We’ve got several adventures planned for today and we’re up at 6:00 so that we can be at the NP Visitor Center by 8:00 to get out tickets for the Lehman Caves. We wanted the 9:00 tour and took a chance that if we got there at 8:00 we’d still be able to get tickets.
But, first, we noticed an older, vintage RV pulling into our ‘campground.’ Oh, good, we’ve got neighbors. Well, not quite. They pulled up to the gas station in front, then pulled into the campground and sat for a while. We got out of our RV to talk with them to see if they had any questions about the campground. Nope, they wanted to buy gas but didn’t have a credit card. We told them that was no problem, we had a credit card and we could use ours. They were thrilled since they weren’t sure they’d make it to the next gas station. So, Gary walked over to the gas pumps, put in his card, they filled the tank and they reimbursed us.
We tooled on up to the VC to buy our tickets and, while I was buying the tickets inside Gary was waiting outside drinking his coffee. That’s when a car limped into the parking lot with grease oozing out onto the ground and a burning smell. Gary went over to see if he could help. Long story short - he got out a BIG flashlight he uses for roadside emergencies, checked the car over and told them it probably was the grease around the differential. The Superintendent of the Park, Andy Ferguson, no relation, came over and told them that the nearest service station was in Ely, about 100 miles down the road and they could use the pay phone to call them.
We really are out in the back of beyond 70 miles from the nearest service and no cell coverage - but there is a pay phone. The couple called the ‘local’ service station and the service station guy confirmed both Gary’s diagnosis and that they could drive slowly and carefully back to Ely for service - rather than having a service or tow truck come here to Baker. Ouch. Luckily, it’s only 70 miles down the road.
Gary’s done well today and it’s only 9:00. He must have stayed at a Holiday Inn Express. Then the guy next to us in the parking lot, after hearing my story of our day, remarked that he might not want to be next to us since everyone around us is in trouble. Hmmm.
Before we took the cave tour we were asked several questions about our recent cave experiences. If we had been in caves within the last year, we could not wear any clothing that we had worn there nor carry anything which we had had in the cave. This is because of the recent outbreak of what is called the white-nose syndrome which has caused the deaths of more than a million bats.
Yeah, yeah, I know, who wants a bat around. BUT - they are very important. They represent about 20% of all classified mammal species worldwide, with about 1,240 bat species. (Imagine, 1 out of every 5 classified mammals is a bat.) Now, I know that bats are ugly creatures and I’m not excited when I see a bat flying around above me at night. However, the old myth about bats getting tangled in hair is certainly nonsense. Bats use their ears to detect all around them and miss all but insects in flight. An experiment was conducted in 1790 in which blind bats were put into a room with silk threads strung across it. They were able to fly through the room and never touch the silk strings.
And, here’s the best part: most are insectivores which means they eat bundles of insects each and every night. There is a Mexican free-tail bat colony with 1,500,000 bats in it in Austin, TX which lives below the Congress Bridge. At night it is a great tourist pastime to gather there to watch them fly out from under the bridge into the night to capture about 10,000 - 30,000 lbs of insects, insects which will not bother the citizens of Austin any more. The largest occupied artificial bat roost in the world, which is in Florida, holds 300,000 bats which can eat upwards of 2.5 billion bugs (2500 lbs) PER NIGHT.
Thus the white nose syndrome is a problem and those who manage caves where bats live are very cautious about who and what gets into their caves. We were also asked not to wear backpacks nor camera bags or anything else which dangled so that we would not break any of the cave formations. We were also told several times not to touch any of the formations because the oils in our skin would affect their growth. And, wouldn’t you know it - the guy in front of me touched one to show his wife something on it. I looked at him and with my authoritarian teacher voice told him not to touch the formations.
The cave tour was amazing. We’ve taken cave tours before but never in a cave with this many formations. And, it is a live cave, the formations are still growing. In fact, I got a ‘cave kiss’ which means that a formation actually dripped on me. That’s good luck and, looking back, I did have good luck and a great day.
The cave was discovered by Absalom Lehman when he was out on his ranch one day looking for cattle. the story was that his horse stumbled into the cave and was falling along with Absalom when Absalom roped a juniper tree nearby, wrapped his legs around his horse and kept them both from falling in. They stayed that way for 3 days until his ranch hands found them. Well, that’s the story that the newspaper told to generate some excitement around the discovery of the cave. Unfortunately, Lehman was bowlegged from that day on. Fortunately he made a fortune on the cave.
He charged $1.00 for 24 hours in the cave. But his customers had to use cans with candles in them for light, crawl in through a narrow opening and be able to find their way out. I hope they took more than one candle. Of course, the rule was: ‘if you can break it, you can take it’ and we could see the damage that was caused by all of his customers. But, since it is a live cave, each of these formations that had been broken off was growing back. You can even see the new drips on the bottoms of the severed formations. However, it takes 100 years for a formation to grow 1” so it will take a long time to repair the damage. If you look closely at the bottom of some of these formations, you can see the new drips ready to either drop or solidify in place.
