These caves are located in The Great Basin National Park. You need to go to the Lehman Caves…read moreVisitor Center. This is a different location from The Great Basin Visitor Center. In order to visit the caves, you need to purchase a ticket (which is also your reservation) and a National Park Entry Pass of some sort.
I purchased my tickets for the Parachute Shield Tour online at the recreation.gov website. I got a Senior ticket ($6) & a regular ticket ($12). There is no additional fee. When I went to check-in, I presented my ticket confirmation email and my National Park Pass. The tour is about an our long.
It is said that Absalom S. Lehman discovered the caves when riding his horse. The horse broke through a crust covering the cave's natural entrance. No one really knows for sure who discovered the cave or how.
Lehman Caves was designated Lehman Caves National Monument before it became part of The Great Basin National Park.
We gathered at a door that looked like the right door. It was the right place to be at, but not the one we used. The Ranger met us here and instructed us to use the shoe washing station. After we all washed the soles of our shoes, we all walked up the hill to a different door to begin our descent into the cave. It's the same door we exited from at the end of the tour.
The first room we arrived at was the Lodge Room. Then we walked through a man-made walkway called "The Panama Canal" which led us to the next room, The Inscription Room. Here, you can see where the explorers belly crawled through "Fat Man's Misery" (natural entrance) to get here. When they made it to the Inscription Room, they used the soot from their flame to inscribe their name on the ceiling. To get to the Grand Palace, we walked on the path called "The Rocky Road" which took us past the Lake Room & Cypress Swamp. Our tour ended at the Sunken Garden. To exit, we retraced our paths back to where we entered.
We toured these rooms:
Lodge Room
Inscription Room - has names & dates on the ceiling
Cypress Swamp - many stalactites suspended from the low ceiling resemble a swamp full of Cypress Trees
Lake Room - named for the small, year-round pool to the side
Grand Palace - the largest room on the tour and absolutely wondrous
Sunken Garden - deepest part of the cave at about 235 ft below the surface. There's a viewing platform here.
The Grand Palace is where you'll see the cave bacon, stalactites and stalagmites that almost touch, this tour's namesake, the Parachute Shield, and other points of interest.
Lehman Caves boasts of shield formations, most iconic is the Parachute Shield which is pictured on souvenirs. While most other caves have a couple shield formations, Lehman Caves amazingly has more than 500.
Just before the end of our tour, the ranger asked if our group wanted to experience the cave pitch black. We all agreed and the lights were turned off for a minute or two. It was pretty eery, the silence and darkness. Once the lights were back on, we walked out of the cave.
This was a very fascinating tour. They say that each time you enter the cave, the experience will be different. If we ever come back here, I'd be willing to take the tour again!
