Lint Camp 2022: Volunteers Clean and Restore Lehman Caves

First published in The Midden*, Great Basin National Park's newsletter, Vol. 22, No. 1, Summer 2022. By Gretchen Baker, ecologist.*

A long-time lint camp volunteer uses a blacklight to find lint. NPS photo by Gretchen Baker.

On March 2 and 3, 2022, fifteen volunteers — from Baker, Ely, Reno, Salt Lake City and the Wasatch Front, Bend, Oregon, and southern California — spent two days restoring Lehman Caves at Great Basin National Park's annual lint camp. About half had been before; about half were cavers from caving clubs (grottos) and half members of the public.

What they did

Lint picking. Visitors shed lint — fibres from clothing — that builds up on cave formations. The crew worked the Lodge Room using only blacklights, which make the cave look strange but make lint glow in bright colours so it is easier to remove, then moved to the Grand Palace, where the lint was indeed grand.

Restoring the cave floor. On the first afternoon, volunteers dug out old sand and dirt brought in to build the original trail near the Queen's Bathtub and the Inscription Room, revealing the natural floor — popcorn formations, rimstone dams and more.

Cleaning the trail. With a broom and vacuum, large lint balls in the exit tunnel were cleared in under two hours, filling a one-gallon zip-top bag. Volunteers with a portable power washer, working with others using a tarp, scrub brushes and sponges, cleaned the slippery slope into the Grand Palace of caked-on mud, gum and other debris. All 5 gallons of water used were collected and carried out of the cave. The trail should now be safer for visitors and staff.

Spraying algae. Algae grows near many cave lights, sometimes as thick as a miniature forest. There was less than usual, because the lights had been off for over a year while the cave was closed for COVID: algae grew at only 10 lights from the entrance to the Lodge Room, at about half the lights in the Grand Palace, and more toward the exit tunnel, where lights stay on longer. The crew sprayed it with a 10 percent bleach solution — which is not good for cave life, so reducing algae in other ways, especially by keeping lights off as much as possible, is better.

Removing spent carbide. The carbide lamp, invented in the 1890s, was soon used by miners across the Great Basin. It can be worn on a helmet: water added to carbide powder in its base makes a gas that, once lit, burns with a bright flame. Spent carbide has to be replaced — and in several places in Lehman Caves it was simply dumped. At two of those sites, the Sunken Gardens and the Talus Room, volunteers tried brushes, tweezers and a vacuum, and removed about half a 5-gallon bucket of spent carbide. The fine white powder is toxic to cave life.

A thank-you

As thanks, the park showed National Geographic's film The Rescue, about the 2018 Thai cave rescue, and led a tour of the Talus Room and West Room. Many volunteers say they need no thanks — knowing they are making the cave better is enough. The park expects lint camps to keep filling fast, perhaps under one participant's proposed motto: "You missed a spot."

Sources

• National Park Service, Great Basin National Park, "Lint Camp Recap," The Midden, Vol. 22, No. 1, Summer 2022. https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/lint-camp-recap.htm
• Rewritten in hubnx's own words.