The green metal doors slide open with a creak. Cool air rushes in and washes over you; it smells like dirt. You step through into a massive cavern. This room alone could fit a small town, one section an endless expanse of calcite and gypsum. The cave glows yellow and orange from bulbs placed - who knows how long ago - and fade into the darkness of bottomless pits and miles long passages. Rows of jagged teeth hang from the ceiling and jut up from the floor, a breathtakingly beautiful warning - the underdark will eat you alive.
As you move through the cave, you see evidence of past explorers: ropes and ladders and broken lanterns. You walk down a path cleared by those explorers and think about the dangers they must have faced and the excitement they must have felt as they took the first steps into the underdark. How long did they spend in these timeless caves and what was it like to live without the measure of day and night? You appreciate the courage it must have taken to join those expeditions, to map this place and carve these tunnels; to make it safe for adventurers like yourself to travel.
The rooms only seem to get larger, the paths narrow, the pits deepen. Several lifetimes could be spent searching these caverns, and after all that they would still hold secrets. You wonder what future generations will find here and envy those explorers who will be challenged by the caverns of distant planets. The Carlsbad Caverns are a wonder to behold.
Thanks for Reading,
Decimus