Hot, partly cloudy
59 miles
I got up at 8.10, and obtained a light breakfast from a nearby filling station. I left just before 9.30, returning to the same filling station to refuel and to attempt to extract some cash from its ATM, but for some reason it didn't like my card. I gave up, and returned to the caverns.
I opted to take the scenic descent through the natural entrance, now devoid of bats but with the cave swallows extremely active, as were a party of schoolchildren. I purposely lagged behind them in order to descend slowly and quietly.
The long descent was almost as spectacular as the Big Room itself. Among the formations was the Whale's Mouth, a huge rock under which hung many ``draperies'', curtain-like stalactites, while another bore the name of the Witch's Finger. Near the top, a passage led off away from the trail and into the Bat Cave; lower down was the Boneyard, where there were many small side cavities, giving the rocks the appearance of Swiss cheese -- when these formed the groundwaters had subsided quickly, giving insufficient time for all the rock to be dissolved.
Near the bottom the trail rounded one gargantuan edifice, the 200,000 ton Iceberg Rock, which at some point in prehistory had crashed from the ceiling in one piece. This was so big it was impossible to fully appreciate its immense size save by the time taken to walk around it.
Upon reaching the lobby area at the bottom of the lift shafts, I stopped to purchase a T-shirt before heading off for another look at the Big Room, concentrating on the sections I had missed or only seen briefly the previous day.
By the time I was done it was lunchtime, and I opted for lunch in the underground cafeteria, having a sandwich, crisps and a chocolate bar. I then returned in the lift to the surface level (the Natural Entrance Route is one-way). I had been considering signing up for the afternoon's guided tour of another area of the caverns, but was disappointed to learn that it was full.
Or was it? I overheard one of the rangers explaining that there was a chance of some people dropping out -- a coachload of senior citizens had signed up for it but some of them were worried that it might be too much for them. A couple were hanging on in case, and I joined them. As it turned out, exactly three people from the coach dropped out, so we were all able to get on the tour.
This tour went into four rooms of the cavern no longer accessible on self-guided tours, turning off the Natural Entrance route near Iceberg Rock and heading down a narrow passageway which bore the marks left by early cave explorers and their humble lanterns. This led to the King's Palace, considered one of the finest areas of the cave to be open to the public, lined with countless stalactites and draperies. As we went around, our guide gave a detailed explanation of the formation of the caves and the various ornamentations to be found within.
Next the trail went through an artificial passage, blasted through the rock wall between the King's Palace and neighbouring Papoose Room in 1932 to allow visitors to move between them without having to go back on themselves in a lengthy loop. On the ceiling of this young passageway, several small stalactites had grown a few millimetres in length over the past seventy years, giving some appreciation of the timescales necessary to form the cave's larger formations.
Less decorated and much smaller than the King's Palace, the Papoose Room was nevertheless interesting to behold. It led into the Queen's Palace, filled with spectacular pillars, draperies and clusters of stalactites resembling organ pipes. Here the guide performed a demonstration they had been promising since the start of the tour, namely ``to show us what the cave really looks like''. From the tour at Wind Cave I knew what was coming -- all the lights were to be turned off, leaving us in complete darkness. One enterprising visitor used this opportunity to use the infrared sensor on his video camera to see what people were up to in the darkness.
The final stop was in the lowest of the rooms, the Green Lake Room, some 253m (829ft) below the surface, aptly named for the seemingly green-tinted waters of a pool in one corner. From here was a fairly steep climb back up onto the main trail to return to the elevator area.
I returned to the surface and spent a while in the souvenir shop, purchasing a carved roadrunner as a present for Jeff and a couple of books on the cave. I then returned to Carlsbad and rested for a while at the motel, finding an old episode of ``Friends'' on television.
In the evening I drove down into the town centre to find somewhere for dinner. I chose to eat at an Italian place named Pasta City, evidently a popular place, having a salad and a pizza. I returned to the motel afterwards, looked at some photographs on the computer, made some plans for the next day, and went to bed at 11.10.