A Little Hike in Cathedral Gorge State Park, Nevada

 On the way back from a family reunion, we stopped at Cathedral Gorge State Park to stretch our legs. This is one of my favorite places to stop on the drive along Highway 93 to/from Las Vegas. We parked at Miller Point and enjoyed a nice view of the gazebo.

A new trail map with lots of info is now available.

We took off down the stairs into the badlands.

Along the way are some gaping holes. You wouldn't want to fall in one of these, as getting out it would be very difficult.

The trail is so much fun to follow.

I have to admit, I took a lot of photos!

It had rained the night before (we had been planning to camp, but wussed out and got a motel room in Caliente so we didn't have to pitch a tent in the thunderstorm), and remnants of the water were present in the form of mud. We all took off our shoes and enjoyed walking barefoot.

Usually I turn around here, but we had some extra time, so we kept going and came across this sign about the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) and Cathedral Gorge State Park. They made several structures that still stand.

One is this covered picnic area.

Then we came up to more badlands, and narrow passages beckoned.

Desert Girl was so excited to lead the way and have choices.

We found a board high up one. We don't know what that's for.

Then we exited and checked out the old wellhouse.

Then it was time to visit more badlands.

The kids spotted a narrow crack and headed that way.

It was tight on them, so I didn't get too far!

Fortunately other passages were bigger. We had a fun game of hide-n-seek.

The walls have interesting textures depending on how the water flows down them.

On the way back we paused to watch some foxes play. They were such a neat sight!

To keep things interesting on the hike back, I told the kids that the person with the muddiest feet won. Here they are trying to get muddy.

It was a nice hike back up.

And winner of the muddiest feet? That would be Desert Boy. And that probably wasn't the greatest idea for a contest given that those muddy feet then had to get in the van and ride for another couple hours.

I am hoping to camp at Cathedral Gorge soon. They have a campground with hot showers and it would be so cool to see some of the badlands at night. To learn more (I've totally skipped geology, geography, and more in this post), check out Cathedral Gorge's website.

Talus Room Orientation Tour

 I had the opportunity to lead some of the new employees through the Talus Room, an off-trail area of Lehman Cave. I had just gotten some new flashes, so I took those along to play with them and start practicing.

First we went through the West Room, a long passage with some nice cave decorations along the way.

As we entered the Talus Room, we saw a nice group of soda straws and lots of helictites nearby. Most of the speleothems in the Talus Room are on the ends of the room, not in the middle.

The Rainbow Wall is a 60-foot tall wall of draperies stained various hues. It's even prettier than the photo shows.

The Talus Room was open to the public from 1961 to 1981, when some rock fall caused the National Park Service to close it off. It hasn't ever reopened, and in 2008 and 2009 the trail and electrical system was removed to restore it to wild cave status.

This area of the cave was known from the earliest days, with several historic signatures from 1885.

The room is longer than a football field, but definitely not as level.

Once we reached the other end, we started seeing more speleothems again, including some stalagmites with some holes in the top from secondary dissolution.

Then it was time to make our way over some more talus and down a climb to exit the room.

We followed the Royal Gorge back to the main cave trail in the Sunken Garden. Now the interpreters will be able to tell their tours what more of the cave looks like.

There will be some special trips to the Talus Room during the NSS Convention. It's also possible that in the future the park will offer wild cave trips to this section of the cave.

2016 Cave Rescue Training

 Every year Lehman Caves holds a rescue training so if someone gets hurt or becomes ill on a tour, park staff can safely get the person out of the cave. This year we also invited local agencies and had BLM and the county search and rescue attend. After about 45 minutes of lectures, we practiced moving someone in a litter. We didn't want to have it so easy, so one of the obstacles was to take the litter through the tree. The patient seemed happy at first.

He didn't seem quite so enthusiastic part way through!

Fortunately all was well...until a call came in that an interpreter had fallen and gotten hurt in the cave and needed help. It was time to have someone at the big radio and get folks into the cave.

With paved trails, it's pretty easy to get into the cave with rescue equipment.

But the patient was off trail! That made for some problem solving, which everyone did well.

Walking with a litter over uneven cave floor isn't so easy.

Everyone was glad when we got to the paved part and we could put the SKED into a Stokes with a wheel.

Entrance control made sure everyone got out of the cave.

And then everyone was smiles.

Until it came time for the eternal struggle--stuffing the SKED back into its bag! Ha.

It was a really good training, with a lot covered in just four hours. Some folks had never done any cave rescue training before, so they got a little taste of it. Others have done this training for many years, but we always have a different scenario and a different location in the cave so they have to figure out what to do. Fortunately, the skills don't get put to the test very often.

Rock the Park Followup

If you missed the Great Basin National Park episode of Rock the Park on ABC, it's now available on Hulu for free (there are a few ads): http://bit.ly/GreatBasinRTP

You might also want to watch the Behind the Scenes footage, which shows what a champ the cave photographer was. He was first into the cave and totally cool about it.


If you watch Rock the Park, what parks are you inspired to visit?

