There are billions of humans on this world; we outnumber the caves by several orders of magnitude. Most caves in New Mexico have very little food for animals (and, of course, no light for plants). Even walking into a cave changes it. You shed 10,000 skin fragments per minute; you are a walking snowstorm of food for microbes and micro-invertebrates. You change the environment, and as a result, some native species may have a harder time surviving.
On the surface, if you break a branch or step on a plant, it will eventually grow back. This is not true with the cave formations; they formed 1,000 or more years ago and will never grow back.
The floors of the caves are often rough and irregular. This is not different from the surface, but you have less light in the cave. We had a friend fall in Big Skylight cave and slice her knee open (through her jeans). As I saw her fall, my first thought was, ``How are we going to carry her up the side of the trench?''. Luckily, she was able to walk on her own after a little recovery time.
To enter one of the open caves here at El Malpais, you should be wearing a caving or climbing helmet to protect your head (if you think a sliced knee is bad, try a sliced scalp!). You also need at least three sources of light; batteries go dead, bulbs burn out, etc. Crawling out on your hands and knees because you ran out of light is not only undignified, but it is harder to know which way to go to get out when your nose is six inches from the floor.
|
Copyright © 1997-2018 Kenneth Ingham Consulting, LLC.
For details about the copyright, see the full Copyright statement.
Unhappy? Thinking of suing us? Read this disclaimer.
You can read our privacy statement.