New Exhibits at Lehman Caves Visitor Center

 

Lehman Caves Visitor Center has some new exhibits! The theme is Discover the Dark, and part of it is about Lehman Caves and part is about the dark night skies. Park staff have been working with contractors for the past two years to make this exhibit come to fruition. Funding came from the Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act (SNPLMA).

The exhibits opened February 15, 2020, and I took the family (and a friend) up the next day to see their reactions. The kids immediately stopped for a long time at the cave map, asking if they could touch the 3d model (yes!, but gently).

The girls then saw the flashlights and grabbed them. Then they got distracted by the microscope.

The reason for the flashlights is to Enter the Dark (Ingrese a la Oscuridad---all the signs are in English and Spanish). 


On the other side of the curtains there is minimal lighting, and you can use the flashlights to find cave creatures.

If you listen carefully, you can hear bats squeaking. Take a look up to see some simulated ones!

The tunnel isn't long, but it's fun.

On the other is the mini-laboratory (with my friend Kristin's awesome art of cave critters). The exhibit isn't fully completed, so Desert Girl had fun looking at her fingers under the microscope.


I encouraged the kids to look at the giant cave creatures along another wall.


I don't think they read much, but they had fun touching! The cave creatures are nice and low for kids to be able to reach easily.

 Another exhibit that invites touching is Protecting the Night Sky, which lets you flip a light switch to simulate how light pollution dims our view of the night skies.

And in Cave Conservation, you can touch half a stalagmite. It's already looking shiny after a few days of touching, compared to the protected part under the glass. Hopefully this will show folks how important it is not to touch in the cave! (p.s., That's a photo of some lint cleaning in the cave in the background!)

Over in the astronomy section is a giant planisphere to show you what's up in the sky on certain dates at certain times. 

There's also a guessing game related to animals that are out at night. Mainly the kids just wanted to swirl the circles, though.

Desert Boy kept going back to the 3d model of the cave. He really liked that. (None of them read "How Did Lehman Caves Form?", which is in the background and really fascinating.)

I love that there's a big cave shield prominently displayed. Lehman Caves has so many cave shields! They are currently being counted.  Most are attached to the wall or ceiling, but there are a notable number that rise from the floor.

The Western National Parks Association (WNPA) bookstore has also been redone and looks so good.

The visitor center isn't very big, but there's a lot of cool info there now about the cave and dark skies. Hopefully everyone can learn something new and get a taste of what the cave environment is like! Plus there's more to see that I didn't show (don't want to give it all away!).

The Lehman Caves Visitor Center is open every day, from 8 am to at least 4 pm. Check the Great Basin National Park website for more details. Also, if you'd like to go on a cave tour, it's best to book ahead, as the tours were sold out for President's Day weekend. If you come on weekdays during the winter, the tours are much smaller, and you get some specialized info. Have fun Discovering the Dark!

2020 Lint Camp

Every winter, deep in Lehman Caves, a group of volunteers gathers to clean lint. What?? Yep, the lint that falls off our clothes, hair, and other gunk gets left behind in the cave. With each person going through the cave leaving about a belly-button full of lint behind, and 33,000 people going through the cave, that's a lot of lint!

Fortunately a dedicated cadre of volunteers steps up to the task of removing that lint. The main tool is a paintbrush or toothbrush and patience.

When lint gets into little cracks and popcorn, tweezers become the tool of choice.

When possible, it's good to start high and then move lower.

Although people walk on the trail, the lightweight lint drifts higher, and removing it from those high spots can be quite a challenge.

It's not all work. Sometimes we have to take a break and see if we can squeeze through a concrete block!

The cleaning also involved getting dust and debris out of the entrance and exit tunnels and near the cave doors. Ideally maintenance will do this weekly throughout the year.

Folks came from five states to attend lint camp. Great Basin National Park provides housing, oversight, and the tools. The volunteers provide dedication and time.

Another reward can be seeing cool cave creatures, like this Lehman Cave pseudoscorpion (Microcreagris grandis Muchmore).


In addition to lint, the volunteers on the second and/or third day can also help restore natural cave floor. This is slow work, pulling out old trail debris from popcorn and rimstone dams, but it's also quite rewarding.

This year we had some strong black lights brought in. Can you see the blue and white lint on this popcorn?

Here are some rocks along the side of the trail. Under normal light you can't see much on them, but the black light shows another story.

