Day 8: Carlsbad and Drive to Arizona

507 Miles

I’ve always been fascinated by caves, and have been looking forward to this day (and Mammoth Cave, near the end of our journey) for a long time.

We got to start the day much as we had ended the previous evening: with a tarantula sighting near the amphitheater! Very disinterested in me, he (or she — I didn’t ask) walked toward my camera, crawling and posing as I lay on the ground taking photos. Then a sudden, strong gust of wind blew it sideways. Fortunately, it was not blown directly into me. I’ve gotten a lot better with spiders since my younger years but, you know, a palm-sized tarantula in the face is probably pushing it.

We looked around at some of the other animals and plants until we were ready to descend.

You can’t really comprehend the beauty of caves until you’ve seen a few in person. Photos fail to capture both the enormity of the open spaces and the delicate details of some of the formations (known to scientists as speleothems). I’m always disappointed in my cave photos, because they all start to look the same upon review, which sucks because there is incredible variety. I just can’t seem to catch it with a simple photo. Much as we do with clouds, humans see recognizable shapes, faces and other patterns in the cave formations, and in many caves, these shapes are given names: totem pole, witch’s finger, wedding cake, pipe organ, whale mouth, giant dome, etc. But it all kind of flattens out when reduced to a 2D computer screen or mobile device. I guess I’m saying that I wish I had better pics for you, in case that wasn’t already clear.

The altitude at Carlsbad Caverns is about 3600 feet above sea level, but the caverns themselves are about 750 feet underground. So our day started with a walk down the “natural entrance” (as opposed to taking the elevator). I’m glad we did this, because it gave us a real sense of scale. Being that this is also the entrance that the bats use, there is a strong musky scent as you descend the 750 feet along a switchback path. That odor slowly disappears as the walkways veer away from wherever it is that the bats slumber.

From there, it’s a near-constant state of awe as the natural light fades away and the low-wattage electric lights illuminate miles of pathways and countless formations. Among other things, we took the Big Room Trail (a a 1.25 mile trail inside the largest single cave chamber (by volume) in North America. Again, the photos won’t do it justice. 

After a while, we took a break to eat a simple lunch at the underground cafe (which I thought was a fun, unique experience; lunch 750 feet underground). We continued our exploration of the caves for another hour or so until we felt we’d seen the highlights, then opted to take the elevator back up (a really nice option to have after all that walking!)

Next, we piled into the car, driving once again through Halliburton’s fields of pollution, until we reached the infamous town of Roswell. We didn’t have time to stop and tour, but we took a few shots from the car (the alien head lamp posts are a nice touch), and continued toward the Arizona border, arriving just before midnight at our hotel near the entrance to The Petrified Forest National Park (which includes the Painted Desert). That’s the next post.