I’m going to skip over my description of Roswell NM and save that for a later time. Truly, it isn’t worth much.
I’ve just gotten out of an incredibly hot shower in my hotel room. Absolutely necessary because I’ve just returned from spending my first of two days at Carlsbad Caverns.
O.
M.
G.
I arrived at the park around 9am this morning. The visitors center is under construction at the moment, so there is a fairly large trailer farm marked with TICKETS, GIFT SHOP, etc. Inside I collected my entrance tickets for both tours, The Hall of the White Giant and Spider Cave, along with a general admission pass.
First things first, I hiked a short path to the Natural Cave entrance, which I recommend as the ‘full version’ of the self-guided tour. The cheater way is to take an elevator 750 feet down, but seriously, you WANT to hit the Natural Entrance. Unless you are in poor health, it’s no sweat and a clear, marked trail with tons of handrails and lots of information.
It was spectacular. Only a brief glimpse into what I was going to end up doing later on in the day. You leave from full daylight and descend into the darkness. And darkness indeed because for a good portion of the cave, it’s only lit with gentle yellow footlights. Special formations are highlighted with spotlights, but this is a dark tour and at times you can’t see very much except the foot path. Spectacular I assure you. The massiveness of the rooms doesn’t quite hit you for some time, but when you’re perched on a switch-back walkway looking down hundreds of feet at the specks of moving shadows, only to realize they are people, the grandeur of this place sets in.
If White Sands was magical, this place is downright spiritual. There is a quietness and a stillness to the caverns that is simply astounding. But as the day pressed on, it got so much better.
At 755 feet you hit the rest area and lunchroom. I purchased a sandwich, struck up a conversation with some friendly South Carolinians that turned into a creationist theory discussion which I feigned neutrality about. They handed me some sort of a pamphlet as they departed for their walking tour. You meet all kinds I suppose. I haven’t read it yet because I had more important things to do.
From the rest area, after my snack, I headed into The Big Room. An unbelievable cavern that seems to go on forever and ever, winding here and there in a large loop with formation after formation. Still dark, dimly lit, with spots on the better features. By this time I’d worked up a bit of a sweat, so the cool dampness of the cave felt wonderful. I stopped in one point and felt a small breeze, which I later learned was part of the convection process of this cave. As hot air rises, the cooler air sinks, dampening with the nearly 90% humidity in the cave.
After I got back to the rest area, I decided to ride the elevator up, dump my bag and most of my stuff, and grab my caving gear, which consisted of:
soft kneepads (Mizuno)
soft elbow pads (Truefit)
flexible gloves (Novara multi-purpose)
a head rag for under the helmet
hiking boots (I have Stanley steel toed)
shirt and pants (both REI Brand)
spandex undies (to wick sweat away from the boys!)
a spandex biking shirt I love
a SIGG liter of water
4 AA batteries
I also brought a granola bar, but it turned out I didn’t need it. The SIGG was a bit too clunky as well, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
I headed back down to the rest area via the elevator, and slipped my kneepads and elbow pads on on (under my pants/shirt) and sat down to think about things before the trip. I was more than a little nervous to be honest, but a few drops of Rescue Remedy in my water bottle helped smooth out my head. I think I’ve blogged about that stuff before.
Anyway, soon enough the rangers (three AWESOME women, Lauren, Lori, and Erin) collected us and sat us down to talk caving basics as part of The Hall Of The White Giants. We learned how the helmets worked, some calls for getting on/off ladders and rope (“On Rope!”,”Off Rope!”), and the different types of markers on our tour. Plus more rules and regulation stuff, including not revealing where the cave entrance was.
So after we had our helmets, we headed up the elevator and hit the Natural Entrance again. I can’t say more than at some point along the way, we hopped off the trail and snuck into a crack. And when I say crack, think something you wouldn’t even possibly think of getting through. There was a group of Mexican tourists, and one elderly lady kept making the sign of the cross as she watched us slip into the wall.
And that was how it began.
Right away we were vaulted into the world of caving. Gaping holes with the littlest foothold on either side, clambering over boulders, squeezing through spaces you would never dream of being able to fit in, and edging around rocks with a 30ft to 40ft drop right under you.
This wasn’t for the weak. This was serious, potentially dangerous stuff.
