Walk on the Wilder Side

This article was originally published in The Midden – Great Basin National Park: Vol. 18, No. 1, Summer 2018.

Lint cleaning in the Giant’s Ear area.

NPS Photo by G. Baker

By Peggy Horton, Park Volunteer

Looking for your next new adventure!? You will find it at Great Basin National Park. Specifically at Lehman Caves. Just imagine a cave adventure in a place that is dark, cool and quiet, very mysterious, and sparklingly beautiful! It is an adventure that is packed with discoveries. An adventure that you can share with friends and family.

I came to Great Basin National Park from the “Live Free or Die” state of New Hampshire. Eleanor Roosevelt had inspired me with her quote “Do the Thing You Think You Cannot Do.” I accepted a three-month volunteer position where I supported the Lehman Cave rangers who offer guided tours of fabulous cave rooms filled with geological wonders. Each room of the tour offers new sights and unique formations. As you walk the pathways, you travel back in time millions of years to the creation of the cave and its decorations. You will also hear stories of the history of the cave, stories of early visitors and their actions. And you will leave the blue skies and sunny weather above while you explore deep into the dark and quiet, an environment that is challenging to your senses. Each time I visit the caves I find something new, something more.

If you are taking the 90-minute tour, when you reach the Sunken Garden, look beyond the railing. You will see another rough pathway in the darkness, an opening, something else “out there.” Something beyond the guided tour. Something wilder. Luckily I was able to find out. I was very fortunate to have been invited to join an enthusiastic group of volunteers from all over the country; we were going to “Lint Camp” together. Lint Camp is a special opportunity to work with the Lehman Cave resource management staff to help restore the cave to its natural state. Some people “dust” debris from the formations, others scrape up dirt from old pathways, and still others treat algae that grows near the lights. But the prize at the end of the work day is a guided “off trail” tour of the Talus Room and the West Room! This experience is wilder, darker and more challenging, but it is those things exactly that bring the thrill.

Lint camp participants entering an off-trail area of the cave.

NPS Photo

The first thing you notice is the darkness, even though you have a headlamp and others are with you, the darkness invades corners, the ceiling and cracks. The pathway is gone and you have to scramble and climb over broken rock like mountain goats. You have the sense of entering into the unknown. The walls beside you are tall and feel limitless in the dark. Soon the guide explains that a 15-foot climb over large rocks is ahead.

As you pull and scramble, make sure to have a solid grip and steady footing. The helmet comes in very handy as low hanging rock abruptly appears. At the top of the climb you can hike up further to magnificent flowstone, covered in initials and writing from years past. Everyone creates their own story from the writings, a camaraderie of past and present.

You pass by the small opening of Gypsum Annex, but that’s an adventure for another day. As the group soldiers on, a large room, as long as football field, 80 feet tall, opens before you. The walls have a glow of rainbow color. And the formations begin to become more elaborate than what you have seen so far on this trip. Soda straw forests hang from the ceiling, each with a drop that looks like starlight in the headlamp light. Concrete and real, yet magical. So much to see and wonder at, that in what seems like no time, you are returning to the developed cave pathway. It feels like a coming home. Time to share the adventure with those above.

The Park Service is working on developing this experience into a more advanced caving trip. It is another way to get people excited about the beauty and wonder of the caves and hopefully inspire them to protect them as well.