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Sam Penrod reporting Timpanogos Cave, popular summer attraction in Utah. is about to close for the season.
The cave is a popular place for locals as well as people from all over the world. If you have hiked to Timpanogos cave in the last 62 years, there is a good chance that Arlo Shelley has been your guide. He's finishing up yet another season as one of the rangers at the cave.
Arlo Shelley, Ranger: "Use your imagination, you can see a lot of things in the cave, there's a St. Bernard dog."
Arlo Shelley loves to show off Timpanogos Cave. His love of the cave began 68 years ago.
Arlo Shelley, Ranger: "That was in 1938 and came with my fourth grade teacher on a field trip."
Six years later, there was a shortage of guides because of World War Two. Shelley, who was in high school, was approached about helping out.
Arlo Shelley, Ranger: "We'll pay you five dollars a day and I thought if they will pay me to have this much fun, you bet I'll be there."
So for the last 62 summers, with the exception of six years when Shelley was the principal at American Fork High School, he has been giving tours of the cave.
He's watched four different lighting systems come and go, and the building of the concrete walkway which started in 1948 and wasn't finished until 1984.
But changes to the cave itself are very slow.
Arlo Shelley, Ranger: "A good measurement in 1952, it was one and three quarters of an inch apart, today it's one and one half inches apart, it's taken 54 years to close a space 1/4th of an inch."
Today, people who Shelley guided through the cave as children, are coming back so he can lead their children, even grandchildren, on a tour.
Shelley says he hikes the mile and a half trail, which includes an elevation rise of more than one thousand feet, about 130- times every summer.
Arlo Shelley, Ranger "I hope I can continue for awhile yet, the trail seems to get a little longer and a little steeper as time goes by..."
Shelley plans to be back next year. He calls his job in the cave as the best possible summer job, because even on the hottest days, inside the cave, it's always about 45 degrees.
Timpanogos Cave is open until October 9th.
