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Fort Stanton Cave
Exploring An Underworld on Hands, Knees and Elbows
Getting Started
Directions Fort Stanton is located in southeast New Mexico about midway between Soccorro and Roswell off Highway 380 near Capitan.
Permits Fort Stanton Cave is closed during the winter months to the public to protect hibernating bats. It is open for recreational exploring by permit from April 15 to November 1. To obtain a permit, contact the BLM, Roswell Field Office (505) 627-0272, blm.gov/nm/st/en/fo/Roswell_Field_Office.html
The first time I heard about Fort Stanton Cave was when it hit a recent top-ten list of most emailed news stories. The Snowy River Passage, discovered in 2001 when a caver accidentally knocked a coffee can into a small hole and heard it bounce into oblivion, was thought to be the largest continuous calcite formation in the world.
Stunning images of an endless cavern with a sparkling white calcite floor made it easy to see how they came up with the name. Even though John Terrell at Fort Stanton Cave Tours told me that Snowy River was only open to scientists, I still wanted to check it out. Maybe once I got there, I could just take a peek at Snowy River.
Located near Capitan in southeastern New Mexico, it's the third largest cave in New Mexico, second to Lechuguilla (open only to scientists) and Carlsbad Caverns. Its eight miles of recreational passages can be visited either with a guide from Fort Stanton Cave Tours or with a private permit from the Bureau of Land Management. I opted for the four-hour guided tour to the Lake Room with Terrell and assistant guide Crystal McClellan. And after seeing the Snowy River images online, my husband Claustrophobic David even wanted to join in.
After following our guides for the half-hour drive from Ruidoso, we parked in the picnic grounds and passed through a locked gate at the entrance. Inside the cave stood a second locked gate. I noticed the bars ran horizontally rather than in the usual vertical direction.
"The bars are horizontal to accommodate the wing span of bats," Terrell said.
"If the bars were vertical the bats wouldn't fly through, and they hibernate here during the winter.
"The BLM also tested this gate in a wind tunnel before putting it here," Terrell continued. "Air flow is critical to caves and they didn't want to disturb it."
As we descended further into the cave, Terrell pointed out formations such as cave velvet, cave popcorn, and soda straws. Stalactites and stalagmites, we learned, had been clocked at growing one-tenth of a millimeter per year.
We passed The Witch formation and climbed over a pile of rocks that had fallen from the ceiling called Devil's Backbone. Then we were on our hands and knees for the 650-foot Crystal Crawl, passing cave bubbles, selenite needles and gypsum flowers.
"We had one client who crawled around on her hands and knees at home to train for this," Terrell laughed. I wished I had thought of that - even with the comfy kneepads that we were provided, my knees were screaming. And we had to come back the same way.
"So, if this is the very pleasant-sounding Crystal Crawl, what is the Hell Hole?" I inquired.
"That's 1,600 feet of hands and knees each way," Terrell replied. "And it's a lot narrower than this. Nobody has gone on that tour all year."
"And neither are we," David yelled from behind.
The Crystal Crawl ended in a room called the Fairgrounds with a large flowstone formation. With some minor scrambling, we continued on to the Lake Room with another large flowstone formation that had been vandalized in past times.
"How claustrophobic are you?" Terrell asked.
"Why?"
"Instead of going directly back, there's a fun detour we could take through a passage called Binoculars. It's a squeeze but short. Or, we can just start back the way we came."
We eyed the passage, which appeared about two feet high. "Sure, why not."
As Terrell and McClellan began removing their packs, we realized that they were talking about a different passage - one so small we hadn't seen it. The kind that dachshunds were bred for. Shoving her pack ahead, McClellan slithered off before we could change our minds.
"This doesn't look like Snowy River," David remarked.
Thank goodness Binoculars was only 12 feet long (although I think it was longer). The ceiling was so low that I had to turn my head sideways to crunch my helmet through. After that, the return trip through the Crystal Crawl seemed rather spacious.
Terrell pointed out the turn to Snowy River, which was unmarked and nondescript. It was hard to believe what looked like a dark corner actually led to one of the most exciting cave discoveries in history.
"It takes nine hours one way to get there," Terrell said, "with several changes of clothes to eliminate mud contamination. If mud gets from one section of a cave to another, it can change the growth of the formations."
And then there's the part about carrying everything out of a cave that you take in. That means bringing pee bottles. I didn't ask what they called the other kind of containers.
Snowy River is such a vast formation that scientists have yet to find where it starts or ends. Our guides hadn't been there and it's something we will probably only see in pictures.
But one of our helmets had been there. On one side was written, I went to Snowy River - July 2008.
I was impressed.
Cathy Tibbetts is a New Mexico optometrist who says there is no astigmatism attached to being claustrophobic.
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