Rock the Park Visits Great Basin National Park

So back in November or December I got a message one morning that I needed to give a wild cave permit to a film crew. I knew that they had been attempting an ascent of Wheeler Peak, but didn't know anything else. When they came to my office, they introduced themselves as Jack Seward and Colton Smith from Rock the Park. I gave them a map of the cave, the key, and instructions about how to proceed. I told them that Little Muddy Cave was about 600 feet long and was a mazy cave with a lot of crawling passages. Before they entered the cave, they would need to go through the concrete block behind the visitor center to make sure they wouldn't get stuck in the tight spot. They had to have at least three people go into the cave for safety. They needed to wear a helmet, headlamp, kneepads, and elbowpads. And if they were willing, I'd like them to install three temperature and humidity dataloggers as part of a climate change project.

They listened to all this with their production crew, and then asked if I would be willing to be on camera and repeat it all. I shrugged.
"I guess so."

I didn't have a park uniform on or time to go home and put one on. They put a microphone on me and we planned to meet at the parking area after the guys went through the block.

I figured it would take them a little time to do that, so wisely brought some reading material. They showed up, and it was a really windy day, so we went to the cave entrance to try and film there. I gave them the key and stumbled through the introduction to the cave. I'm not too smooth on camera!

They made a production of gearing up with the kneepads and elbowpads. Then they opened the cave gate and clearly didn't like what they saw. I wasn't sure if they were going to go through with it. But they did. In the clip below, you can see some behind-the-scenes action from the photographer's point of view.

A month or two later I went back to Little Muddy Cave with some friends and my kids. Here they are waiting for me on the gate. You open the gate and climb down a short ladder and then immediately are on your belly for about thirty feet.

Eventually you get to places where you can stand up--if you're a kid!

The cave wasn't at all muddy because it just isn't in winter. But you can see by some of the muddy marks on the walls that the cave has been muddy.

Near the back of the cave there's a challenge chute, where you squeeze down a narrow passage head first. I went and then challenged Desert Boy. He liked it.

You know if it's a squeeze for him, it's small!

I can't wait to see how Jack and Colton's trip into Little Muddy Cave went, along with the rest of their adventures at Great Basin National Park. The Rock the Park episode is playing on ABC Saturday morning, April 16 (times vary). It looks like you can also see it a day or two later on Hulu, and they will probably have a link up on their Facebook page. If you see it, let me know what you think!

p.s. After I met them, I went home and looked up Rock the Park  and started watching it with my family. Season one is available on Netflix. It's fun to see so many different national parks!

2016 Lehman Cave Lint Camp

Not many people visit Lehman Cave in the winter. That makes it a great time to clean the cave! About 25 volunteers gathered for a weekend in January for the annual lint camp. Lint refers to the particles that fall off our clothes (you know, what you find in the dryer lint trap). Lint is constantly falling off our clothes, including when we're in the cave. But in the cave, there's little wind to blow it away, so it just drifts onto the cave formations and over time makes them look duller. It also provides an unnatural food source for cave biota and can even change how speleothems (cave formations) form.

Along with lint, lots of hair, dirt from shoes, and other assorted things get left behind in the cave. Armed with simple tools like forceps and paintbrushes, we started dusting down the cave, using dust pans and plastic bags to capture the lint and other debris. It is an amazingly soothing and fulfilling activity, which might help explain why everyone doing it seems to have smiles on their faces! (Or they were happy to pose for the camera.)

Katie came from Crystal Cave in Sequoia National Park so she could learn how to put on lint camps there. She found a high ledge that had quite a coating of lint and dust. Below you can see the line between what she's cleaned and hasn't cleaned.


Some places are very difficult to clean, like in between popcorn. Tiny brushes and forceps work best here.

During this lint camp, an old hot cocoa mix was found in the cave. Who would have brought it in? And how long ago?

Fungi and springtails were still deriving some nourishment from it. A tiny gray springtail is in the photo below, inside the blue O.


We also lucked out and found a larger cave creature, a pseudoscorpion. This one is endemic to the South Snake Range. It's a predator, at the top of the invertebrate food chain in the cave. But it's only about an inch long.

Families regularly come to the lint camp, and it's neat to see how they all work together. In addition to cleaning lint, another big job during the weekend is restoration. That means removing old trail debris to find the natural cave floor. Buckets are quickly filled up and it's cool to find popcorn or rimstone dams under the sand.

Even the ceilings need to be dusted! It's not as easy as at home, though, due to all the soda straws and stalactites.

We had a group of kids who worked really well together. Plus they are so close to the floor that it's easy for them to see things adults might not.

On Saturday afternoon we gathered for a group photo. We were waiting for a few people, so I decided to have some camera fun. I told everyone to move their lights around during a long exposure.

Then I was reminded of what we had done during a Batblitz--some writing in the night. We assigned letters, did some practice shots, and ended up with this:

Then it was time for the official photo:

Next up was a reward for all the hard work, a tour of the Talus Room, an area of the cave that's usually off limits. It's a humongous room, more than a football field long and with the ceiling more than 100 feet tall in places.

The next day it was back to work, but for some folks in a different area of the cave. People often get attached to a particular spot they're working on, and if they don't finish it, want it saved for them for the next lint camp. The amount of dedication is amazing.

The work can be tedious, but it is rewarding.

Here are some newly uncovered rimstone dams in the Gothic Palace. They had been covered up for decades, and now everyone can enjoy them.

Lint camp kind of turns cleaning on its head--in the cave it's a fun thing to do!

Update: Here's a great article in The Ely Times by Ross Johnson about lint camp.