Carlsbad Caverns, Part the First
The highlight of our recent trip to West Texas took place in New Mexico: We drove up to Carlsbad Caverns, one of my favorite places on the entire planet. It was quite a haul--three plus hours each way--which made for quite a long day. But it was worth every minute of the long trek.
First, I must explain my obsession with this marvelous cave. Ever since I was a toddler and my parents took me to Luray Caverns, I've been fascinated by caves--commercial caves. I haven't mustered the courage to go caving, although I may do so one day. I'm intrigued by the prospect but not driven quite enough to pursue the opportunity. I love taking cave tours, though, and a good cave will make my heart soar. Jeff and I even got married in a cave--Grand Caverns in Grottoes, VA. It's my sentimental favorite of the Shenandoah Valley caves, although I have to admit that Endless Caverns in New Market wins my "best in show" for that category. One day I'll have to do a post devoted to show caves I have known and loved (and those that fell far short of my not-so-high standards). But today I am going to laud the paragon of U.S. show caves: Carlsbad Caverns. Nothing else comes close.
I first visited Carlsbad Caverns in 1994, when I was fortunate enough to visit it twice. The first time, I was driving around the Southwest on my own, trying to find my bearings after the break up of a twelve-year relationship during which I had kind of lost track of who I was. The best way I knew of finding that out again was taking long road trips (no matter that I maxed out the credit cards doing so). It was on one such trip that I visited the first time, in March. I had read about it, but nothing prepared me for the experience of walking into that huge hole in the ground, "listening stick" in hand, subterranean glories ahead. The place took such a hold on me that in August, when my friend Beth and I took a cross-country road trip from Los Angeles to Waynesboro, VA (my hometown and Beth's home, still), I insisted that we visit Carlsbad Caverns so I could see it again. And, of course, to win Beth as a Carlsbad convert. Beth is a bit claustrophobic, and doesn't do most caves well. I told her she would have no problems in THIS cave, and I was right! This cave is huge. No tight crawls, "Tall Man's Headaches" or "Fat Man's Miseries" in THIS cave--at least, not in the part open for the most public of tours. (There are off-trail tours that no doubt have crawls and squeezes and such, if you are so inclined. And I might be, one day.)
It had been nearly twelve years since I set foot on that switchback trail into wonderland, and I was a bit worried that Jeff and Rachel wouldn't be as enthusiastic as I was, but the cave weaves its magic--and it enchanted them as well.
So, now, to the tour.
I have to begin on our drive to the park, which is about 170 miles north of Marfa. We started out early and quickly made our way through Valentine, TX, which is practically a ghost town. It is picturesque, though, and on any other day we would have stopped to take pictures of its dereliction (it even had a boarded up tree house!), but we were on a schedule--had to get to the cave! That didn't keep us from stopping a ways north of Valentine, though, when we encountered the chic and shocking Prada Marfa:
Yes, it's a Prada Store. No, it's not real. It's an art installation. That's Rachel posing. She's as real as can be, but she's not wearing Prada. We stopped to snap some pictures and muse about why it wasn't called "Prada Valentine." Soon we were back on the road.
We made it to the cave around 11:00 AM, thanks to a time-zone change. We got our tickets, including our reserved tickets on the 3:00 guided King's Palace Tour, picked up our audio devices (which were new and improved--well, supposedly--listening sticks), and headed down the trail and into the enormous cave entrance.
If you are planning to visit this cave and are reasonably ambulatory, do not succumb to the lure of the elevators. Walk down the natural entrance. It's steep, and it had my bad knee singing a bit, but there's so much cool stuff to see on the way to the Big Room that you won't want to deprive yourself of this experience. Just watching as the daylight fades and the dim cave lighting takes over--without which you'd be wandering in utter, profound darkness--well, that's worth the hike right there.
But there is so much more to come. Along the way, the formations get more plentiful and more bizarre. Case in point:
As you approach the Big Room, you encounter a stunning taste of what's to come:
This is one of the many wonderful photos Rachel took in the cave--she has quite an eye (and a steady hand--a lot of these photos were taken without flash). Just to keep above board, the two entrance photos are Rachel's as well. The alien chest-burster thingy is mine, as are all the photos below. Part the second will feature more of Rachel's photos.
