Caving

 Hi everyone. Happy Saturday.

It has been windy since yesterday, and when I got home last evening at 5:30, it was only 49 degrees F/ 9.4 degrees C. Brrrr. I haven't even looked at the temperature this morning because I don't want to know. With the cost of fuel right now I am not turning on the heat until at least October, so right now I look pretty funny in 3 layers and a winter hat. And I'm under a blanket. Luckily it is supposed to warm up a bit more today, but still it is supposed to be windy, which is never good for making the house feel warm.

I thought today I would share a few photos from the National Parks I visited on my latest journey. Our first park was Great Basin National Park, just over the border from Utah in a remote part of Nevada. Being remote as it is, this park is one of the least visited National Parks in the continental US. 

One of the things you can do at this park is take a tour (with a ranger) of Lehman Caves. Originally this park was called Lehman Caves National Monument, but then the park service expanded to the area around the caves, including the 13,000+ feet/ 3900+ meters of Wheeler Peak.  Congress made this area a National Park.  It is called Great Basin National Park because it is part of a large area of a natural basin which goes through most of the state of Nevada and into a few other surrounding states. 

A basin is a flat area surrounded by mountains. All the water that goes into the basin from snow falls, snow melts from the surrounding mountains or rainfall never leaves the basin and does not make it to an ocean. It is either absorbed by the dry soil or it evaporates into the atmosphere.  Although there are many basins that make up the area of basins in the US, this park helps protects at least a small example of a basin.

The first thing we did in Great Basin was  take a Lehman Cave Tour. You need to sign up in advance (up to 30 days before) because the size of the tours and the number of tours per day are limited. We took the longer 90 minute tour, and I really enjoyed it. It was the first time I've ever taken a cave tour where I actually saw a bat in the cave. Smile.

Here's a few photos. I was  very impressed at the quality of the photos my camera was able to take seeing I had it set on automatic so I could quickly snap pictures.

The info given by the ranger was great, and the rock formations were amazing.

You can only tour the caves with rangers because otherwise some people might purposefully break off  stalactites and stalagmites or otherwise damage the cave formations or the cave's ecology. One of the goals of the National Park Service is to protect the natural environment and ecology as much as possible. And as the ranger said, the only way to totally protect that cave environment would be to not let anyone inside the cave.  Part of the protection goal is to find ways to allow people to see and learn about various environments so they will be better informed in other situations. It's like it was teaching. If you can engage your students with more hands on learning, then they become more invested in the information. That is another reason the park service runs cave tours. Much of the cave is not open to the public, but if you can give people a taste and some sound information, they will be more invested in cave protection overall.

One part of the cave was fairly narrow to get through.

And at one point the ranger flipped off the lighting (that the park service installed for tours). The only light you see is her flashlight as she returned to our small group. I don't think I'd want to go caving in the way they did on the past using candles (because at that point there were no flashlights or headlamps.)

And finally we entered a great cave room. 

On the ceiling in this room were lots of people's initials. Most were made back in the early days of this cave's exploration, when people used candles. The black on the ceiling is made from candle smoke.

The funny thing is (according to the ranger) is that since these were made around 100 years ago, they have now become historical pieces to protect, even if new additions are strictly not allowed.

And lastly, here's the other cave wildlife I saw. It's a a baby cave cricket.

I hope you enjoyed this long post. Thanks for sticking with me, and have a great beginning of your weekend.