Caverns, Oil and Not Much Else: Carlsbad, NM
Feb 26, 2021
“[Carlsbad Caverns] is something that should not exist in relation to human beings. Something that is remote as the galaxy, as incomprehensible as a nightmare, and beautiful in spite of everything.”
We left Mayhill and came down the east side of the mountains, out to the more barren flatlands of Eastern NM. We came in the backside of Carlsbad a bit confused. What is this place? Is this the actual town? Mayhill and the surroundings were kind of run down in a cute way, Carlsbad was just kind of... junky.
We later learned that Carlsbad had been a booming oil town for several years until COVID hit. New Mexico, unlike its neighbors, put in pretty tight travel restrictions. (Technically we should've quarantined for two weeks when entering from AZ. Not sure it would have made much difference when we're in our RV most of the time anyway.) Since then, all the workers that had been coming over from TX or other states to work the oilfields pretty much had to leave since they couldn't cross the state line to work. The net result was that Carlsbad has lost about half its population in the last year, and apparently the departing workers left a real mess. Had we come here pre-COVID, we would've had a hard time finding a park spot, as they were all filled with oilworkers.
The park we picked had recently changed managers and they were very sweet, but they were clearly working their way through a big backlog. A park mostly populated by transient oilworkers is going to be a very differently-kept place than one trying to draw tourists.
We did get our AC tranasfer switch replaced while we were here, and the new one is in a a much safer spot temperature-wise. Thankful that we found a local tech that could do it!
Anyway Carlsbad is a weird place to be. There was a surprising amount of trash just... around, and more hotels and housing than they need anymore. At times we wished we were boondocking outside of town instead.
On the other hand, this phenomenal playground called Playground on the Pecos almost made up for it. We spent nearly two full days here with the kids running amok while I worked in the picnic shelter and Kristin got to relax and read.
But none of that is why we came to Carlsbad. The thing to see here is the Caverns.
Where do I begin? I've never been in anything remotely like it. The scale, the beauty, the utterly alien environment, it's beyond description.
We visited twice. On our first visit we went through the "natural entrance" where you walk down the mouth of the cave on CCC-built ramps. You go through the bat cave and slowly down 700+ feet of constant switchbacks, through room after room of incredible formations and deepening silence. It seems to go on forever (we didn't get a map, oops). By the time we reached the crossroads at the elevators and rest area, we were pretty spent. Poor Kristin could hardly see due to fogged glasses in the cave humidity. We went a little ways over to the Big Room, but when we encountered a shortcut path back to the elevators and up, we called it a day.
Our second time we took the elevators down, which was even weirder. When you go directly from sunny outside to 750 feet underground amid crazy rock formations, the shock is strong. This time we made it further in the big room, and boy were were surprised. It's so, so much bigger than we thought. The height and volume of the thing was truly disorienting. We made it about 1/3 of the way around the room, but at the entrances to the even lower sections of cave, Luke wasn't feeling well and needed to head back out. Kristin, Audrey and Luke went back while I continued around the big room.
The best part about the big room was making it to a spot called the Top of the Cross, at the axis of the big room's spaces where you can see all the way down the length of the main tunnel into the space, and across at the entrance to the lower cave on one side, and the "bottomless pit" on the other. The view from here was phenomenal!
As I continued around, however, I started to share Luke's nervous feelings. You know how looking over a steep cliff can give you vertigo? Imagine looking over a steep cliff when you're already inside a cave and that cliff is a hole into total blackness. If you experience fear around any of the following: heights, small spaces, large spaces, the dark, falling, or solitude, you might be uncomfortable in Carlsbad Caverns. It's got all of it. By the time I made it around to the bottomless pit (it's about 150 feet deep, it turns out) I could barely look down the thing and managed to snap just a few shots as I walked by.
I stopped at a bench on the way back to try to collect myself, but to no avail. The cave is too alien, too old, too mysterious for me to feel comfortable. There is no life here. It's a safe place - well developed, patrolled, and easily accessed. But that safety has been put there by man. The cave is bigger than us, older and stranger. It is no place to linger.
