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Des Moines University palaeontologist Julie Meachen said she has been getting ready to lead the international team of a dozen researchers and assistants by hitting the climbing gym.

“I’m pretty terrified,” Meachen admitted Wednesday.

She hasn’t done any real climbing before, she said, and the only way in is to rappel down. The only way out is an eight-story, single-rope climb all the way back up.

The cave is perpetually cold and clammy, with temperatures hovering in the single digits Celsius and humidity around 98%. Even Bureau of Land Management regional palaeontologist Brent Breithaupt, who isn’t one to get the willies from lots of animal bones, describes it as a tad creepy.

“One can only hope that, as a researcher, you’re able to leave,” said Breithaupt, who visited the cave as a college student the last time it was open to scientists. “It’s an imposing hole in the ground. But one that actually has very important scientific value.”

Some mammal remains from the cave could be over 100,000 years old, Breithaupt said.

The remote site is exceptionally well preserved. It’s far too challenging and dangerous to have been trammelled in by casual spelunkers. The Bureau of Land Management installed the grate to keep people and animals out in the 1970s.

A mound of dirt and rock containing layer upon layer of animal bones rises from the floor of the 120-foot-wide, bell-shaped chamber. Meachen hopes the remains are sufficiently preserved in the cold, sheltered environment to contain snippets of genetic information.