When I looked at the picture above, I was surprised to see several of the formations we encountered on our King's Palace tour later in the day clearly visible from this part of the natural entrance route. The formation with the green tinge is the Veiled Statue--the final stop on that tour. If you have very sharp eyes, you'll also see a couple of formations that I'll show you closer views of (thanks to Rachel) in the next post. Apparently, a couple of decades ago the scenic rooms (those now only accessible through the guided King's Palace tour) were part of the self-guided tour (as the natural entrance and the Big Room still are). Visitors were routed to these rooms first, before they proceeded on to the Big Room. But some people (well in this case, an awful lot of people) are pigs, and the scenic rooms were losing around a thousand speleothems per year. People just broke them off and took them with! So the Park Service closed the rooms to all but those who make reservations for a ranger-led tour. The only glimpse others get is from the vantage point of this photo.
Once you hike down that steep trail, you're going to be thirsty and probably hungry too. And you may sorely need the facilities. No problem! There's a lunchroom down there at 750 feet below the surface:
And restrooms:
Now, I know the whole concept of the underground lunchroom is outdated and kind of wrong-headed, and the food services there have certainly gone downhill in the last decade or so (not that they offered great cuisine in 1994, but there were chicken fingers and whatnot, prepared there, not microwaved frozen pizza that, when nuked, became the consistency of fluffernutter). But I am nostalgic for the whole retro notion of food service at 750 feet. And the subterranean purveying of souvenirs. There's been talk of removing the lunchroom for years, and, truly, the lunchroom as it stands could use a major overhaul, no question. The Park Service is renovating facilities on the surface this fall and winter--perhaps that spells the renovation of the lunchroom too--or its demise. As it is now, it's kind of sad. But they'd better not take away the restrooms (although they could use some updating as well)!
We had a snack, availed ourselves of the facilities, and headed into the Big Room. There's just no way to convey its size or the variety of its speleothems, but here are some of the sights that await:
This is the Hall of Giants--giant stalagmites, that is!
And here is the Lion's Tail, hanging over the trail.
It's a stalactite with some cave popcorn adorning its tip.
This is a detail of the Big Room:
I don't recall its name... sorry!
This one I know, though:
It's the Temple of the Sun.
I don't know what the name of this feature is, either, but when I uploaded the photo, I noticed something odd about it:
A weird pixie face is lurking within the stalactites.
And this is the Doll's Theater:
It's a charming niche filled with hundreds of soda straws.
Our next adventure was a tour through the scenic rooms--the King's Palace, the Papoose Room, the Queen's Chamber, and the Green Lakes--led by rangers who made sure we didn't straggle and that we didn't break anything. But I'm going to save that for a second post.
Take a little break. Pick up some water and maybe some chips in the lunchroom (but don't touch the pizza!), catch some sweet relief in the washroom, and get ready for some more commercial caving next post.
First, I must explain my obsession with this marvelous cave. Ever since I was a toddler and my parents took me to Luray Caverns, I've been fascinated by caves--commercial caves. I haven't mustered the courage to go caving, although I may do so one day. I'm intrigued by the prospect but not driven quite enough to pursue the opportunity. I love taking cave tours, though, and a good cave will make my heart soar. Jeff and I even got married in a cave--Grand Caverns in Grottoes, VA. It's my sentimental favorite of the Shenandoah Valley caves, although I have to admit that Endless Caverns in New Market wins my "best in show" for that category. One day I'll have to do a post devoted to show caves I have known and loved (and those that fell far short of my not-so-high standards). But today I am going to laud the paragon of U.S. show caves: Carlsbad Caverns. Nothing else comes close.
I first visited Carlsbad Caverns in 1994, when I was fortunate enough to visit it twice. The first time, I was driving around the Southwest on my own, trying to find my bearings after the break up of a twelve-year relationship during which I had kind of lost track of who I was. The best way I knew of finding that out again was taking long road trips (no matter that I maxed out the credit cards doing so). It was on one such trip that I visited the first time, in March. I had read about it, but nothing prepared me for the experience of walking into that huge hole in the ground, "listening stick" in hand, subterranean glories ahead. The place took such a hold on me that in August, when my friend Beth and I took a cross-country road trip from Los Angeles to Waynesboro, VA (my hometown and Beth's home, still), I insisted that we visit Carlsbad Caverns so I could see it again. And, of course, to win Beth as a Carlsbad convert. Beth is a bit claustrophobic, and doesn't do most caves well. I told her she would have no problems in THIS cave, and I was right! This cave is huge. No tight crawls, "Tall Man's Headaches" or "Fat Man's Miseries" in THIS cave--at least, not in the part open for the most public of tours. (There are off-trail tours that no doubt have crawls and squeezes and such, if you are so inclined. And I might be, one day.)
It had been nearly twelve years since I set foot on that switchback trail into wonderland, and I was a bit worried that Jeff and Rachel wouldn't be as enthusiastic as I was, but the cave weaves its magic--and it enchanted them as well.
So, now, to the tour.
