New Mexico - Day 4

We started today early with the Left Hand Tunnel tour in the Carlsbad Caverns.  This tour is an excellent example of repurposing an area of the cave that has been mined for silt and ravaged of most of its prettier speleothems (cave decorations).  What’s the solution?  Take your visitors back in time and show them how to explore a cave sans modern conveniences – like electric lights.

We started the tour in the same room as our adventure tour from yesterday – but this time there were smaller people allowed.  The youngest person in the room appeared to be about 6 years old which was the age cutoff for the tour.  Labeled “moderately strenuous," the best part of this experience is that you carry your own light source - a wooden box with glass panels and a single, medium sized pillar candle in the inside.

With this as our light and Ranger Georgina as our guide, we headed down the elevator for the tour.  Ranger G. was fantastic with the four-foot-and-shorter crowd.  They were comfortable learning from her Q&A style and she allowed them to take turns “leading” the tour.  It was quickly obvious that this tour was geared more to people of their size than people of ours, but it was enjoyable watching the kids have so much fun especially when Ranger G. pointed out two dead bats found in one area of the cave.  That was a HUGE hit.

What was most interesting to us was what the candlelight did to the walls, floors and cavities of the cave.  In the places where the tunnel was ravaged, the cave looked almost fake, like a movie set.  The rocks were massive and overpowering.  The shadows the candles cast added to the fantastical, Disney-park-like “look” to the cave.  I knew I was not supposed to touch the stones, but found myself leaning very close to some with my candle in an attempt to figure out if the cave was indeed a farce.  But then we finally reached an area where the cave was still active.  In this area there were a few stalactites and draperies still in the process of forming (bad water leak in the roof).  Here, the candlelight eerily illuminated the white of the growing formations in contrast to the darker limestone beneath.  In places, the contrast created a beautiful bacon effect that was strange, unearthly and difficult to grasp.  Ansel Adams, photographer of light, also struggled to describe the caverns.  "(They are) something that should not exist in relation to human beings.  Something as remote as the galaxy, as incomprehensible as a nightmare, and beautiful in spite of everything." Well said, Ansel.  Well said.

After a trip to the gift shop for some cave swag, we drove to Guadalupe Mountain National Park's visitor center to eat our lunch out of the back of the car.  When we were done, we grabbed our offering of chocolate chip cookies for the Rangers and headed in to check out the displays.  (Quick side note:  For those of you who do not follow our blog, our habit of giving rangers chocolate chip cookies began at Mesa Verde National Park where an bored ranger deviated from the traditional junior ranger pledge and included a phrase about delivering chocolate chip cookies to the rangers wherever we go.  A Hicks family tradition was born.)  As normal, Isaac walked up to the desk and handed the two rangers the cookies while thanking them for their service to the National Parks.  Ranger Holly and her sidekick were surprised and thankful.  While we were perusing the displays, we overheard the other ranger say, “I think that is about the most exciting thing that I’ve seen happen at this desk!”  Ranger life can be a little boring.  We were glad we could bring a little sparkle to their day.)

Per Ranger Holly’s advice, we decided to spend the rest of the afternoon hiking McKittrick Canyon.  We decided that we would hike to Pratt Cabin and on to the Grotto if we felt like it.  The entire trip was a little over 4 miles.  There are several trails at McKittrick Canyon – one of which is the Permian Reef trail.  As we were stocking up with water and snacks, we ran into a group of about 20 college looking people.  I started chatting with one of the girls in the group who said they were headed to the Reef trail as it is a great place for viewing exposed fossils.  The group, it turned out, was none other than the geology department from Wichita State University.  We shared where we were from, had a good laugh, and said if we had known we should have carpooled.  GO SHOCKS!

 

Our trails diverged at the trailhead, so we left our neighbors and headed down the dry creek bed to the cabin.  About 100 yards into the trail, we ran into three deer who were snacking around the side of the riverbed.  We followed them for about 50 feet until they caught sight of us and bounded out of the creek to safer hiding places.  From there, the trip was windy, but normal.  There were a couple of rangers maintaining the trail so we regularly had

to bail to let the ranger gators through.  We heard more critters in the brush along the sides of the trail but couldn’t manage to see them.

We reached the cabin in about 1.5 hours and decided to stop, have a mid-day snack and water break on a picnic table.  The cabin was the home of Jim Pratt who, after living in the canyon for several years, donated his land to the National Park.  He built the structure out of limestone blocks found in pastures outside the canyon and

drug in with horses.  The simple home had a living room, kitchen and two bedrooms.  The best part, though, was a peaceful front porch.  It was there that mom caught a quick mid-afternoon snooze in a very comfortable adirondack chair. 
We messed around for about an hour on the property.  There was a quick history about how the cabin was built posted to the door and you could peek in some of the windows to see sparsely furnished but comfortable rooms.  We also sat down and had our mid-afternoon snack on a conveniently provided picnic table in the backyard.  And then, of course, the nap on the front porch while listening to the wind rushing through the canyon.  All in all, it was a great stop.  None of us felt the urge to continue on to the Grotto, so we turned back to the trailhead.

In places, the creek bed of the canyon wasn't completely dry and there is running water - an interesting thing to see alongside a sea of prickly pears and other desert flora.  In other places, and according to posted signs, the creek has disappeared underground.  The presence of water, however, has created a small oasis in the desert where a wider variety of plants and trees are given what they need to flourish.  We were pleasantly surprised by two huge ponderosa pines in the back yard of Pratt Cabin – we know, we smelled them to make sure.  Mom’s favorite tree on this trail was the Texas Madora.  The Madora is a graceful tree with red bark in the areas of old growth.  When the tree gains its new growth, it sheds the older red bark to reveal a lighter, pink bark underneath.

After returning to the car, we drove back to Carlsbad and ended the day at the No Whiner Diner where we enjoyed some excellent comfort food and homemade honey wheat bread. Yum!