We saw stalactites and stalagmites and stalactites (here are both just about to touch in the middle)
bacon,
shields with large formations dripping from them,
draperies,
popcorn and many other formations. This truly was one of the best cave tours we’ve been on since there were loads of formations and the guide gave us lots to time to enjoy and take pictures of them. Usually we’re rushed along so fast that we don’t have time to appreciate them nor to take many pictures.
As we were going back up the tunnel to the opening, which was a metal door, the guide asked us if any of us had experienced an earthquake. He then asked what we might think an earthquake might sound and feel like underground. He then talked a bit about them and their effect underground, turned out the light and - banged on the metal door with his closed fist. Wow, an echo through the tunnel and we could all actually feel the reverberation of his pounding on the door. What a demonstration.
We then hit the gift shop / restaurant for a coffee and a roll. Here we met a young woman about 18 or 19 who was waiting on us in the NP gift shop and restaurant. She lives in Gandy, UT which she described as a 2-ranch town. Sure enough, I looked it up on Google and it IS a 2-ranch town. One of the ranches has one green irrigation circle and the other, her grandparents ranch, has 3 green circles. Her graduating class had 10 in it and, when she was looking for ads to put into the graduation yearbook, she came to the NP and, in the course of the conversation heard there was a job, applied and got it. Now, this job is 45 miles from where she lives on the ranch in Gandy with her parents on her grandparents farm. By the way, her parents have other jobs since you can’t support 5 people on a ranch. Not even one with 3 green irrigation circles.
She went to college in Salt Lake City and was so happy to come back home because SLC is way too big for her. She likes the size of Gandy and she likes her solitude. She says that she used to be shy around adults but this job has helped her with that and now she’s much more self-confident and can talk with anyone. Neat conversation and we applaud a young person who knows what she’s about.
Our next adventure was to drive 13 miles down the paved road and 14 miles down a four-wheel drive, high-clearance road where we were reaching out of the car window pushing tree branches away from the car so they wouldn’t scratch it. Just when we thought we were in the middle of nowhere, we saw another road branching off to - somewhere else in the middle of nowhere. Then we saw this abandoned home with 3 windows and a door. It must have been a nice home at one time but is abandoned now.
We also saw a sign. Now that sounds pretty common and not at all unusual. But this sign was in the middle of nowhere and sometimes we love to see signs in the middle of nowhere. Seeing a sign is a good sign - it means that we’re on the right trail or the right road or, if the sign points the opposite direction from the one you are going, at least you know you need to put your car or you legs into reverse. A sign is knowledge, an indication of another human presence. We love signs.
We took this road to the trail head parking lot for a trail with a huge arch at the end. The last person who had signed the trail register was here 4 days ago. The trail went inexorably upward, through switchback after switchback for 1 mile, then along an almost level section for a while until we saw this.
What a magnificent arch. And, there was a bench here - someone carried a bench up here?
Well, there is a question about whether this is an arch or a natural bridge. An arch is caused by wind and rain, ice and other natural events. A natural bridge is caused by a river. Geologists do not know if this is a natural bridge or an arch but call it an arch since it is so high above the river.
We then scrambled down the trail to the river, and up the other side to see the arch from the back. Here we could actually frame the whole arch in one photo. What a magnificent arch. We stopped for a while, admired the arch and then wended our way back down the trail (easier than going up) since we knew that Terry in the Lectrolux Cafe was having pizza tonight.
Don’t ask if this was a dirt road with cattle along it. We love the out of the way spots but, ooh, the dust and dirt. We spotted a new calf and, as I was getting out to take a picture, he mother and calf started running away from me. When they thought they were at a safe distance and with other cows for safety, they all turned to give us the eye.
However, before dinner we had one last stop: at the only place the Rangers told us about where there were pictographs. And, they didn’t tell us about these until I asked specifically about them. Locations of pictographs and petroglyphs are often hard to learn. The first picture is of a more recent rock carving over the red ink of a pictograph. The second is the typical triangle person of a Fremont pictograph. There are probably considerably more around here but only in the caves and the caves are off limits because this is the time when the baby bats are growing. They are not able to feed themselves until almost adult when their wings are fully grown and often caves are shut off to visitors when the baby bats are growing to adult. Whew.
We took our computers to the restaurant to check e-mail and I actually got several days of my blog out. The pizza was ok and I won’t have dishes to do tonight.
Home, tired and ready to rock and roll tomorrow. We've been going since 7:00 this morning and we're tired.
Oops, I had thought I’d do dishes tomorrow night since we had so few but Gary reminded me that this was the last night we were going to be hooked up to city water so I did them at 10:30.
Now, time for bed.
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