Near Ruidoso, New Mexico lies a 19th century military fort, now a state historic site, surrounded by public land and thick, untouched grasses only lightly grazed by cavalry horses. But what’s really important is what’s underground – the Bureau of Land Management’s largest cave.
At only 25,000 acres, Fort Stanton-Snowy River Cave National Conservation Area in Lincoln County is not a sizable contribution to the BLM’s National Conservation Lands. Yet, what is underneath the fort at more than 40 miles in length is the second largest cave in New Mexico including a unique cave feature named Snowy River, which is the longest cave formation in the world. Although miles of the cave have been mapped, the end has yet to be found.
The NCA is unique because it combines BLM land with a 240-acre New Mexico state historic site in the center. My wife and I visited in the fall and explored various parts of the historic fort that included two cavalry barracks and two infantry barracks. One-third of the buildings can be walked through. Some areas are restored and preserved while other stucco sections need repairs. The parade ground remains intact as do buildings that once heard the footfalls of Col. Kit Carson, Billy the Kid, New Mexico Gov. Lew Wallace and Gen. “Black Jack” Pershing.
The military presence lasted until 1896 and included Black Buffalo soldiers both as cavalry and as infantry units, for a total of up to 450 men, officers’ wives, traders, workers and occasional guests. Capt. A.W. Evans, acting assistant inspector general, visited on July 13, 1863. He wrote, “It was probably the best built post in New Mexico, and in a position unsurpassed for the beauty of its surrounding scenery and offering every requisite for a military life.”
Transferred to New Mexico state ownership in 1953 and repurposed in 2003 as a historic site and living history museum, the fort and 1,320 acres include the Fort Stanton Museum, which hosts Civil War era historic interpreters in full cavalry costume. Museum display cases feature historic artifacts such as military uniforms, broken glass, bottles, a bugle, a dress helmet and the rusting frame of a Remington 1861 Navy revolver.
What is closed to tours and inaccessible is most of the Snowy River Cave because of the presence of White Nose Syndrome, which has killed 8 million bats and remains an ecological threat because bats eat insects and keep habitats in balance. Presently the cave holds 4,000 to 6,000 Townsend big ear bats and some male hoary bats.
I like sunshine and shadow, to be able to walk upright, and to have plenty of space around me. Hence, I am not a caver, but sitting down to talk with BLM staff in their offices at Fort Stanton I learned a great deal about Snowy River Cave and the valuable science taking place there. Most small caves in the area are grayish-brown limestone, but at this historic cave near Fort Stanton, explored by Native Americans, U.S. Army soldiers and the public over various decades in the 19th century, groundwater recrystallized the limestone into white-colored caliche.
Over millenia of wet and dry cycles, layer after layer of white crystal deposits were laid down on the cave floor creating a pristine and dazzling cave feature 11 miles long. Imagine walking in through perpetual darkness and having your headlamp spotlight an astonishingly beautiful carpet of white, hence the name Snowy River. It took two years and an environmental-impact statement before the first three people could walk on the river’s surface.
BLM monument manager Warren Kasper took me to the fenced and gated original cave entrance, which is an 8,000-year-old sinkhole. Upslope is a special facility shed where scientists change in and out of designated cave clothing like caver jumpsuits, gloves and helmets with lamps. The dressing rooms act as an airlock hopefully to prevent bringing microorganisms into the cave’s pristine interior. Unclean cave gear can become vectors of infection so any cave gear must be fresh and new and it stays on site. The size and complexity of Snowy River Cave and its possible new life-forms intrigues researchers from NASA and major universities.
Cave and karst specialist Knutt Peterson explained to me, “Our cave explorers belong to national caving organizations. They are at the highest levels of caving fitness for mapping and exploration. You’re going to a place no one has ever been before. It’s remote.” He told me, “It’s like going to the moon. You have to be known and have exceptional physical fitness.” Getting to the end of the route in Snowy River Cave is an ultramarathon – in the dark, on your stomach, smashing your elbows, grinding your knees.
Crawling, climbing, squeezing and other types of bodily contortions are required to find new passageways. Then there’s the psychological pressure of being in total and complete darkness. The passages are so long that after 12½ miles there’s an interior campground and then another 27 miles to hike in. Researchers spend the night and then continue looking for extremophiles or “the kind of life-forms you can find on Mars.”
Some passages can be 25 feet wide and 15 feet high and others too small to squeeze through.
“We map as we go,” Peterson tells me. “Not everyone is going to the frontier. Maybe 25-30 people have that level of endurance.” Ethical and scientific questions abound. “How do you cross an area to map it without making impacts? To undo damage is impossible. In a cave system, damage is there for hundreds of thousands if not millions of years,” which is why the Snowy River Cave’s Resource Management Plan is so crucial. All bodily waste and urine must be carried out.
Understanding Snowy River Cave means learning about the vegetation on top, how water slowly percolates through grasses and forbs to the limestone, as well as understanding paleo climates. The cave is estimated to be 1.5 to 2 million years old. The latest research techniques are used including a miniature Lidar unit and the possibility of underground drones. The dramatically photographed book “12 Miles From Daylight: Fort Stanton Cave and the Snowy River Discovery,” explains in detail the Fort Stanton Cave Study Project, its numerous partners and personal accounts of discoveries.
In traversing the Snowy River, scientists carry their own carpet to walk on. Long term cave studies include water sampling, biologic sampling, soil sampling, paleoclimate studies and seeking sources for water moving through the cave. There are unexplored underwater passages and new uses for radio beacons on the surface to help determine potential routes deep underground.
I respect the complex mapping of chambers and passageways and you’ve got to love the names: Icicle Aisle, Harmony Hall with its calcite straws, Flowstone Cascade, Red Velvet Passage, Flowstone Falls, and plenty of cave drapery, selenite needles and aragonite crystals. There’s The Oasis, Velvet Underground, Snowblind Passage, No Cave for Old Men, Finger Lake, Blood Red Pool, