heart of darkness part 2

After a great first day at Carlsbad, I started off day 2 with a tour of a completely different cave system in the park. We all met at the visitors center, received our gear and then caravaned over to Slaughter Canyon Cave. Although the name seems to imply that there’s a gruesome story involved…no such luck. Slaughter is simply the last name of a local rancher.

The hike up to the cave is really the only thing that makes this tour difficult. It’s a steep hike but only takes about 30 minutes if you are in good shape.

The rangers let everyone hike at their own pace and then we waited for everyone else to arrive at the entrance to the cave.

When Slaughter Canyon Cave was discovered, it began to be mined for bat guano. In the first portion of the cave, many of the formations had been destroyed as a result of the mining activities. As the tour progressed deeper into the cave, we headed down a small incline that looked as if it had been dug out. The walls on either side of the path were soon over our heads. The ranger revealed to us that we were actually in the guano mine and were standing on and surrounded by ancient piles of guano. It was a little surprising because while fresh guano resembles chocolate sprinkles, the walls around us were reddish-brown. She then instructed us to look a little closer at the guano. The picture below shows our discovery…little bits of bats remained in the guano! Bats who passed away fell from their perches in the ceiling and were buried under layer upon layer of guano. In this tour the only source of light was by headlamp, so please excuse the picture quality! It was pretty frustrating to take pictures in such an amazing space and have 98% of them look horrible.

It’s hard to get a sense of scale in these pictures but this column is right around 97 feet tall.

Just like in the Lower Cave tour, there was a section where we needed to use rope. It wasn’t steep, just very slippery.

This formation is called the clansman….though if you look at it the right way, I think it looks like a little old smiling grandma.

This one is called the Christmas Tree. It was probably one of the most memorable formations of my entire visit to Carlsbad NP. In person it is stunning. It looks like it is covered in freshly fallen snow and SPARKLES as a result of gypsum crystals. Truly striking. Unfortunately, it is one of those formations that is really difficult to get a good photo of! Again, very frustrating.

The whole Christmas Tree Room was pretty spectacular. The space sparkled in all directions and it appeared as if it had been dusted with snow. If there was such a thing as a fairy cave princess, this is where she would hold court. Silly, I know, but it was such a fantastic room I couldn’t help but let my imagination run wild!

After the Christmas Tree Room, we worked our way back out of the cave and hiked back down to the cars. And finally, after 3 tours and a day and a half at the park, it was finally time to see the Big Room. I drove back to the main visitor center and instead of taking the Natural Entrance Route (I knew it would take me too long), I took the elevator 750 feet down into the cave. The name ‘Big Room’ is an understatement. The square footage of this room is right around 357,500 square feet! In this room there is a paved 1-mile trail that travels along the perimeter of the room. It is self-guided and you can travel at your own pace. The photo below is of one of my favorite spots in the entire cave…I just wanted to climb over the railing and move in!

In the lower left-hand corner of this one there are a couple of people to show some scale.

It took me around 2 hours to do the loop. Afterwards I figured it was time to see a little bit of the above ground portion of the park. It’s hard to compete with such an amazing, cave, but the scenery along the Walnut Canyon Desert Drive was pretty great as well. This drive is along a one-way dirt road that starts at the top of the plateau and eventually winds its way down to the bottom of the canyon.

Sunday I had one more tour and then I would have to begin the drive back home. My last tour of the trip was through Left Hand Tunnel. This route was probably the least scenic of the tours that I’ve done, but it was fun to explore solely by candlelight.

The most significant thing about this tour was that I earned my second Junior Ranger badge at a National Park. What an exciting day! Yes, I know this is a little dorky but it’s the Park’s way of recognizing a good deed. On the tour there was an elderly man (I guessed he was about 80) who could barely walk faster than a shuffle. He probably shouldn’t have gone on the tour, but decided to anyways. On one portion of the trail there was a rocky and slippery incline that you had to go over. It took both the ranger and me to help him safely cross this area. At the end of the tour she presented me with the badge. It turns out the guy was only 69 years old…which is a little depressing considering that my dad is 60! If anything, it was one of those moments that reminds you how important it is to maintain your health and a decent level of fitness.

And with that, it was time for me to make the 7 hr drive back to Oklahoma. It always seems like the best sunsets happen while I’m driving the opposite direction!…But I did manage to get a shot of it in the side mirror. As soon as I got home that night I jumped online and reserved my spots for the Hall of the White Giant and Spider Cave tours (the two tours I didn’t get to do on this trip). I’ll be back at the park over Memorial Day to crawl and climb my way to my heart’s content and as a bonus, get to see the famed bat flight in and out of the Natural Entrance.

heart of darkness

I think I’m in love. I’d been in a good 15 caves or so before visiting Carlsbad Caverns so I was no stranger to the unique formations, highly decorated rooms and the seemingly compulsory black out periods during tours. But Carlsbad blew my mind. I just spent three glorious days at the park and have already scheduled a return visit in a few months.

