Lehman Caves

Lehman Caves is a natural cave attraction in Great Basin National Park, famous for its unusually large number of delicate calcite shields. You can enter only with a ranger-led tour, and popular departures often sell out. Reserve ahead and check the current tour schedule before you make the drive. Check in at the Lehman Caves Visitor Center at least 15 minutes before your tour.

The Grand Palace tour covers the full developed route: about 0.6 mile, 90 minutes, and 69 stairs. The shorter Lodge Room tour is about 0.4 mile and an hour, though it still has stairs. A 30-minute Gothic Palace option reaches the first decorated room and can work for visitors who can't manage the longer routes. Wheelchair users need a companion to help, and that shorter tour may not run on every departure. Only trained service animals can enter the cave. The cave stays around 52°F and very humid, so a light layer is useful even on a hot day.

Lehman Caves has more than 300 shields, an unusually dense collection of a rare formation. Each is made of two thin, parallel calcite plates with a narrow crack between them. If photography is allowed on your tour, include a shield with some of the surrounding ceiling so its paired plates are easier to make out.

The developed route passes named spaces including Gothic Palace, the Music Room, Lodge Room, Inscription Room, and Grand Palace. The Grand Palace tour follows the full route through the decorated rooms; the shorter tours turn back sooner. Expect close passages and formations overhead rather than a wide, open cavern.

The cave sits in marble made from limestone that began as sediment on a warm, shallow sea floor about 550 million years ago. Heat and pressure transformed that old rock; later groundwater dissolved passages, and mineral-rich water left calcite formations behind. The current geological interpretation identifies the host rock as high-grade marble, a more complicated story than the older shorthand that calls it limestone.

The most likely discovery date is 1885, when Absalom S. Lehman is usually credited with finding the cave, but the accounts conflict so much that the first discoverer may never be known. People may have known the entrance much earlier, though evidence doesn't establish who went inside. Cave tours have been entering since 1885.

When scheduled, the Introduction to Wild Caving leaves the paved visitor route for rooms such as Royal Gorge, Talus Room, and West Room. It is a much more demanding outing, with scrambling, belly crawling, uneven ground, and about 1.5 miles over three hours. Check whether it is offered and whether the restrictions suit you before choosing it.