#19 Carlsbad Caverns: Journey to the Center of the Earth

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September 10-11, 2010: Our travel calculations were now focused on two objectives: to get to see Carlsbad Caverns in SE New Mexico and to be in Austin, Texas, by September 13th, so we could have some time with our nephew Brian before he had to leave for Ethiopia.

This meant some serious driving for us. We put in a full day on the road. That's a full day for us—I know truckies would laugh at our progress—and there were plenty of lorries breezing past our little van when we ventured onto the interstate highway system.

Friday night we got within coo-ey of Carlsbad, and stopped at the Brantley Lake State Park. It was pretty vacant, despite being the start of a weekend, but the sites were very nicely set up, with a blue shade roof for each one, and a stone wall each, perhaps for privacy or perhaps as a wind shelter.

Carlsbad Caverns is another one of those places we didn't get to see on our marathon trip in 1960. I remember wanting to go there, but it really was just too far out of the way, and my mother said, “We've already been to Howe Caverns” (in upstate New York), which was true, and she probably figured we'd had the essentials in stalactites and stalagmites there. Which we had. But impressive as Howe Caverns is, Carlsbad Caverns is on another order altogether.

Just to enter the caverns by the natural opening means a walk down, down, down, into the depths, which takes an HOUR, and simply to walk past the various sites in “The Big Room” takes another hour and a quarter. These days, people can exit via a very long elevator, so it's no longer necessary to return all the way up and out the way you came in.

The lighting in the cave was designed by a broadway lighting artist, who wanted to dramatically highlight some of the best formations while still leaving plenty of dark and shadow to keep the cave feeling. I remember seeing lots of colors in the 1950s in Howe Caverns—not sure if it was from colored lights or actual tinting of the formations--but the technicolor Disney feel is NOT what you get at Carlsbad. You see the formations in their own natural colors, mostly white from their calcite base, but occasionally with some reddish or even green tinges from other minerals. So it's the range and number of phantasmagorical shapes that amaze at Carlsbad.

If a visitor feels like s/he's on a “Journey to the Center of the Earth”, it's no wonder, because this and many other films have been partially shot there.

It is said that the Mesa Verdeans believed that their people had originated from the underworld beneath the earth's crust and had emerged through the “earth's naval” somewhere inside Grand Canyon. Walking down into the humongous mouth of Carlsbad Caverns, it sure seemed like the earth's naval! Because Native American relics have been found near the caverns, so it's almost certain that the early people knew of this huge cave, but it's not clear how far in they went.

Bats, on the other hand, have lived way way inside the bowels of the cave--an apt expression, it turns out, because there's a pile of bat guano in the far interior of the Big Room which is dated at about 15,0000 years of age.

Inside the cave, winter and summer, the temperature remains at 56 degrees F. and 90% humidity. The changes there are in geologic time. But outside the cave, the American flag flying at half mast reminds us, both coming and going, that it's September 11, and bids us contemplate the changes in all our lives that have happened since then.

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Photos

Brantley Lake State Park
Very nice campsite in a mostly empty state park. Our only frustration was that the cold drinks machine was empty and we were longing for something cold and fizzy after our hot drive.

Brantley Lake
A lake created by a dam. The sign said "don't eat the fish" and it appeared there was no swimming, so the park was a place to stop but maybe not much of a destination.

Rabbit Run
Amazingly enough to Australians, we had only seen ONE rabbit on our whole trip, and that was at Half Moon Bay on the seashore outside San Francisco, but here we saw grey cottontails in the evening and then jack rabbits in the morning light.

High desert vegetation
Not sand here, but a surrounding of plants we'd never seen before.

Prickly Pear
Derrian, this is for you. We know how you hate these, but here people make jam from the multitudinous fruit, AND they remove the thorns, slice up the green "leaves" and fry them up and eat them, especially with eggs.

A closer look at the vegetation
The DIVERSITY of life forms and geologic forms was a lesson of the day.

The natural entrance to Carlsbad Caverns
It's easy to see how people might have wondered what life could emerge from the "naval of the earth"--especially when hundreds of bats fly out every evening.

Long steep descent
Down the umbilical cord we zigzagged.

Too big to picture
The cavernous space we entered was way to big for a flash to have the chance to hit a wall and bounce back to the camera. Discreet lights led us further in.

Flows and drapes
Some formations flowed like water falls, some hung in delicate swirls like drapery.

The Lion's Tail
The Lion's Tail hung separate from the surrounding rocks, though it doesn't look like it here. And then again, maybe this one isn't the Lion's Tail.

A Tower Wannabe
Some were gigantic and some were minute and delicate.
Stalagmites form from the ground up and stalactites from from the ceiling downward.Sometime in the very great future this stalactite and stalagmite will probably join and form another column.

Giant towers
Many of the formations had names. We carried an audio tour guide, but Phil got annoyed when the commentary strayed from "hard science".

Tiny formations: Fairy Land and such
Ok, this is anyone's guess--I think it's an appalling shot of Fairy Land. Rock formations included "cave pearls" (beautiful round formations) and "popcorn" which encrusted the walls in some spots.

A living stalagmite (upper part)
The glisten on this formation showed that it was still being dripped upon and therefore growing.

A living stalagmite (lower part)
Although many of the formations are in spots which are now dry, so they're no longer growing, this one was adding to its bottom rim, where cave water dripped into a cave pool below.

Sheet of icicles
It's forbidden to touch the formations because body oil changes their chemistry. But having broken off icicles and sucked them as a child in New England, the temptation was great (but resisted) whenever we got close to the icicle-like ones.

Never one to miss a coffee
He is his father's son--George Cooper, the publican, always checked out eateries wherever he went, and the chance to have a coffee 750 ft below ground won us, but the quality of the coffee was atrocious.

Comments

[Robyn Hansen]

caves
was amazed you can walk through the caves without a guide, don't people try and nick a bit of the stalactites ? I am sure they would here at Jenolan, how come there was coffee down there or was that when you came out ?

[Michelle Cavanagh]

Pricky Pear
Loved the photo of you with the prickly pear Martha which as you know is a real scourge here in Australia. And this recent adventure looks very interesting - good to see you are still educating yourselves and us along the way! M xx

[lucien]

Need some sun?
Glad to see you were prepared for the harsh underworld sun!