Led by Gretchen Baker, national coordinator of the National Cave Rescue Commission, this will be an intensive four-hour training workshop that will introduce participants to cave rescue techniques which can be performed by a party of six or less persons, using minimal gear normally carried on caving trips. There is a minor fee for this workshop to cover gear expenses. If you plan to attend, you must be at the park no later than 12:30pm on Friday.

Bat biologist, Jason Williams, from the Nevada Department of Wildlife, has offered to lead a trip to Rose Guano Cave to watch the nightly bat flight. Located in Spring Valley, Rose Guano Cave is a major migratory stopover for millions of bats. This late in the season the outflight will be reduced, but likely hundreds to thousands of bats will exit the cave shortly after sunset. From Great Basin National Park, the drive is about 40 minutes, the last 15 of which require 4WD. Meetings times and locations will be provided at a later date.

The iconic attraction of Great Basin National Park is the historic Lehman Caves. Known for its impressive collection of shield formations, the caves were originally protected as a national monument in 1922, which was combined with the national park in 1986.

The caves had been known to indigenous peoples long before the arrival of Europeans. In 1885, Absalom Lehman, a rancher in the area, began guiding tours into the cave. Visitors' inscriptions in the cave from the era before it became a National Monument note its use and popularity among recent settlers to the region.

Several species occupy the Lehman Caves. Bacteria are the most common. Crickets, spiders, pseudoscorpions, mites, and springtails may live their full lifecycles in the cave.

If you wish to tour the cave, we suggest booking your reservations in advance of your travels. Click here for more information. All other trips to wild caves do not require a fee. A virtual tour of Lehman Caves is online here. There will also be a no-cost clean-up session of old carbide in off-trail locations of Lehman, including the Sunken Garden and Talus rooms on Sunday morning.

Cavers have an unbridled passion for cheap stuff. It's just in our nature! So, be sure to bring the stuff you no longer need and donate it to the annual Western Region auction on Saturday night. Also, bring your cash to buy all the other stuff that your fellow cavers want to offload. Some of the stuff is truly valuable, some of it is, well... less valuable (but always entertaining!). We guarantee you a fun time one way or the other!

All auction proceeds go to fund projects and grants to support caving around the Western Region.

Lehman Caves has been open for exploration and tours since 1885. Some of the early visitors to the cave used carbide lamps - which burned acetylene gas. Once the calcium carbide in their lamps was spent, it formed a wet paste of slaked lime (Ca(OH)2). Historically, visitors often dumped out the waste inside the cave.

The spent carbide is considered toxic for cave invertebrates. On Sunday during the regional, cavers will help clean up old carbide dumps in off-trail locations, including the Sunken Garden and Talus Room (thus as a reward for helping the cave you get to see some cool locations).

Camping is included in your registration fee. ALL campers must be registered participants in the Western Regional. Southern Nevada Grotto has reserved the Grey Cliffs Campground for our event weekend. You may arrive Friday, Sept. 30, and we must be cleared out of the campground on Monday. Registration will be set up at the campground.

Fall weekends in the Great Basin can experience any weather you might imagine. It should be quite pleasant, but come prepared for inclement conditions. The elevation of the campground is 7,115 feet.

This site offers basic camping. There are no showers or potable water, but vault toilets and picnic tables will be available for campers. We strongly encourage everyone to carpool if at all possible. No RV hook-ups exist in this campground. This has been a very active fire season across the West. Great Basin National Park is experiencing exceptional drought again this year. No wood fires are allowed at the present time. Gas fired camp stoves and propane grills are permitted.

For visitors to Great Basin National Park, Grey Cliffs Campground is an ideal place to setup and start exploring. Experience the solitude of the desert, the smell of sagebrush after a thunderstorm, the darkest of night skies, and the beauty of Lehman Caves. There is a new moon during our regional weekend, so the night skys should be amazing!

If you'd prefer to stay in a local motel, the park has a list of choices on their website.

The only meal included in your registration is the catered dinner on Saturday evening. The park has a cafe and gift shop located at the Lehman Caves Visitor Center. It is open for the summer season, April through October, from 8:00am to 3:00pm. A few options are available in the town of Baker, Nevada. Click here for a list.

* Clothing and gear must be cleaned and decontaminated before entering any cave in Great Basin National Park. If gear has ever been in a WNS or Pseudogymnoascus destructans (Pd) area, it is not allowed inside any park cave, regardless of decontamination.

* Caves in the South Snake Range are considered to be in the same vicinity and do not need to be decontaminated between trips. However, if the gear and clothing is quite muddy, they need to be cleaned and mud removed before entering the next cave.

* The latest decontamination protocols are at: https://www.whitenosesyndrome.org/static-page/decontamination-information

* It is recommended that gear that has been used in any cave in the park should be cleaned and decontaminated before leaving the park. Water is available at the dump station in the park. Decontamination via heat (over 135 degrees for at least 5 minutes) may be possible in vehicles depending on weather. Lysol wipes will be available.