I guess I’ve always had a little thing for caves. I think part of the reason for my fascination is that while it is still difficult to completely grasp, it is easier to see and understand the geologic time scale…one drip at a time. For example, at Carlsbad there is a short tunnel that they created to link access between to rooms. This tunnel was completed a little over 50 years ago and when it was done water started dripping through the limestone at the top.

Fast forward to today and those tiny drops of mineralized water have created baby stalactites smaller than the nail of my pinky finger. So when you see a column 90 feet high with a 10 foot diameter you can start to wrap your mind around the hundreds of thousands of years it took for it to grow.

Carlsbad was formed a little differently than most caves I’ve been in (sulfuric acid plays a role) and in its basic terms it is a 4 step process.

Step 1: 250 million years ago the landscape was an inland sea with where a reef grew. Eventually the sea dried up and the reef was buried.

Step 2: The reef was uplifted and created the Guadalupe Mountains.

Step 3: Here’s where the sulfuric acid comes into play. Most caves are formed by dissolution of limestone as a result of carbonic acid seeping downward. In the case of Carlsbad, below the region is an extremely rich oil field. Hydrogen sulfide from the petroleum began migrating upwards until it hit the water table. When it combined with water it created extremely powerful sulfuric acid and dissolved the limestone, creating the large chambers.

Step 4: After all of the acid water emptied out, the formations finally started to grow. It is hard to accurately predict how old formations are because conditions like temperature, location and rainfall and drastically change growth rates.

Ok, enough of the science stuff (as cool as it is). I decided to take this mini-road trip just a couple of weeks beforehand so even though late February/early March is probably one of the slowest times of the year, the two “wild” caving tours were already booked. I went ahead and reserved the other 4 available tours.

I arrived about an hour and a half before my first tour with the intention of walking the Natural Entrance Route down to the meeting point. By the time I picked up my tickets and some information I had a little over an hour to get to the bottom. I’m sure it is much different in the busy summer months, but there were portions of the mile long route where I couldn’t see or hear (sound really travels in a quiet cave) anyone around me. It was pretty special to be able to walk the path in silence on my own…although I did find myself whispering “wow” constantly. When you are in such a quite and beautiful space it seems only right to whisper! The park estimates that it takes about an hour to walk the route, but if you are as enamored with the cave as I was, it will take you longer. I ended up having to jog/speed walk the last third or more of the route just to make the tour on time.

My first tour was the Kings Palace tour. This tour typically has a capacity of 55 people but since it was still the slow season, there was less than 15! I would consider this one to be very easy with the exception of a short but steep hill you have to climb at the end. The entire route is paved and all of the formations are illuminated. Using the term the guide books and the park love to use, all of the rooms on this tour are “highly decorated”. It’s a short route but it is jam-packed with beautiful features.

I had a quick lunch, picked out some postcards and watched a movie in the auditorium and then it was time to head to tour number two. My second tour of the day was to Lower Cave. In this tour, headlamps are the primary light source and while the trail isn’t paved, it’s pretty well-worn. The most challenging part of the trail is at the start. First we used a knotted rope to help us down some slippery flowstone. It wasn’t steep but it would be pretty easy to slip without the rope.

Next, there was a series of 3 ladders.

One unique attraction of this tour is that it is one of the few known places in the cave system where you can see cave pearls. Cave pearls form in a similar way to traditional pearls. It starts with something like a grain of sand that is rotated by the water in such a manner that it is coated evenly. Many pearls are spherical but they can also be cylindrical.

I’m not sure if it’s a standard of the tour or if it was just the ranger’s choice, but when we came to a narrow passage on the route, we were given the opportunity to go one at a time through the pathway. They spaced us out so there was about 45 seconds to a minute in between each person entering the passage and we got to experience the space solo. It was short, but memorable. And it was nice knowing that there was someone waiting for you at the end of the tunnel!

After that it was time for the optional crawl…which of course I had to do!

By the time this tour got out, I realized I had gone the whole day without seeing the Big Room…the main attraction and most popular area of the caves. Unfortunately the park would be closing in less than an hour and I would have had to rush through it. It would just have to wait until tomorrow. And so will you…Stay tuned for days 2 and 3 at Carlsbad!