Albuquerque and Los Alamos area residents and visitors who are curious about cave exploration can get a fun, free, hands-on experience Saturday, June 24, at the Pajarito Environmental Education Center in Los Alamos from 10:00am to 2:00pm and Sunday, June 25, at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science from 9:00am to 5:00pm.
Both centers will be hosting CaveSim, a Colorado-based company that has developed an interactive crawl-through cave simulator to help teach people how to cave safely and protect cave formations. These mobile cave experiences will be located outside the center entrances and are free to the public.
“CaveSim has video game-type scoring. Participants wear helmets, lights and other protective gear like kneepads. When cavers enter CaveSim, scoring begins.
The object is to try not to bump any of the cave formations — a computer keeps track of how many times each formation is hit,” said CaveSim creator Dave Jackson.
In addition to the 60 feet of mobile cave passage, Jackson and the CaveSim Team will be on hand to facilitate additional cave experiences including vertical caving demos on a rappelling and ascending tower, bat lessons and games, hands-on geology, carbide lamp demonstrations, a cave rescue stretcher and more.
“We are pleased to be one of the many organizations helping bring CaveSim to New Mexico visitors and residents,” said Bjorn Fredrickson, USDA Forest Service Southwestern Regional Cave Program Manager,
“It’s an exceptional opportunity to learn how to be a safe and careful caver in an exciting, engaging way.”