Carlsbad Cavern

Today (Monday) was the day to go exploring in Carlsbad Caverns. For anyone keeping track, visiting as many National Parks as I can is one of the items on my personal bucket list. So far, I have been able to visit 3 National Parks and 1 National Monument - which is something that should be a National Park, but Congress can't agree on whether or not to take potty breaks.

I had breakfast in town and spent some time downloading photos from my camera and enjoying a warm place to sit for a while. And then when I finally got on the road to the Caverns, I stopped to take some photos at an "exhibit" (National Park Service term - not mine) along the road into the Park. The road up to the National Park visitor center is on the side of a narrow canyon cut by water many millenia ago thru the Gaudalupe Mountain range. The narrowness of the canyon increases the impressiveness of the mountains that seem like they are right on top of you. It made me feel like a puny person in a puny car in relation to their enormous size. The "exhibit" was a deep rock overhang that could provide shelter and shows signs of being used by many native human cultures over many thousands of years. There are signs of fire and other indications of human habitation in the shelter. There is also a clear, deep water pool nearby - and the entire Southwest has been having a 5-year drought!

In addition to that feature, there are also some mountain ranges on the drive up that look like black sand dunes.

My senior pass got me free admission to the Caverns, after I answered a bunch of questions about which caves I may have visited in the last 8 years and whether I was wearing any of my current clothing when I went in the cave. I did go to Natural Bridge Cave in San Antonio and Wind Cave in the Black Hills just exactly 8 years ago, but that was fine. They also prohibited me from taking my walking stick into the cave with me. This will become important later. Did I mention that the elevator to ride back up was broken? Yes, it was.

Since I arrived at 1:30 pm, that meant that I would have 3 hours in which to walk 1 1/2 miles down, view the Big Room, and then walk 1 1/2 miles back up again. The ranger warned me that I would not be able to see all of the Big Room and that a ranger at the bottom would close off the furthest reaches of the Big Room as he judged that anyone entering them at that time would not be able to walk back up and out of the cave by 4:30 pm. This photo shows how steep the switchback trail is in the cavern.

I took a restroom break (3 hours - hello) and rented an audio guide of the tour. I think I missed a few points of interest along the way because I missed the numbered signs, but overall the guide was really interesting. I found that I could listen AND walk, although the rangers did not think that possible. :)

I got almost half-way down into the cave before I started seeing drip formations; they called them speliotherms. Since this was not my first cave exploration, I was judicious about which photos I took, but I still took a lot. There was only one pool in the part of the cave that I saw because of the drought. I did see some formations (speliotherms) called "lion's tail" that I had never seen before. All the formations are brown - or the colors of limestone.

Important speliotherms on the trip down and what I saw in the Big Room: Whale's Mouth, Witches Finger, Iceberg Rock, Green Lake Room (no lake now), King's Palace, Queen's Chamber, Papoose Room, the Boneyard, Hall of the Giants with Giant Dome and Twin Dome, and Temple of the Sun God (thought this one was ugly so didn't take a photo). The Hall of the Giants is in the Big Room. The ranger in the Big Room stopped me from going any further because I had to walk back up 1 1/2 miles of steeply slopped trails (remember the broken elevator?). The hike down took 4 minutes and really blew out my right knee. I spent about 15 minutes in the Big Room and the hike back up took 75 minutes - with frequent rest stops at benches - rock benches or wooden benches. I made it!!!



The rangers would not allow us to bring in water, and the air in the cave is warm and damp, occasionally dripping. When I got out, I was parched and sweating. And then I discovered that they had "winterized" their water fountains, so I couldn't even get a sip from the fountains. I bought some post cards at the gift shop and asked about a book identifying some of the formations. The man in the book store just gave me a video. He said his nonprofit had lost their contract to run the store. Lucky me. When I got back to the car I chugged down the rest of my water and a whole bottle of ginger beer.

Had supper at Arby's, did laundry, wrote in my journal and on some post cards. Still no heat tonight. But I had perfected the tent within a camper concept.