Carlsprettygood

I read this cool essay by Ansel Adams while we were at the Carlsbad Caverns park, in the Chihuahuan desert in New Mexico (which apparently has more biodiversity than the Everglades). The essay was enlightening and inspiring. Unfortunately, college trained me too well to forget everything I read after a few days, and I'm writing this post from the future. I contacted the park to ask them what the title of the essay is so I can find it again. I'm waiting to hear back. I think it was about the fragility, connectedness, timelessness, and beauty of nature. Which seems typical of something you'd read at a national park, but somehow I thought it was special. So there.


The Big Room is something like 700 feet underground. Before we got there, for some reason I thought I had read that the underground chamber was 700 feet tall. And I had seen an image that I thought was enormous natural stone pillars leaning on each other. Which I also thought were 700 feet tall. It kind of reminded me of the Mines of Moria from Fellowship of the Ring. But somehow I was wrong on both counts. Although the chamber is quite large (I think the largest in the western hemisphere in some category, like a natural limestone cave or something), its ceiling is nowhere near that high from the floor. And I have no idea what image I had seen, because I didn't see any such enormous natural freestanding pillars.


What we did see, though, was still pretty spectacular. There was one quote from an early explorer of the cave (or maybe it was Ansel Adams) about it being both creepy and beautiful, and just about the most alien-feeling place on earth. That seemed fitting. Almost everthing was a pale off-white color, with some very faint hints of colors in different areas (I guess the lighting they use is supposed to reveal the natural color of the formations). You can read all about how the caves were formed online, I don't know if it's something I should bother getting into here because I'm bound to omit or misquote something. Well... I'll try real quick. Basically, acid and acidic water carved away the limestone to form the caverns, and then trickling groundwater slowly deposited minerals and created all the "decorations," or stalactites, stalagmites, columns, draperies, popcorn, and soda straws. A lot of the decorations look like specific forms, like lions' tails, people, and gothic architecture. There were other cool things too, like huge blocks of gypsum, fallen boulders, and lots of bat guano. Apparently the caves were discovered by following the thousands of bats that make their homes their in the summer. Discovered in the Christopher Columbus sense I mean. I guess we missed the bats' nightly exodus from the cave's natural opening by just a few weeks, which is something I'd definitely want to see if I make it back there again.

So... not quite what I expected, but pretty cool. If you are ever in the area, I'd recommend it. Apparently the guided tours are pretty good, but we didn't end up doing one.

Our Carlsbad Caverns photos
Also, if you are feeling like a traitor, you can check out some of the National Park Service's photos.