Thenaturalmedic Adventures
Hello there, and thanks so much for joining us here! You are probably wondering what this podcast is all about? In this podcast, we will talk about all sorts of outdoor adventures, but primarily, for now, we will focus on hiking and backpacking. No other outdoor adventure is so accessible to so many people! So please join us as we talk about how to hike/backpack and learn how to hike any length trail from your local neighborhood parks to those long trails such as the Appalachian and others worldwide! Remember... "in every walk with nature; one receives far more than he seeks... - John Muir " See you on the trail!
Thenaturalmedic Adventures
Unveiling the Mysteries of Lehman Caves: A Journey Through Time with Craig the Natural Medic
Discover the hidden stories of Lehman Caves with Craig the Natural Medic as your guide. Venture through the mesmerizing corridors of Great Basin National Park's famous caverns, and uncover the dramatic past that shaped this natural wonder. How did a cave once known for hosting speakeasies and movie sets become a geological marvel treasured by explorers and tourists alike? With Craig's captivating narration, you'll learn about the cave's formation over millions of years and the human impact that altered its pristine paths. From the humorous crawl through "Fat Man's Misery" to the mysterious construction of the "Panama Canal" tunnel, Craig reveals the fascinating tales that lie beneath the surface.
Craig also illuminates the efforts of the Civilian Conservation Corps and the unexpected gaps in their historical records, adding an air of mystery to Lehman Caves’ storied existence. Listen as he shares insights about Absalom Lehman's rediscovery in 1885 and the subsequent transformation of this natural gem into a cherished tourist destination. Whether you're a history buff or a nature enthusiast, Craig's storytelling brings the cave's wonders to life, offering listeners a unique blend of history, nature, and human ingenuity. Join us on this unforgettable expedition into one of America's hidden gems, where every turn holds a new discovery.
Hey, what's going on? This is Craig the Natural Medic and I'm in Lehman Caves in Great Basin National Park, which is the namesake caverns for this area. Actually, what started Great Basin National Park before it was a national park was Lehman Caves National Monument. Taking a cave tour right now. Try to record best that I can I know it's a little bit harder to see me, but hope, hope you come with me as I try to do the highlights of this cave tour. So the first stop, if you can see us, is this grand room here and at one time it was a speakeasy. It's been used in movie film before movie filming and also number of proms took place in that area pretty fascinating history as you come through the cave here.
Speaker 1:this cave started actually 550 million years ago, when this area is under a shallow sea, and then, over time, you had water seeping in through cracks and crevices and turned the limestone that's here into a marble and made all these wonderful formations. You have stalactites, stalagmites, you have soda straws, and the most famous formation that you have here is called a shield. I'll try to show you some of these after a while. Matter of fact, we are on the parachute shield tour.
Speaker 2:Basically the impact that people have had on it.
Speaker 2:So how natural is this cave versus how much has it really started to change? And so this pathway is one of many different ones that have been put in here, but unfortunately, there has been a lot of damage to the cave to be able that have been put in here. But unfortunately, there has been a lot of damage to the cave to be able to get this trail in here. And it goes back to the rediscovery of the cave in 1885 by Absalom Lehman, and he discovered, or rediscovered, the natural entrance, and he made most of his money off of mining before. But when he discovered this natural entrance he said, aha, that's how I'm going to make my money. I'm going to sell cave tour tickets. And so there's a clip in the New York Times, a newspaper from around here, that said they discovered this cave and that the next day they're going to come down here armed with sledgehammers and break their way so that the early tourists that would have come in here through the tours would have come along this side.
Speaker 2:So they wouldn't have taken that way, but they would have come through here and we call this Fat Man's Misery. Because, you'd be crawling on your hands and knees to get through this part of the cave here, so you would have had to crawl up the mountain down into the natural entrance, make your way to this part of the cave through fat man's misery, and he made it to the lodge room or, excuse me, to the inscription room right here.
