Great Basin National Park
Great Basin has the cheapest application fee in this set at $75, but any serious photography inside Lehman Caves requires a special use permit and an after-hours cave tour.
Guidance, not legal advice
Drone Authority
Check the flight side
Rules answer the ground-photo side. Drone Authority handles the NPS flight ban, airspace, and legal flying nearby.
Permit
Conditional
Issuer: Great Basin National Park Special Uses Coordinator
Cost: Nonrefundable $75 application fee plus location and monitoring fees for permitted shoots
Processing: Allow a minimum of 30 days after the application is received
Groups of eight or fewer using hand-carried gear in public areas, without exclusive use and without extra cost to the park, generally need no permit under the EXPLORE Act. The park explicitly calls out non-public spaces such as Lehman Caves as a permit trigger: amateur and commercial photography inside the cave requires a Special Use Permit and an After-Hours Cave Photography tour. Verify with the park permit office.
Drone / airspace
Effectively banned: launching, landing, or operating a drone within park boundaries is prohibited
NPS Policy Memorandum 14-05 directs superintendents to close parks to drone use under 36 CFR 1.5. For airspace, Part 107, and legal flying nearby, see Drone Authority.
Street / public space
Yes for personal and editorial photography on the surface
Lehman Caves is tour-only; tripod-and-lighting photography there runs through the after-hours program, not regular tours.
Practical notes
- The After-Hours Cave Photography program is the only realistic route to serious tripod work in Lehman Caves; book it through the Special Uses Coordinator.
- The Wheeler Peak bristlecone grove pairs 4,000-year-old trees with some of the darkest skies in the country.
- The park has no entrance fee and little crowd pressure; the Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive's upper reaches close with snow much of the year.
Sources
Keep shooting
Knowing the rules is half the job. The craft side: