New Mexico Carlsbad Caverns

You Shouldn't Miss This Abyss

It's early. The sun begins to peek over the horizon of a cloudless sky. Although it looks as though it will be a bright, beautiful day, it doesn't matter much whether it rains or shines because I'm going to descend nearly 1,000 feet into the earth's crust for a subterranean sojourn in a realm of gigantic crystalline rock formations never touched by the rays of the sun. Over 30 miles of caves have been discovered in the Carlsbad system, including a 14-acre room large enough for a professional baseball game. Incredibly, this enormous underground domain was formed by simple groundwater – drip after tiny drip.

The best thing about riding to Carlsbad on a Honda Gold Wing 1800 is the road to the cave entrance. Almost nine miles from the entrance of the park to the cave, the road winds, and curls through a dramatic canyon before climbing steeply to the rim. The asphalt is new, black, and smooth, and from the top I can see the sweeping curves I've just leaned into. Another few bends and I park right in front of the Visitor Center. The northwest view of the Chihuahuan Desert below is immense and flat. Although it's a lot of nothing at all, it is one of the most distant vistas I've ever gazed upon.

In the Permian Age, 250 million years ago, this landscape looked quite different. The inland Delaware Sea covered the entire area and a reef 400-miles long formed beneath the surface. Eventually, the sea dried out, and exposed the desert area it is today. A few million years ago, the reef, full of limestone, uplifted and eroded. Open to the elements, a dissolving process began. Rainwater slowly made its way into the cracks and licked at the limestone. Hydrogen sulfide gas migrated upward, dissolving in the rainwater, to create sulfuric acid – the same stuff in a motorcycle battery. The resulting ages of corrosion hollowed out the reef to form Carlsbad Caverns.

The serpentine trail entering the cave proceeds to the first major room, the Bat Cave. Migrating Mexican free-tailed bats arrive each summer to roost and raise their young in the deep recesses of the high-ceilinged chamber. In mid-May, the bats make a nightly exodus from the cave. As the sun disappears, they stream out in a swirling cloud of darkness, thousands upon thousands, in a display that can last anywhere from 20 minutes to two hours. It's said that the early explorer Jim White discovered the cave by mistaking this phenomenon for heavy smoke in the distance. Visitors can watch the nightly exhibition – one of nature's most extraordinary sights – from the amphitheater surrounding the cave entrance.

Below the Bat Cave, the trail is marked with numbered exhibits that correspond with the numbers detailed through the headphones distributed at the visitor's center. With soft lights illuminating the cavern's dramatic structure, I learn of the creation and features of the cave. Stalactites, stalagmites, soda straws, draperies, flowstone, popcorn, and helictites are but a few of the featured geologic formations. Drip by drip, they grew over 500,000 years into columns and spires of differing shapes, sizes, angles, and colors.

The Big Room houses the most remarkable formations of all. Giant and Twin Domes, the world's most popular cave attractions, are the size of school buses stood on end. All three are stalagmites, meaning they began on the floor and rose, accumulating microscopically from the incessant drippings off the ceiling. Giant Dome has become a column. After approximately half a million years, it finally met its maker, connecting with the dripping accretions of the stalactite above. Exploring the Big Room takes most of the day, and my concept of time has vanished in the depths. I have no idea whether sunlight will be waiting outside. But it's easy to find out by climbing aboard the elevator that shunts the 750 feet back to the visitor's center.

I'm in luck. The sun is still high enough to do a little riding. The Chihuahuan is the wettest desert in North America (annual rainfall of 10-12 inches, with even snow a possibility) and, as a result, a very diversified desert ecology blooms around Carlsbad – there are over 1,000 species of plants in the National Park alone (on the above-ground side, of course). In comparison, Rocky Mountain National Park only counts 200 species of plants. With Guadalupe Mountain National Park for a backdrop in this unique biome, I turn out of Carlsbad Caverns and head north on U.S. 180/62 toward the town of Carlsbad.

A tip from a rider in Texas has me keeping an eye out for signs to Sitting Bull Falls State Park, and I spot it only a couple miles before getting into town. Turning west on NM 408, I begin a beautiful drive through the hills of the desert. The road is paved, but there's lots of gravel in the curves. Carefully, I push through the short turns, over cattle grates, and down through dry washes. The scrub-brush desert zips by as I follow the lonely road out to NM 137. Two miles to the south I find Sitting Bull Falls Road. After another seven or eight miles, I roll into the lonely park – a beautiful desert oasis in a lush green setting, with several swimming holes. The park entrance fee is $5.00, but the short trails to the views around the falls are well worth it. It's a perfect side trip, that only takes two hours, with the benefits of riding rolling, desert hills, and exploring a remote, ecologically distinctive state park.

Back in Carlsbad among men and metal, there is a United Sidecar Association Rally with some wonderful machines to check out. Some of the bikes have top-of-the-line professional sidecar jobs with all the bells and whistles, and others are do-it-yourself jobs owned by clever handymen beaming proudly as they chat about their rides.

Fun roads, a town with all the amenities, and some special side trips make Carlsbad a great riding destination. And then, of course, there's the world's most amazing underground phenomena tunneled just beneath my tires.