May 2022 – Lovelock Caves

Every year the Humboldt County School District, in partnership with Nevada Outdoor School, takes 4th graders on a field trip to the Lovelock Cave. This year they allowed 4th-6th grades because Covid restrictions for the last two years meant no field trips were made. Here’s our homeschool group that got to go.

The Lovelock Cave is just north of the Humboldt Sink (where the Humboldt River disappears back into the ground). It was first excavated in 1911 when two miners were sent to dig out bat guano that could be turned into fertilizer. Buried under feet six feet of guano were Native American artifacts. The most famous artifacts were duck decoys made from tule (a plant) covered in feathers. They were dated to be over 2,000 year old!

All that open space you see used to be under water when ancient Lake Lahontan was here. Lovelock Cave was created by the lapping waves.

Interesting side note for members of the church who have read “A Marvelous Work and a Wonder” by Legrand Richards, he includes a Washoe Indian legend of when Lake Lahontan disappeared.

For some reason I can’t find pictures I took of the actual cave. Part of the field trip included hiking around on designated trails and learning about the plants and animals native to the area. They had skulls to look at and pelts to feel. We learned to identify sagebrush, rabbitbrush, Mormon tea, greasewood (roots grow up to 50 feet deep!), and others.

The pictures above and below are when the kids learned about atlatls and got to try throwing them.

The next part of the field trip took us to the Marzen House Museum in Lovelock. The inside had one room all about the Lovelock Cave with replicas of artifacts found. The rest of the rooms had displays of various time periods with photos and items belonging to families that first settled in Lovelock and Pershing County.