Carlsbad Caverns National Park, NM
A juxtaposition of the natural and the human
Westward we go, and new things we see.
Our drive from Austin to southeast New Mexico offered us yet another new experience: the landscape looked dystopian.
Fields with fences and ranches and sprinklings of cattle gave way to vast open fields dotted with oil rigs bobbing up-and-down, seemingly random clusters of gigantic industrial containers and sheds, and the odd skinny, tall metal chimney burning with a bright flame above. On the roads, the familiar container trucks disappeared and in their place were trucks pulling oil drums and strange trapezoid-shaped open containers carrying mystery cargo. Gravel from oil extraction? Waste water from fracking? Mined minerals? In the rare occasions we stopped to rest, we could not ignore a strong, gassy smell of something — methane? — burning.
We were a bit confused because we were headed to Carlsbad Caverns National Park. Don’t they have national parks in places that are beautiful? Somehow, seeing the landscape as N. was driving soothed the FOMO I had felt when I failed to get tickets to the special ranger-guided tour a month ago (the one I had prepared so diligently for but failed to score while proving to the reservation system that I was not a robot!)
I think the horror we felt was partly due to the fact that we knew we were complicit in what we were seeing. For heaven’s sake, we were living in a van into which we had to fill with gasoline every 380 miles: that gas had to come from somewhere. We like to think we are enlightened and principled and virtuous, but we do that so that we can actually sleep at night.
I was reminded of the summary N. gave me after having read “Dirty Work” by Eyal Press: work like meat processing, detention facilities, and mining happens out of sight — when was the last time you drove through one of these? — because we actually don’t want to know what happens in those places.
Well, driving to Carlsbad Caverns forced us to face at least one of those industries. Coincidentally, while billboards for lawyers in other cities usually advertised medical malpractice, the one billboard for lawyers I saw on the highway in this area asked, “Oil field Injury? Call us!”
By the time we arrived at Carlsbad (in my head, I pronounced it “Carl is bad”) Caverns, I was feeling a subdued sense of anticipation.
***
At the Carlsbad Caverns Visitor Center, I found some measure of amusement seeing the license plates of cars from all over the country. I was looking especially for plates from the East Coast and found a few, from Georgia and North Carolina, but not from our home state.
At least we had tickets for the self-guided tour. We hiked down into the cavern on the Natural Entrace Trail, a steep collection of switchbacks into the mouth of the cave. Once our eyes adjusted to the dim lighting inside, we walked through “room” after “room” of formations of stagmites and stalactites and “lakes” and “chandeliers.”
Carlsbad Caverns was basically Luray Caverns on steroids (although only Luray had the “fried egg”).
***
Because we wanted a bit more exercise than walking in the caves, we decided after lunch to hike the Old Guano Trail to White’s City (out-and-back, 7.5 miles). It was convenient because the trailhead started right behind the Visitor Center.
When I asked a park ranger about it, just to make sure we knew exactly what to expect, the ranger — who looked as if he were still taking high school algebra — seemed, subtly but clearly, to discourage me from hiking the trail. He grumbled something about the trail not being maintained, that it was overgrown, and despite his baby-face, I hesitated a bit. Could it be that bad? N. had been waiting outside and I did not mention the baby park ranger’s warnings.
Off we went in search of this trail.
We passed the bat amphitheater and the second Natural Entrance, which was fenced off. Soon after, according to my app, we were already off the trail. Maybe baby ranger was onto something and I should share his warnings with N… Before I could say anything, N. spotted a trail blaze along with a stack of stones; we just followed the bread crumbs. Yes, the trail was a bit overgrown, but it was not hard to see the markers. Onwards we hiked.
Mountains and plains. Mountains and plains. Mountains and plains.
The weird thing about this particular hike was the fact that the scenery never changed. Whether Mile 1, 2 or 3, mountains and plains all around.
A couple of miles in, we ran into four people who were lingering along the path but not making any progress. Soon after we lost them and no matter how slowly we hiked, we did not see them coming behind us. I guess they learned, much more quickly than we, that there was no fun in hiking further because the views never changed.
We stopped just short of the steep descent into White’s City because we didn’t want to hike the steep downhill and, hence, the uphill on the return.
So back to mountains and plains.
