Carlsbad Caverns

It is like visiting another planet

December 3rd, 2013

After stopping to shake hands with the aliens in Roswell, I continued south to Carlsbad. I had gone underground before this stop when I visiting Lava Beds National Monument. However, Carlsbad is in a world of it's own.

When I first arrived, I was a little taken aback. It felt like I was driving out into the middle of nowhere. It was nice to be out of the cities again though. Even Roswell was more built up than I had anticipated. It was nice to get away again.

Inside the visitors center, I found there were two ways to enter the caves: you could walk down through the surface entrance, or you could take the elevator down. The walk down takes about 2 hours, and they were closing in about an hour and a half by the time I got there. So, to the elevator I went.

The elevator was added shortly after it became a national park. Our tour guide told us a story about part of the negotiations for making this a national park. They compared the caves to Old Faithful. Old Faithful shoots water a hundred feet into the air every hour and a half. The bathrooms in the caves shoot water a few thousand feet with every flush. I am not sure if they actually used the bathrooms as the selling point to Coolidge, but it is pretty funny regardless.

Cave, Cave, Cave, ooo! Toilet!

It was really weird being underground and standing in the huge "rooms" (name for large open sections of caves). It was hard to believe that above my head was solid rock. I tried my best to take pictures, but my camera doesn't excel in the dark.

The paths were well lit, so no need for the flashlight I had as backup.

Can you see the light line dropping down this picture? That is one of the "soda straws".

I saw some formations like this in Yellowstone. You can tell where the water level used to be.

After walking around as much as I could before the park closed, I made my way to the surface by way of the elevator. I felt like I hadn't seen enough of the caves yet, so I wanted to camp and come back in the morning for one of the guided tours.

The nearest I could find really accessible parking was in the Guadalupe Mountains National Park. It was a short drive south, but I wasn't able to make it there before dark. The wind had also picked up drastically since I left the caves. I think the campsite might have been in a wind tunnel. So there I was, setting up my tent, in the dark, in the windiest weather I have faced in the trip so far. 

I managed to set up my tent using my car to block some of the wind. However, the wind shifted a little that night and was hitting my tent head on. I had the extra stabilizers on the tent, but the wind was so strong that it was pushing the top of my tent down to my face. I think that the only thing that kept me in the tent was that I was afraid that if I slept in the car my tent would be long gone by morning. So, my sleep was a little less than "restful".

I stopped for breakfast at a small cafe near the entrance to the park. There is apparently a big natural gas/oil company project nearby, because I found where all the workers would stop to get breakfast. That was a good sign that the food was either really good, or it was really cheap...or both. I thought it was decent anyway.

I made my way back to the park, bought a ticket for the tour, and decided to brave the surface entrance down.

Can you imagine being the first person to find something like this? Would you go in?

By light...see you soon. I hope...

Rock, or monsters mouth?

After reaching the bottom (where the elevators normally drop you off) I met up for my tour. As I mentioned, the tours cost money. However, for that money you get access to the incredible knowledge of the guide, as well as some parts of the cave that are off limits without supervision. I did the King's Palace Tour.

As part of the tour, the guide shut off the lights in this room. Rumor has it that one of the first people to enter the cave lost his light in this room, so by shutting off the lights we were able to experience the same thing. Ever try to wander around at night with the lights off? Think of ten times worse than that. I could tell my eyes were wide open, pupils at maximum, and I couldn't see a damn thing. If it were me down here, without light, I think I would last a minute before going crazy. To completely lose one of your senses, and know that no one is going to be coming down to look for you...

The guy survived by the way. He had 3 matches. He struck 1, got a glimpse around before everything went dark. Struck the second, it was a dud. He needed to find his lantern and light it with that third match or he was done for. He did it, but is also the reason why a lot of the spelunking rules were instituted.

By far, one of the coolest formations is the ribbons/sheets.

They can glow! How cool is that!

Carlsbad is really amazing. There are sights that you just can't imagine seeing on the surface. I really enjoyed my time down there and would love to come back again to do some of the other tours. I think there is also another cave set on at the park that I didn't explore.

Awake your inner spelunker and get underground!

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