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Article: Going underground; from tame to thrilling, here are caves that you can explore around the West.
- Article from:
- Sunset
- Article date:
- July 1, 1989
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1989 Sunset Publishing Corp. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Carlsbad, N.M., 1922: Standing in a bucket suspended from a cable, you're slowly lowered into a black hole in the ground Darkness and silence envelop you as you descend 170 feet through the underground chamber You finally touch solid ground and someone hands you a kerosene lantern. Ghoulish forms appear in the circle of light emanating ftom the lantern, then slip back into the gloom as you tentatively make your way across the slippery cavern floor. Sound scary? No doubt it was. But that was part of the appeal for early visitors to Carlsbad Cavern, for whom riding the bucket (originally used for extracting bat guano from the cave) was the only way to witness first-hand ...