We woke up early today and I shivered all the way to the restaurant to cash in on our free breakfast before tackling the caves.

A small opening in the ground lead us down below the ground of New Mexico; the down equivalent to walking up to the top of the Empire State Building.

What waited for us is beyond words and pictures although I will try to illustrate using both.

New Mexico was once the coastline of the ocean home to a huge marine reef. The temperature then was close to what you would find in the Caribbean today. As the coral and other organisms died, they settled and collected forming limestone, the major component in the composition of the caverns. Limestone, gases from oil fields deep in the ground and oxygen rich rainwater produced chemical reactions that dissolved the stone leaving behind immense underground caves that in some spots reached over 250 ft high.

Just to scale the size a bit, imagine 14 football fields side to side and there you have it.

Stalactites and stalagmites are formed when calcium rich water drips to the ground from the ceiling. Over time the water drips and drips, leaving behind the calcium crystal to collect and build on itself. The formations that reach up from the ground are the stalagmites while the ones that hang above looking like prehistoric chandeliers are stalactites.

It is mind boggling to think about the time it took to create these formations - some reaching well over 20ft into the air. To be in the company of such magnificent geological wonders was truly humbling in every sense of the word.

The tour was astounding. We were there off season and sometimes were the only ones on the trail. We rented small cell phone devices that gave informative audio segments when we dialed numbers seen on small signs lining the trail. I would have loved to been here to see the look on the face of the first man to discover this.

Back in the day they lowered people down by means of a bucket big enough for a standing couple.

This was by far a huge winner and highlight. 5 hours and a hundred pictures later we were back on the surface and off to Santa Fe for dinner at a place Scott recommended called Geronimo.

This entry was posted by Johnny on Wednesday, January 17th, 2007 at 5:18 PM and is filed under Planes, Trains & Automobiles, Photos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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