After lots of hard work, participants are treated to a trip through the Talus Room, an off-trail section of Lehman Cave.

And it's always fun to get a group photo!

Thanks to the many wonderful volunteers who helped with this year's lint camps!

Small Party Assisted Rescue (SPAR) class in Nevada

I teach cave rescue courses for the National Cave Rescue Commission (NCRC), and one of my favorites is the Small Party Assisted Rescue class. The idea behind this class is that if someone in your caving group gets hurt or sick on the cave trip and doesn't need a litter carry out, your group gets the person out with the gear they have.

The class is often structured for three or four days. I've helped teach them in many states and even Canada over the past few years. Recently we held one in Baker, Nevada. After the morning in the classroom, we headed to our rope gym. Students were split up into small groups and rotated to several stations.

Traveling haul is a fantastic small party rescue technique, because you don't need any extra rope. With two small pulleys (you could use carabiners, but lose a lot of efficiency), you make a 2:1 haul system that moves up the rope. When you put the redirected rope into your Croll and sit down, you have great pulling force. Plus the patient can help (if not too injured).

Here's Dr. Tom waiting to get lifted up and over the table at the releasable redirect station. This is a fun technique that allows you to move someone not only vertically, but also a bit horizontally.

Tom was helping rig, but the main reason I had to include this photo is how often do you get to do ropework with a nearby disco ball??

The balcony provided a great place to practice convert to lower. The idea is that a patient (or a couple jugs of foam) are stuck on rope, and the rope is hard tied at the top. With some extra rope or webbing, how can you lower them quickly to the bottom? (Hint: Munter hitches are a great tool here)

Another station is the diminishing loop counterweight, where a rope goes through a pulley, and the rescuer is on one side and the patient on the other, and they are tethered together. As the rescuer climbs, the patient also goes up. You just have to figure out what to do when you get to the pulley! (That comes in day 2.)

The infamous Voodoo, a way to tension the rope. We used it for the guided rappel.

All this work made us hungry! A catered dinner from Salt & Sucre really hit the spot. Yum!

Then it was back to work with demonstrations and practice time.

Day 2 was all about the cliffs. I was so busy with teaching I hardly got any photos. Here's a multi-pitch way up the cliffs. Students learned how to rappel a patient through rebelays, as well as several other rescue techniques.

After another delicious catered dinner, it was time for a little whiteboard exercise of how to choose which method to use under which circumstances.

The final day was scenario day, where students go caving with instructors in small groups. Somehow an instructor in each group manages to have a problem, which must be solved. They all did great!

Thank you to all the instructors who came and shared their knowledge and to all the students willing to take time to learn something that may help them out some day.

Fantastic 2019 Nevada SPAR class

If you're interested in cave rescue, you can see upcoming classes at the NCRC website.

Hint: there's another cave rescue class (not as technical) coming up in Baker, NV soon, but only has a few spots left!

White Pine Public Museum - Home of the Cave Bear

White Pine Public Museum in Ely is home of the cave bear. This cave bear is quite impressive, it's a short-faced cave bear, Arctodus simus.

A replica, based on a skeleton found in a cave in White Pine County, is on display in the museum. They recently redid its exhibit area, and the mural painted behind the bear is amazing. This huge bear skeleton is from the female. I learned recently at a lecture by paleontologist Blaine Schubert that only female short-faced cave bears have been found in caves, presumably because they were using them as dens. The much larger males have been found outside caves. Arctodus simus has been found all over North America. It went extinct about 11,000 years ago.

The White Pine Public Museum held a special event with Dennis Hone, one of the discoverers of the Short-faced cave bear from Labor of Love Cave. It was so interesting hearing from him about how the cave was found and what they did once they realized there were a lot of bones in it. I had the opportunity to go caving this past summer with the lead paleontologist, and he's still making cool discoveries in caves in eastern Nevada! Caves are such great time capsules, preserving all sorts of things for thousands and even millions of years.

With the new display, you can get up close and see just how big some of those bones are.

The museum celebrates the cave bear with t-shirts and glasses.

 

Afterwards there were lots of questions. 

And the kids measured themselves against a cave bear standing upright!

The White Pine Public Museum has lots of other cool exhibits, too, and is definitely worth a visit!

To learn more about Cave Bears, check out the wikipedia page, this National Geographic video, and this great page about cave paleontology.