Into The Deep Dark Hole

Vol Fan and I arrived fairly early to Carlsbad Caverns in order to beat the majority of the crowd.  Vol Fan had never been in a cave and I only had very dim memories of a family trip to Mammoth Cave when I was about 6-7.  So we were both very excited about our adventure.

The cave swallows were darting in and out of the mouth of the cave.  Their calls making the morning seem that much more perfect.  Until we realized that we were going to be walking beneath that parade of birds.  Crossing our fingers for no bird poop on our heads, we continued down, down, down the path.  [Note:  You don't have to hike down into (or out of!) the cave.  The park service has installed an elevator that will very quickly take you from the visitor center to the main room of the cave.]

Soon we were in the cool darkness of the cave.  And we were enthralled!

[Pretend all these photos are in perfect focus.  I didn't bring a tripod and even with my best low light lens, there is still some blur.]

This particular type of formation is called draperies.  It looked just like fabric hanging.  Hard to imagine something so delicate-looking being made of rock.

Formations that looked like melted ice cream...

Stalagmites reflected in pools of water.

Even though, there were a few places that Vol Fan risked bumping his head...

The majority of the cave is incredibly open.  I had a hard time capturing just how huge the cave was due to the use of the low-light lens - it doesn't let me get wide views.  But this photo shows some of the size.  Can you see the person beside the formation?  The cave ceiling was probably double what is seen from this photo.

And we weren't anywhere near the most spectacular formations to come.