Absolute darkness. Total silence. Overwhelming sensory deprivation.
If the Boneyard, Devil’s Spring, Devil’s Armchair, Devil’s Den, or Witch’s Finger seem too mild for your dark exploration tastes, there is always Spider Cave aptly named after the infestation of spiders near the entrance. Bob Nymeyer describes the sight: “What I had seen were spiders. Literally millions of them clung to the ceiling and walls, forming a black mat completely covering the rock” in his book, Carlsbad, Caves, and a Camera. By 1967 all the spiders were gone. The cave still scores high on creep factor though, especially for the claustrophobic and nyctophobic (i.e., fear of the dark) visitors of Carlsbad Caverns. The wild cave is toured with flashlights and headlamps only and includes crawling and sliding through narrow passages.
Bats, Spiders, and ZOMBIE CRICKETS, OH MY!
Deep in the caverns lies a dead zone. Birds, mammals, amphibians, and reptiles do not venture far beyond the natural entrance. Three species of cave-adapted crickets, as well as beetles, millipedes, centipedes, arthropods, and parasitic worms make this alien landscape their home. While crickets are typically noisy, cave crickets are silent like their cavernous dwelling. Any noise makes them subject to danger. According to Mark Kaufman of the National Park Service, “The cricket’s greatest threat does not walk on land — it lurks in the water. Parasites, in the form of worm larvae, float in the cave’s pools waiting for a cricket to take a sip of water. And once inside their cricket host, the young worms do not simply exploit the cricket’s bodies — they take control of their minds.” Hijacked by the horsehair worm, the cricket’s behavior veers far from the natural path, straight into danger. The worm compels the cricket to jump into the water. Once in the water, the cricket succumbs to drowning and the worm bores through its body, fully grown and ready to reproduce, an act of animal savagery as grotesque as a cavern-inspired nightmare.
Jim White once explained the darkness of the caverns as “so absolutely black it seemed a solid.” Others who have experienced its depths have described it as permanent inky blackness and so dark not only can you not see your hand in front of your face, it’s as if your hand never existed to begin with. Even today, there are areas of pitch-pure blackness yet to be explored in the 120 known caves of Carlsbad Caverns National Park. A choose-your-own adventure awaits!
Article written by Morgan Fox and originally published in Focus Regional 2021 Winter edition.