Arriving at Carlsbad Caverns in the morning, Jason and I were able to spend the whole day walking down nature path down into the cave to and through the big rooms.
There are two ways to reach the big room at the base of the cave. Within one minute, an elevator ride takes visitors up and down 700 ft. Jason and I decided to take the scenic nature walk down to the big room. On average most visitors reach the big room in an hour. We took some more time, stopping to take hundreds of long exposure shots of the stalagmites and stalactites.
The big room is the size of 15 football fields in length. By the time I had reached the half way point there was only an hour left until they close. After speaking to a ranger, I decided to take the short cut. Even though I would miss walking through half of the cave, by taking the short cut I would have more time to take photos.
The last hour went by too quickly, with a lot left to explore and photograph the lights were being turned off behind me as the ranger began collecting up the last groups of visitors, including me.
Pleading with the ranger to let me have just five extra minutes didn’t work. So I began sprinting ahead as a group of tourists tried there best to buy me some time.
It ended up being a group of about 15 of us trying to hold up the ranger just to spend a few more minutes in the cave. We, of course, didn’t succeed and sooner than later the annoyed ranger turned off all of the lights and brought us up the elevator.
A wonderful series of photos. They are like the work of the Abstract Expressionist painters. the forms and colors are fascinating.
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