My last trip to Carlsbad Caverns, (read about the Caverns here) some time ago was a mixed bag. On the one hand, I was with an ex-girlfriend who was about to turn 22 at the time. I was 37, and realizing how much more I could do with a 21 year old at that age than when I was 22. And the caverns, should you ever go, are breathtakingly beautiful.
On the other hand, it was highly unpleasant dealing with the migrating species, Touristas Americanus Idiosa, who come from all over the country to see the caverns and act like .well, idiots. During the bat flight, the ranger implored everyone not to take pictures, because the camera flashes startle the bats, who will happily pull up stakes and find other caves to inhabit if their startled too often; cue a half-dozen nimrods to start taking flash pictures. Next morning at the caves entrance a ranger implored everyone not to touch anything inside the caves, as acid from our fingertips is corrosive;100 yards in, a pot-bellied chucklehead started fondling various cave formations right in front of his kids.
There is fun to be had in the region, even if you steer clear of the caverns, though.
Out in the badlands of southeastern New Mexico, off a tiny two-lane highway in the middle of nowhere, hides the Gnome Nuclear Test Site. The Atomic Energy Commission
Conducted the three-kiloton underground test in 1961 as part of the Plowshare Program, which was the part of the Atoms for Peace program designed to see if nukes could be used for peaceful and helpful purposes.
Newsflash: Nukes are wholly unsuitable for peaceful and helpful purposes-on Earth, anyway.
A radioactive cloud escaped through the shaft and ventilation lines when Gnome exploded, contaminating the surrounding soul and drifting as far away as Kansas. The radioactive soil was flooded with water, turned into slurry and then pumped underground into the cavern created by the explosion, and a stone monument was placed at the site.
The drive out there is surreal as hell, almost straight through a salt detention pond : a large blanket of white crystal covers the ground on both sides of the road for a loooong way, as far as the eye can see. As liquid it flows alongside your car, assuming an unearthly greenish/yellowish hue, and running along the road, over it and under it. Its also killed a number of trees along the road, and their gnarled, black shapes are a stark contrast to the whites and greens of the salt. Whatever it is, one suspects the nearby United Salt Corporation or IMC Mining might be the culprits. I stopped by IMCs building on my way back, but the building was empty. I wandered around the hallways at will, and never encountered a soul, even though there were a dozen vehicles in the parking lot.
After the salt, you turn off the road, and after a few more miles theres the Gnome site. Like Trinity, it just doesnt jibe: heres a typically beautiful New Mexico desertscape, but something unspeakable lurks 1200 feet beneath you: a 170 foot long, 90 foot high cavern carved out by a nuclear blast, and still highly radioactive to this day. An old pump next to the monument is the only reminder that the toxic soil around the blast was pumped underground, away from tourists brave enough to make the trip. A little over 1,00 feet to the southwest is a concrete slab covering the entrance to the underground shaft that led to the cavern, and it was here that the radioactive cloud escaped. A little further over a small hill you can see the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), about eight miles to the northeast.
Gnome
Gnome, again.
Next, my visit to an old Atlas F missile silo ..
On the other hand, it was highly unpleasant dealing with the migrating species, Touristas Americanus Idiosa, who come from all over the country to see the caverns and act like .well, idiots. During the bat flight, the ranger implored everyone not to take pictures, because the camera flashes startle the bats, who will happily pull up stakes and find other caves to inhabit if their startled too often; cue a half-dozen nimrods to start taking flash pictures. Next morning at the caves entrance a ranger implored everyone not to touch anything inside the caves, as acid from our fingertips is corrosive;100 yards in, a pot-bellied chucklehead started fondling various cave formations right in front of his kids.
There is fun to be had in the region, even if you steer clear of the caverns, though.
Out in the badlands of southeastern New Mexico, off a tiny two-lane highway in the middle of nowhere, hides the Gnome Nuclear Test Site. The Atomic Energy Commission
Conducted the three-kiloton underground test in 1961 as part of the Plowshare Program, which was the part of the Atoms for Peace program designed to see if nukes could be used for peaceful and helpful purposes.
Newsflash: Nukes are wholly unsuitable for peaceful and helpful purposes-on Earth, anyway.
A radioactive cloud escaped through the shaft and ventilation lines when Gnome exploded, contaminating the surrounding soul and drifting as far away as Kansas. The radioactive soil was flooded with water, turned into slurry and then pumped underground into the cavern created by the explosion, and a stone monument was placed at the site.
The drive out there is surreal as hell, almost straight through a salt detention pond : a large blanket of white crystal covers the ground on both sides of the road for a loooong way, as far as the eye can see. As liquid it flows alongside your car, assuming an unearthly greenish/yellowish hue, and running along the road, over it and under it. Its also killed a number of trees along the road, and their gnarled, black shapes are a stark contrast to the whites and greens of the salt. Whatever it is, one suspects the nearby United Salt Corporation or IMC Mining might be the culprits. I stopped by IMCs building on my way back, but the building was empty. I wandered around the hallways at will, and never encountered a soul, even though there were a dozen vehicles in the parking lot.
After the salt, you turn off the road, and after a few more miles theres the Gnome site. Like Trinity, it just doesnt jibe: heres a typically beautiful New Mexico desertscape, but something unspeakable lurks 1200 feet beneath you: a 170 foot long, 90 foot high cavern carved out by a nuclear blast, and still highly radioactive to this day. An old pump next to the monument is the only reminder that the toxic soil around the blast was pumped underground, away from tourists brave enough to make the trip. A little over 1,00 feet to the southwest is a concrete slab covering the entrance to the underground shaft that led to the cavern, and it was here that the radioactive cloud escaped. A little further over a small hill you can see the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), about eight miles to the northeast.
Gnome
Gnome, again.
Next, my visit to an old Atlas F missile silo ..
