Monday, July 7, 2008

A Trip To The Earth's Core


This past 4th of July we took some family to Carlsbad Caverns. If you've never been there, this is an amazing Cavern system. The cave has over 300 entrances, I believe is 200 miles long and is still a living cave. Water along with other materials continue to grow stalactites and stalagmites. These pics are from the public entrance in the NPS. The cave here drops to 750 ft below the caverns entrance. Fortunately, hydraulic elevators carry you back to the top after you traverse to the bottom.

The first picture is looking back at the caves opening. Just below you can see a trail of people combing down. On the bottom of the pic is more people and another group in the foreground. This depth alone must be several hundred feet. The mouth looks very small, but I would guess it to be about 150' wide by 50' high??? Anyway, if you've never been there, you really should consider a trip, its like going to another planet.

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This is my nephew Cameron, his wife Brittaney and their daughter Leahnay. They were down from Albuquerque to visit us. The picture almost looks like a composite. That's because the flash was probably about .5 seconds, but the exposure was probably closer to 3 seconds.

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A tripod is almost a waste of time, especially on a holiday. The trail was packed and there is little to no light on the trails. From time to time there are areas to pull off of the trail, but again it is so dark and was so crowded I decided to forgo the use of sticks. I ended up propping my camera on the round trail rails... nearly impossible to stabilize, a frumpy diaper bag or went hand held. There are occasions where you should use a flash, but overall, most of the pics should be natural light. Either way, you end up with 2 to 3 second or longer exposures. It was quite challenging, but even the pics where there is some motion blur I was happy with.

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The one room I wasn't able to photograph is the King's Palace. You can only see it with a Ranger guided tour. If you go, book it. This is the most amazing room at the Caverns. It is now closed due to the constant vandalism that people would do, by breaking off pieces of stalactites or other cave material. How very sad. This is the Big Room which is still pretty impressive, but is dwarfed by the King's Palace and doesn't have nearly the displays -- still, it's quite beautiful.

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2 comments:

Mary said...

WOW, these are really cool..........and a bit creepy too! Love the clarity on these Brent! Fabulous work as usual.

Patty Jo said...

Very cool Brent! I am a wimp when it comes to going inside caverns and caves, We have the Florida Caverns and I just can't bring myself to go into them! These pics are the bomb! You are a great photog!