Leave it to us to find a cave in the desert

Greetings from Nevada! Now before anyone gets too excited we did not go to Vegas and elope. We thought about going to check it out but it’s 250 miles in the wrong direction so that will be another trip. Anyway we spent the past 2 days in Great Basin National park, just a few miles from the Utah-Nevada border. This was one of the parks we didn’t have too many expectations for compared to a more popular park like Yellowstone. As we drove through the desert and higher and higher up into the mountains we were both questioning why we drove so far to spend the night in the middle of nowhere. But we found a nice campsite and started to realize the magic of the place we were in. Great Basin National Park is named so because all of the rainfall and snow melt in the park doesn’t drain to an ocean but back into itself. Hours of driving through desert had brought us to a place full of trees, wildlife and even a sizable creek running right through our campground. We arrived 20 minutes too late to check out the visitor center only because 20 minutes beforehand we crossed into the Pacific time zone and lost an hour. So that was a bummer but it gave us time to have a nice hot dinner and enjoy our first campfire of the trip. Did we mention that it had been sunny with no rain all day? This was the first day in over a week that we did not have rain or snow so we were ecstatic. We stayed up a little later that night and watched the stars. Great Basin is one of the more recent parks to become certified as an International Dark-Sky Park meaning that it is one of the few places left in the world where the Milky Way is still visible. We got a few great photos but the one thing we couldn’t control was how bright the moon was. It washed out some of the pictures a bit but we still had a blast.

The view of our campsite

Turkey's wandering through the campground

Beautiful sunset

The night sky overhead

Can you find the big dipper? 

The bright spot in the lower left-hand corner is Mars!

The next day we woke up early to be the first ones into the visitor center. The one thing we knew about the park was that they gave tours of an impressive cave, Lehman Cave. We tried to get tickets online a few days before but they were sold out. Luckily they held a few tickets back so we were able to go later that morning. Some of you might be thinking that a cave tour wouldn’t be that exciting since Ashley worked at Cave of the Mounds for a year, but you would be wrong. She was easily the most excited person on the tour and had to restrain herself from answering every cave question that was asked. This cave had a unique bit of history to it as well. A man named Absolom Lehman was riding his horse through the Nevada Mountains in the late 1880’s. Soon the ground began to break up and crumble away under him so being the cowboy that he was he quickly lassoed a nearby tree and hung from that rope. He used only his legs to hold up his horse to keep it from falling for four days before help came. Yeah…and that is one of the more believable versions of how he found the cave. It is rumored that he walked bowlegged for the rest of his life after that.  He soon began cave tours and then after getting bored with them he just let people go in on their own with only a candle. This was back before it had a walkway or stairs in the cave. He sent them in with a promise that if they didn’t come out in 24 hours he would come get them. We could not imagine being in the cave, your candle goes out and then waiting 24 hours before someone comes and gets you! He had a slogan for visiting the cave. “If you can break it, you can take it” so there were a good number of formations that were broken.  Later in the 1920’s the cave became a Speakeasy during prohibition! The cave had an awesome history along with so many beautiful formations! Lehman Cave is most widely known for its cave shields. This is a feature that little is known about other than how interesting it looks. They are a very rare feature and are found in only a couple caves throughout the U.S. The few caves that are lucky enough to have cave shields usually have only one or two. Lehman Cave have over 300 cave shields! Ashley was like a kid in a candy shop with all the photos she was taking. Adam had a sore arm by the end of the tour from an excited Ashley constantly hitting him but it was well worth it.

So many cave formations!

Even more formations!

Soda Straw Stalactites hanging from the ceiling!

Having fun in a cave!

Stalagmites!

Later that day we went on a hike to see some of the oldest trees in the world as well as the southern-most glacier in the United States. The short 3-mile hike was mostly uphill so we were a little more winded than we expected. Then we realized that we weren’t out of shape, we were just too high in the sky. The trailhead was near the top of a long mountain road that took us from our campground at 7,000 feet all the way to 10,000 feet in altitude. The air is a little thinner that high up so that’s why we were so out of breath. We’re not out of shape, it’s just the altitude; at least that’s what we’re saying. The trail took us further up the mountain to a group of trees called Bristlecone Pines. They only grow at elevations above 10,000 feet and because the conditions are so harsh they take thousands of years to grow. Some of the living trees were 3,000 to 4,000 years old and still growing! The wood of the trees was incredibly dense because of the slow growth rate. This caused the dead trees to last far longer than a normal tree would. Dead trees that were still standing as if they died last year were estimated to be as old as 7,000 years. The wood had been blasted by the sandy air leaving it weathered and smooth. The winds had also caused most of the trees to twist and grow at irregular angles over the centuries. Easily one of the coolest places we have been to this entire summer.

Having fun hiking around! 

Bristlecone Pine Tree

The trees were so smooth after thousands of years of wind erosion

These were some of the most beautiful trees we had ever seen

The glacier we mentioned earlier was a little different than the ones we saw in Alaska. This was a rock glacier, meaning that it was about 90% rock and 10% ice. They are a very rare sighting and we did see one in Alaska during our first glacier hike of the summer. The only issue is that taking pictures of a rock glacier mostly looks like a big pile of rocks. So don’t be alarmed when you look at the pictures and can’t seem to find the glacier. We promise it’s there, it’s just that big pile of rock and dirt, but it is still a really cool glacier!

The rock glacier is in the bottom of the circular depression, just behind the tree.

We had a pretty big day already at Great Basin National Park but we weren’t done yet! Since the park was an International Dark-Sky Park they offered free astronomy programs and we weren’t going to miss out. We went to the visitor center at 6:30 to learn as much as we could about the night sky. It was a little strange to be there so early since the sky was still too bright to see the stars. But we listened intently to Ranger Annie’s presentation and soon enough we could see the stars twinkling above us. We got to look through the park’s high-powered telescopes, with the assistance of Rangers Mary and Ben, and see some amazing features of the night sky. The Rangers pointed the telescopes toward the moon so we could see craters on it, a nebula or imploded star, a binary star system which is two stars that orbit each other and even another galaxy! The galaxy was a little difficult to see since the moon lit up the sky too much but we could make out the blurry bit of color through the scope. The most exciting part of the night was hearing that the next 4 parks we’ll be visiting offer similar programs! 

-the A-Team