Formed In the Dark: Carlsbad Caverns

You descend into Carlsbad Caverns on foot…

a long, switchbacking path that winds down into the earth in slow zigzags, the desert light fading behind you with every turn. By the time you reach the bottom, 750 feet below the surface of the Chihuahuan Desert, you've left the world above so gradually that the transition barely announces itself. And then you look up, and the air has changed — it has a weight to it, a coolness that feels like the earth breathing. It has a weight to it, a coolness that feels like the earth breathing. And then your eyes adjust, and you see it: a cathedral that no human hand drew up, lit from within like something that was always supposed to be seen.