I was terrified AND exhilarated by what I saw and what I managed to convince my body to do. My head was screaming “you’re going to climb that rope up that slippery wet and shiny wall?!?!” and my body was doing it.
Where is the next hold? Can I use my knee to brace my body? Keep my three points of contact. Hand on rope, knee, foot, go up.
Over and over we went through passages you wouldn’t want your pet to get lost in. Flat on your belly crawling, lumbering on your side and slithering through cracks, and trying to keep your balance next to a pit so deep that your headlight can’t even see the bottom.
I’m seriously shocked there were no major injuries. But the reason I’m telling you that is because the sheer joy of it was looking back and thinking “Wow. That wasn’t too bad after all. Holy shit, that ladder in front of me only has room for one foot at a time. And is slippery. And I’ll have to make my way back down that at some point!”
The endless twisting and turning at times opened into large rooms. Other times the room was small enough for only two people. Like the game telephone (without the obfuscation hopefully) you had to instruct the person behind you what you just did, or where the best hold was, or even how to navigate a particular passage. (on your butt, then switch to your belly, etc.)
Along the way beetles that look like ants, and some crickets crossed our paths. Amazing that down there life exists, and even thrives. But it was by no means a buggy tour. Just a few were all we saw. I think they know better and have far more interesting things to do that watch the humans.
The end of the tour was a… I don’t even know how to describe it. It was large, beautifully white pillar. The part that almost made me cry was thinking back to the first people who arrived here. How awestruck they must have been to see something so beautiful after such a strenuous journey. And they didn’t even have the benefit of ladders or ropes.
That final room was drenched in beauty. And it was something that very few people ever get to see. Two to three thousand people may visit Carlsbad Caverns in a day. And only eight people per week get the chance to travel to see The White Giant.
There’s something spiritual in that. A pilgrimage of sorts, to see something that so few people have seen, yet so many people could never make that journey. It doesn’t make me a better person to have traveled that path, to have crawled through tight passages, to have seen something that so few people have seen or will even have the chance to see.
What it has done, at least just a two short hours after experiencing it, has made me think about my life. I’m a consumer, standing tall the food chain. I live an extravagant lifestyle in many ways, and I’m thankfully not living outside my means. I have a lot. I’m blessed to have what I have.
But there in that cave, all I had were clothes, water, a light source, and a group of people I was forced to rely on. There’s something so pure in that. So spiritual. As I unravel that thought more and more, I’ll share.
Before we left the last room, which seemed to strike the same sense of awe in everyone, we all sat on the floor, turned out our lights, and sat silent for a long time. I could just barely hear the drops of water over my heartbeat, which seemed like a bass kick. For a second I felt like it was so loud I thought other people would complain.
The ranger told us some stories about the first people to come in, and about her philosophy of conservation. Some really profound stuff that is jumbled in my head at the moment but I’ll get it out eventually. I was hit hard by the reverence that all the rangers have for the cave. Their dedication to preservation is inspiring.
We had to exit the cave the same way we came in. And honestly, it’s like two different trips. Rocks you leapt over because there were handholds on the far side no longer had handholds! The pits you scampered over suddenly look entirely different. Maybe it was fatigue, or maybe it was an optical illusion, but I swear they were deeper on the return trip.
Since, as I mentioned, we entered somewhere in the Natural Cave entrance, we came back out into the cave. But what I didn’t realize was that the cave was closed and darkened by that part of the day. No more visitors, no more lights, only us, with our headlamps in the larger-than-large main rooms.
That part, by itself, would have been wonderful. But to finish an incredible journey into the earth with a stroll through one of the largest DARKENED rooms in the world was beyond. I kept pinching myself. We spread out at one point and it was so dark that you could barely see the dancing headlamps on the ceiling hundreds of feet away.
Ok, I could write for hours, but I’m starving and clean, so it’s time to go eat then collapse in bed, because I have another cave tour tomorrow. Plus there is a ranger led walking tour I want to take in the morning.
I’ll end on this. Think about the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen. Why was it beautiful? Who were you when you saw it? How did it change you?
Those are the questions I’m trying to answer at the moment.
Thank you for taking us on this trip with you.
You are most welcome. Videos to come soon!