OK, my report on the last couple of day's adventures in reverse chronological order so that it formats normally for this webpage:

Sunday, July 23

I got up in the morning for another day of caving. Oh geez was I sore. The trip to Spider Cave involves a short hike down into a canyon, where the entrance lies right in the bottom wash. Whenever there is a lot of rain, the entrance could be filled with water and/or silt, so the Park Service has built a watertight rock enclosure around the entrance up to a height of about five feet.

Below the gate is a short ladder ending in a small space with a tight crawl heading off to one side. This crawl continues for many meters, and ranges from an actual crawl to a squeeze involving taking off my beltpack, getting down flat on my stomach (on the floor consisting of small, sharp rubble) and push myself along with just my ankles.

To make things even more exciting, the ceiling of this crawl is well-populated with harvestman spiders and there's no way to avoid contact with them. I hope I don't get chiggers all over my back or something.

Once past the tight belly-crawling, Spider Cave opens up into a space unlike any cave I've been in. It's all "bone-yard," and most of the formations are a brilliant, puffy, white, dolemite that looks a lot like marshmellow. I took lots of pictures.

I think this is my favorite of the tours offered by the park. It was both physically challenging and visually rewarding.

After four hours of caving, I was exhausted. I drove home and got in the pool. Leah and Katrina were there, and I hadn't seen them in a few weeks. It was relaxing.

At about 19:00, John and I drove back to Los Alamos. I won't be back in Carlsbad for a long time.

Saturday, July 22

So today is my first of two days of hardcore caving. Today I went to the Hall of the White Giant in Carlsbad Cavern. This is a somewhat challenging trip involving some tight squeezes. Most of the trip is relatively undecorated, but it ends in a room which is exquisitely decorated. The white giant is a huge stalagmite, gleaming white.

From the Hall, I could see the trail which I know goes down to the Guadalupe Room. I want to go there so badly. Oh well.

The White Giant tour took about four hours. And as we came back out into the natural entrance passage, they had already shut off the lights. Walking down that familiar trail without the artificial lighting was a new and different experience.

Returning home, it was definitely time for a swim. I was already getting sore from several hours of crawling around. Richard Farrell had his daughters, Karen and Baressa, over and John's goddaughter and godson, Christina and John, were there as well. The pool was full of kids, most of whom seemed to want to throw pool toys at me. Not as relaxing as I planned, but still fun.