The two parks share a non-profit and probably 25-50% of their visitors. While working in the VC at GUMO, I often find myself related cave tour info and opperating hours to visitors stopping in on their way to the caverns, which is the destination park for tourists in the area. People on vacation to the region usually allow a day for each, and come down to GUMO to bag Guadalupe Peak (which I've decided is the most popular trail in the park, surpassing even our .4 mile paved nature trail).
In playing ultimate and going on a special employee only cave tour one night I've talked with quite a few people who do my job (interpretation) at the cave, and I've come to the conclusion that I am so glad that I work at GUMO and not the cave. The cave people (ha!) are stuck underground out of the sunlight all day, generally walking the same 3 miles of paved trails through the natural entrance and big room every day over and over again. I still haven't been on half of miles of trail that Guadalupe has, and I bet even the spectacular formations of the cave get stale after a while.
The cave rangers also have to deal with a ton more people. Carlsbad Caverns is rightly a destination national park, offering sights found nowhere else in the world. Compared to the cave, the Guadalupe Mountains are just that, mountains, and there's plenty of those around. I'm glad most of the tourists stick to the cave, I love my job at GUMO, but I couldn't do it at the cave. I can't really see myself leading tours of 50+ people every day. I'm just not that friendly, and frankly, I'm a little weird, I cringe at the thought of knowing that the little jokes I'd try to insert into cave tours to primarily entertain myself would likely bomb horribly, creating terribly awkward situations. I'll stick to talking to 1-4 people at a time on the trails or behind the VC desk at GUMO.
I'm also glad I don't have to deal with the volume of stupid tourist questions that rangers at the cave deal with. The worst I get is the indignant look of frustrated surprise that people give me when I tell them that no, you can't drive to the top of Guadalupe Peak. Some of the ones cave rangers get asked include "what time do you open the gates to let the bats out?", "do you plan on expanding the cave at any point?", and the comment "thanks for air conditioning the cave, it's really hot out today". I think I'd snap having to deal with that.
Of course, the cave rangers do have their perks. The constant 56 degree temperature in the cave makes for comfy work environment during the 100 degree summers here. Come late May I might just have changed my opinion on working in the cave. The rangers there also get to apply for special use permits for the many caves in the park, and they're allowed to invite their friends along. I was lucky enough to be included on one of those tours a couple weeks ago when 7 of us when down the natural entrance at dusk while the bat flew out to go visit Hall of the White Giant. To get to the hall requires about 45 minutes of crawling, squeezing, and climbing through passages that start right off the natural entrance trail, through you wouldn't know it was there. The hall itself contains a 20 foot stalagmite (the White Giant) and a ton of soda straw formations. We couldn't continue on, but if you did, the second largest chamber in the park, the Guadalupe room, is further down some more narrow passages. The park only lets 8 visitors a week sign up for this tour, so I felt lucky to get to see it, especially with park personnel on their off time.
A week ago I went to the cave to take advantage the free entry I receive thanks to my GUMO employment and see the main sights for the first time as a geologist (I had previously visited in 2001). Pictures included below.
The Bashful Elephant, on the Kings Palace tour
The Big Room from the far end
The Hall of Giants
No comments:
Post a Comment