Gobsmacked!

Day 233

In 1898, a young man named Jim White explored a cave close to his home in the Guadalupe Mountains, New Mexico. Using a homemade wire ladder, Jim descended into the cave, traversing back and forth as he descended 752 feet into the earth. As he continued deeper into the tunnel it opened up into huge cavernous chambers. Over time other explorers trekked the caves, and to this day over 30 miles of passages that descend to more than 1037 ft into the earth have been explored and mapped. The largest of the chambers called the Big Room is almost 4,000 ft long, 625 ft wide and 225 ft high at its highest point. The Big Room is the largest chamber in North America and the 31st largest in the world.

In 1923 an executive order was made by President Calvin Coolidge for a possible national park or monument to be made at the caverns. In 1930 the US congress established the Carlsbad Caverns National Park with over 79,766 acres of land. In the early years of the 1930s an idea to blast a tunnel through one of the cliff walls for automobiles to tour through the caves was suggested, thankfully it never came to light. Instead an elevator shaft was constructed although it inadvertently caused the caverns to dry out. Airlocks installed in the 1970s rebalanced the caverns to there natural humidity. 

After seeing all the devastation in the oil fields, it came as no surprise to me to read the National park is struggling to preserve the caverns from contaminated fracking water (conveniently called produced water by the oil companies), as they begin to drill against the parks boundaries. 

When Lori and I arrived we were not sure what to expect, so we came prepared. I figured it may be cold in the caves so I put on four layers of shirts and jackets and wore my warmest pants. When we arrived at the park the ticket holder asked if we would like to hike to the caverns (a one mile hike down a zig zagging path), or take the elevator….hmmm 🤔 this is a tough one…

The elevator dropped us 752 feet into the earth in less than one minute. We departed the elevator into what we thought at the time was a big cavern. The floor was all cement with a small dimly lit cafeteria serving cold sandwiches, drinks and a large place to sit and eat. From there we entered the walkway to the caverns. After following a tunnel for a few minutes it opened up into nothing less than a jaw drop! 

Panoramic view from the cave entrance.  

752 feet below the ground. 

Cafeteria and resting area for those who hiked in, and possibly those who had a bad elevator ride down, I guess. 

The ladder here leads down to more caverns below. The ladder was placed there by Dr. Willis T. Lee who explored this hole in 1924.