I have to begin on our drive to the park, which is about 170 miles north of Marfa. We started out early and quickly made our way through Valentine, TX, which is practically a ghost town. It is picturesque, though, and on any other day we would have stopped to take pictures of its dereliction (it even had a boarded up tree house!), but we were on a schedule--had to get to the cave! That didn't keep us from stopping a ways north of Valentine, though, when we encountered the chic and shocking Prada Marfa:
Yes, it's a Prada Store. No, it's not real. It's an art installation. That's Rachel posing. She's as real as can be, but she's not wearing Prada. We stopped to snap some pictures and muse about why it wasn't called "Prada Valentine." Soon we were back on the road.
We made it to the cave around 11:00 AM, thanks to a time-zone change. We got our tickets, including our reserved tickets on the 3:00 guided King's Palace Tour, picked up our audio devices (which were new and improved--well, supposedly--listening sticks), and headed down the trail and into the enormous cave entrance.
If you are planning to visit this cave and are reasonably ambulatory, do not succumb to the lure of the elevators. Walk down the natural entrance. It's steep, and it had my bad knee singing a bit, but there's so much cool stuff to see on the way to the Big Room that you won't want to deprive yourself of this experience. Just watching as the daylight fades and the dim cave lighting takes over--without which you'd be wandering in utter, profound darkness--well, that's worth the hike right there.
But there is so much more to come. Along the way, the formations get more plentiful and more bizarre. Case in point:
As you approach the Big Room, you encounter a stunning taste of what's to come:
This is one of the many wonderful photos Rachel took in the cave--she has quite an eye (and a steady hand--a lot of these photos were taken without flash). Just to keep above board, the two entrance photos are Rachel's as well. The alien chest-burster thingy is mine, as are all the photos below. Part the second will feature more of Rachel's photos.
When I looked at the picture above, I was surprised to see several of the formations we encountered on our King's Palace tour later in the day clearly visible from this part of the natural entrance route. The formation with the green tinge is the Veiled Statue--the final stop on that tour. If you have very sharp eyes, you'll also see a couple of formations that I'll show you closer views of (thanks to Rachel) in the next post. Apparently, a couple of decades ago the scenic rooms (those now only accessible through the guided King's Palace tour) were part of the self-guided tour (as the natural entrance and the Big Room still are). Visitors were routed to these rooms first, before they proceeded on to the Big Room. But some people (well in this case, an awful lot of people) are pigs, and the scenic rooms were losing around a thousand speleothems per year. People just broke them off and took them with! So the Park Service closed the rooms to all but those who make reservations for a ranger-led tour. The only glimpse others get is from the vantage point of this photo.
Once you hike down that steep trail, you're going to be thirsty and probably hungry too. And you may sorely need the facilities. No problem! There's a lunchroom down there at 750 feet below the surface:
And restrooms:
Now, I know the whole concept of the underground lunchroom is outdated and kind of wrong-headed, and the food services there have certainly gone downhill in the last decade or so (not that they offered great cuisine in 1994, but there were chicken fingers and whatnot, prepared there, not microwaved frozen pizza that, when nuked, became the consistency of fluffernutter). But I am nostalgic for the whole retro notion of food service at 750 feet. And the subterranean purveying of souvenirs. There's been talk of removing the lunchroom for years, and, truly, the lunchroom as it stands could use a major overhaul, no question. The Park Service is renovating facilities on the surface this fall and winter--perhaps that spells the renovation of the lunchroom too--or its demise. As it is now, it's kind of sad. But they'd better not take away the restrooms (although they could use some updating as well)!
We had a snack, availed ourselves of the facilities, and headed into the Big Room. There's just no way to convey its size or the variety of its speleothems, but here are some of the sights that await:
This is the Hall of Giants--giant stalagmites, that is!
And here is the Lion's Tail, hanging over the trail.
It's a stalactite with some cave popcorn adorning its tip.
This is a detail of the Big Room:
I don't recall its name... sorry!
This one I know, though:
It's the Temple of the Sun.
I don't know what the name of this feature is, either, but when I uploaded the photo, I noticed something odd about it:
A weird pixie face is lurking within the stalactites.
And this is the Doll's Theater:
It's a charming niche filled with hundreds of soda straws.
Our next adventure was a tour through the scenic rooms--the King's Palace, the Papoose Room, the Queen's Chamber, and the Green Lakes--led by rangers who made sure we didn't straggle and that we didn't break anything. But I'm going to save that for a second post.
Take a little break. Pick up some water and maybe some chips in the lunchroom (but don't touch the pizza!), catch some sweet relief in the washroom, and get ready for some more commercial caving next post.
posted by Cathy VanPatten at 9:50 PM
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