As a kid I had an ailment called Perthes disease. It didn't persist long, but during a family trip to Carlsbad Caverns I was confined to a wheelchair. So, my childhood memory of Carlsbad is totally based on being stuck in a wheelchair. It was amazing though. We descended 750 feet down an elevator and when the doors opened there was a brightly lit modern restaurant ready to feed us.
This was in the late 1950s. There were stalactites and stalagmites off in the distance, but stairs in the trails limited my access. That was my memory.
From its earliest days visiting the cavern was a time-consuming task. Tourists were lowered in a guano bucket and spent hours walking around ducking to avoid bonking their heads, and they got hungry. So accommodating meals deep in the cave goes back to the 1920s opening of the cave to the public. However, it is the National Park Service's task to protect these special places. Having food which attracts animals not normally found in the cave, additional lights which disturb the bats, the heat generated by ovens and toasters, and all those people slurping up soda pop and eating hamburgers are all destructive to the cave. But childhood memories are powerful. Many people fondly remember the Underground Lunchroom from their childhood, and they want to bring their kids to it as well. So, when the Park Service tried to remove the lunchroom, the backlash caused the government to protect the future of the lunchroom as if it were the national treasure instead of the cavern. Therefore, the lunchroom still exists, but it operates less frequently and in a darker, less damaging manner.
I inherited a souvenir cut section of either a stalactite or a stalagmite. It was polished on the cut sides and sold in the gift shop in the 1950s.
Thankfully though, with occasional backlashes, we do make progress. Now the National Park Service does a good job of trying to control the visitors to the cave. They preach good cave etiquette to protect the cave for future generations. Even though the cavern is rather remote, it is heavily visited. Timed tickets are required, and you do need to plan ahead.
Decades after my first visit, I returned. I loved that I could now walk down into the natural entrance, feel the air change, the “breath” of the cavern and the whoosh sound of the bats.
After your eyes adjust it is truly an amazing place.
The cavern is located within a massive fossil reef of a former inland sea which is now 3,600 feet above the current sea level. The reef was formed 265 million years ago. About 6 million years ago water rich in hydrogen sulfide started to migrate through cracks and fissures in the rock.
When regular rainwater mixed with the hydrogen sulfide, sulfuric acid was created which in turn created the vast chambers and formations within the cavern.
It only took time. Our presence here, the rangers will tell you, has been just a blink of an eye of geologic time, if that. We need to both appreciate and respect what nature has done and the time it took.
Take a walk with Birkenstock.
