Mike's Southwest Travels: Carlsbad Caverns Main Cave 1

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Main Cave Tour
August 2, 2005

   

Before we begin, let’s get one thing straight: stalactites hang from the ceiling, stalagmites are formed on the ground. An expert spelunker, such as myself, can’t help but be offended by people who can’t remember that.

A group of cavers from Kansas described the drive to Carlsbad as "dreadfully flat" and "murderous." The trip was also described to me as, "the longest three hours of my life." Now, it’s not that bad. Why there’s… the… the… flat, endless expanse of scrub brush. But wait, there’s less. After the scrub you get to the… flat, endless expanse of salt flats. Oh, and let’s not forget all four buildings worth of Cornudas, Texas. In spite of their world famous hamburgers, the "town" actually no longer appears on area maps.

I was told that after the salt flat, I would encounter a majestic mountain peak that would appear out of nowhere. "Ha!" I scoffed while driving in the middle a landscape with all the visual interest of a blank sheet of paper. Suddenly, there it was! Soaring 8,078 ft. above the high desert floor (I even measured it) was El Capitan. The dramatic, sheer vertical cliff dominated the horizon. The Guadalupe Mountain’s artistic punctuation marked the end of my journey.  I was too awed to take a picture, so that's a stock image.

The name, Carlsbad Caverns, is actually something of a misnomer. The Caverns are in White’s City. Carlsbad is a few miles down the road. You aren’t missing anything. In fact, there’s many more caves in the area beyond the self-guided tour of the Big Room. The tours to these places have colorful names and descriptions. There’s Slaughter Canyon. There’s the Hall of the White Giant, where hikers most bring gloves, kneepads, and a flashlight for this strenuous crawl. There’s the Mouth of the Sarlaac, where hikers descend into a 100 ft. pit to be slowly consumed over the course of a 1,000 years. This tour is described as only moderately strenuous, since it’s mostly down hill. Then there’s Dagon’s Slab, where hikers are taken to a ceremonial underground chamber, drugged, bound, and sacrificed to speed the arrival of our Dark Lord and initiate his bloody reign.

Ah, guano! The sweet, happy smell of our little bat friends gently wafted out from the cave and filled the area. Tourists aren’t allowed into the Bat Cave for some reason. Something about an atomic reactor and secret identities.

 

From here, I entered into the heart of the earth:  Carlsbad Caverns.

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves here.  (Mostly because I don't remember the names all these structures.)