of the thirty five students signed up for the 60 kilometer hike. We hiked up hill the first day of the hike and stayed at a hut at an elevation of about 1200 meters. Near the hut was the summit of mount Luxmore and the Luxmore caves. After arriving at the hut we headed off to the caves to explore...they were so cool. You could never go caves like this in the States without a guide, but they were just open for exploration. There were beautiful stalactites and stalagmites, and we were able to explore any of the side shoots and caverns of the caves. Some of the passages were in the cave were so small that we had to crawl and some members of our group couldn't fit. Darren and I continued pretty deep into the cave for over an hour until we saw the sign in the picture below which reads "To prevent degradation of this fragile passage please remove overalls and wash boots before entering."After our caving adventure we returned to the hut for the evening and saw the most beautiful night sky we've ever seen. The stars were so bright and there were so many of them. We could have stayed out there all night if it wasn't for the freezing temperatures. In fact the next morning it snowed for the first couple hours of our hike. We hiked to mountain summits and along the saddle with the views looking down in the South Fiord. The views were spectacular.
After descending again to non-freezing elevations we camped in our tents near this waterfall. The third day of the hike was the longest - about 24 kilometers, but it was mostly flat land through forests.