This Place is Cavernous!

The expansive nature of the American Southwest also applies underground.  The Carlsbad Cavern Visitor Center sits high atop a mountain in the Guadeloupe mountain range and overlooks a sweeping flat vista that stretches as far as the eye can see.  Inside visitors board an elevator that drops them over 700’ to the cavern floor.  The first day of Chris and Jay’s visit they took advantage of the rapid descent to tour the aptly named Big Room.  They walked one and a half miles of smoothly paved paths lined with stainless steel railings to circumnavigate the fourteen football field length cavern in which tones louder than a whisper traveled ¼ mile.  Over one hundred different types of light bulbs in nearly 1,000 fixtures selectively lit the multitude of ancient rock formations, casting just enough reflective light to detect details in the ceiling towering hundreds of feet above.

Post cards and ads for the cavern feature photos of the monolithic stalactites and stalagmites for which Carlsbad is famous.  They are impressive but the beauty and diversity of their smaller counterparts were of more interest to Chris’ camera eye.  Illuminated alcoves revealed hundreds of delicate soda straws in pale white and tawny tones reaching for the floor.  Some surfaces were covered by brown popcorn, a feature completely new to the visitors, while the gentle folds of draperies adorned others.  All of this beauty created over the millennium through the simplicity of dripping water.

An iconic stalagmite in the Big Room.

Popcorn.

The first day of their visit Chris had camera in hand but the dim light required such long exposures that it was declared a “scouting day” and she took snapshots of features she wanted to focus on during their return trip.  They wasted the remainder of the day driving a nine-mile loop road that snaked along the ridge of the mountain, then descended into a valley and finally emptied onto the Park’s main road.

A mountain along the Park road.

The distant Guadeloupe Mountains seemed surprisingly high for Chris and Jay’s perception of what the desert southwest contained, but they were rapidly learning the realities of the area as the day had dawned blowing gale force winds with 60 mph gusts.  The twisting and rutted gravel road slowed their progress to that of a snail, but from the warm security of Big Red’s cab they bounced along enjoying the mountain vistas and chatting about the force of water required to sweep the volume of softball sized rocks and small trees into the piles of rubble they found along the dry stream bed in the valley.  They were still not sure that they would call the terrain “beautiful” as the spiny clumps of prickly pear cactus, yucca, sotol and small green shrubs scattered amongst the brown grass was completely foreign to the towering oaks they left behind in Maryland.  But its rugged contrast had a certain appeal they could not quite put their fingers on.

The next day they decided to enter the cavern via the natural entrance - a hole in the ground over 50’ wide dropping into an inky abyss hundreds of feet below.  Their reasoning that they would enjoy seeing the area’s offerings while walking downhill in a fresh and rested state rather than attempting to ascent the steep path, huffing and puffing and concentrating on how bad they felt at the end of a long day.  They patted themselves on the back for such good headwork as the path zigzagged sharply down the sheer, vertical face of the entrance for hundreds of feet, then leveled out a bit before plunging down another wall, repeating the same several times throughout the descent.  Remember the floor of the Big Room is over 700’ down and they easily walked ten times that distance on the switchbacks.  The mile and a half long section of the cavern was plain in comparison to the decorative main chamber, but the ceiling, hundreds of feet above their heads, impressed upon the travelers how miniscule they are compared to nature’s grandeur.

The first few switchbacks at the natural entrance.

By closing time Chris had filled the camera’s memory card and happy, but a bit tired, she and Jay were some of the last to enter the elevator for the trip to the top.

Chris’ favorite photo of the day showing an alcove filled with soda straws.

They wished they had at least another day to visit Sitting Bull Falls and hike a trail in the Guadeloupe National Forest but over the past two years of traveling Chris and Jay learned to not pack too much sightseeing into short stays as the writing and posting of the blog and most importantly, the editing of photos, falls behind.  So, the last day of their stay the photos were edited, bills were paid, Red got some badly needed maintenance, and preparations for the next day’s departure to White Sands National Monument were made.