Speaker 2:So to make it a little bit easier, they did put this tunnel in right here called the panama canal, and it actually is made up of a bunch of broken cave formations. They essentially had what could be thought of as like a cave graveyard where there's all these different formations that have been broken, either purposefully or accidentally, to put in this pathway here.
Speaker 2:And so they had so many broken formations, they're like what do we do with them? And so, when they created this new pathway, they decided to stack them up right there and be able to not necessarily showcase them off, but it is really cool to walk by and be able to see all those pieces there, but to be able to put them somewhere but keep them in the cave as well.
Speaker 1:And so, yeah, that Panama Canal pretty unique feature here. Was built when?
Speaker 2:Huh, it was built when we actually don't necessarily know the exact time. What's really interesting here is that there's a couple projects that have been done and there's really not a good record for it, which is surprising. We think it was done by the Civilian Conservation Corps, maybe about the 40s or 50s or so. They put in the first man-made entrance tunnel in 1939. They used dynamite for that, so maybe they sometime after that did it. But usually they're really good at keeping records, but unfortunately there's no record really of that one.
Speaker 2:The work being done on that one there. But there's lots of letters on the ceiling yes, yes, it felt like it took you through the middle of nowhere to get out here right, and you were in a nice air-conditioned vehicle. Imagine doing that on horseback or wagon train. You've climbed up to the natural entrance, climbed down and climbed through fat man's misery and you want to leave your mark here.
Speaker 2:And so these early tourists from 1885 to about 1925 would leave their mark in a way that we wouldn't do it today.
Speaker 2:Nowadays, we would just take our selfie and put it on social media or in our refrigerator or something like that, to be able to prove we were here. However, they didn't have that back then, and so they would come down in here and, with their lantern, using the curve eye, they would hold it up and be able to pass their inscription up on this top of the cave as well, and this has the highest concentration of these inscriptions and that's where this name gets its root from, and usually it's pretty much the ceilings at a good height to be able for most of these early tourists to be able to do that up there. Good observation as you can see here in this one, at some point when they were putting cement or paint, they tried to cover it up right there, and so there was actually an effort to remove it from this cave however, there's just so much of it, and really that effort wasn't going to pay off, so for my folks who were on, went into the gothic palace, so, which is the first room of the cave.
Speaker 2:There's no inscriptions there because we think they were all scrubbed off or painted over as well, so as, as we go back further we start to see more of these.
Speaker 1:As you heard, a lot of negative impact to the cave from human exploration, including blasting and breaking some of the cave formations to get excess into here and also leaving their mark with the cave graffiti. I thought Ranger Haley did a great job explaining that and saying how things were. Maybe a little bit different Back then. We didn't think about those things. This area is pretty trippy. It's called the Cypress Swamp Kind of looks like a cypress swamp from back in East Texas Crazy. There's some of the shields up there Very cool.
Speaker 1:Interestingly, the ranger was saying that there's other caves that are found in the National Park but none of them are open to the public. Is what I understood, which makes a lot of sense because of the deposition of the mountains, including Wheeler Peak, which we did yesterday, and the other mountains. There's so much mountain, so plenty of places for caves to form. Looks like it might be the parachute shield right here. There's several little shield pieces that are up there. I'm not sure if you can see them, but there's definitely some more up here that I already talked about and there's a big one right here about, I don't know, 16, 20 feet.
Speaker 1:Hey, it's been a couple of weeks since I went on that cave tour. I'm back at my house here in new mexico and I hope you enjoyed the video on the short tour. Tickets are pretty affordable. I didn't get a chance to record a conclusion when I was at the actual site itself, but I hope you enjoyed it. If you did give me a thumbs up to let me know that you did think about subscribing to the channel if you enjoy content like this. I'll be doing some other videos pretty soon, some tips and tricks and some product reviews, in addition to the follow me type videos. So if you like that sort of thing, until then, watch one of these videos over here. See you on the trail.
