Carlsbad Caverns

I took off from El Paso early in the morning so I could get to Carlsbad Caverns.  There was quite a tailwind, a leftover from the previous day's windstorm.  I made good time, and the road was almost deserted.  The morning light was gorgeous:

I had tried to buy a ticket online to go on the King's Palace tour, but there was no availability.  When I arrived in the morning at the ticket counter however, they did have tickets, so I got one.  The only problem was that I wanted to go down through the natural entrance rather than the elevator, and the ranger there told me I'd need to "haul" in order to get there in time for the tour.  I like a challenge, so I took off.  Going down through the natural entrance is simply so impressive, that it sets the stage for the rest of the magical tour.  I made it down in plenty of time.

I'm going to publish two pictures here that I didn't take.  I took some, but in that kind of lighting, it takes someone with more skill and different equipment than I have.  They were taken by NPS photographer Peter Jones:

NPS Photo by Peter Jones

If you've never been to the caverns, it is truly a wonder.  The creation of the cavern takes into account the story of the geology I learned when I was in Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon.  Here, the interesting thing was how the material in the sandstone interacted with water to create some sulphuric acid, which ate out large amounts of the cave, and created the cottage cheese effect of many of the decorations on the walls.  Then once the cave was there, and the water level declined, ongoing leakage of water picked up calcite and deposited it, creating the stalactites and stalagmites.  It also created a crust of calcite on the floor.  I learned more about the bats in the exhibit area, but since I was there in the morning, I didn't see any.

In addition to the natural entrance down to the main level, I did the King's tour and then the Big Room.  It's hard to describe the beauty of these formations.  I was entranced, and after my initial rapid descent from the natural entrance, when in the Big Room I took a very leisurely approach.  I wanted to absorb some of the history and imagine the extremely slow creation of these amazing formations. After almost 4 hours of walking around, my legs were getting a little rubbery.  I finally left and got some lunch.  I also got a bat puppet at the gift shop for Chloe, since I already had something for Alex for her birthday and a DVD of Carlsbad for both of them.  I left the National Park still with a sense of amazement at what nature can create.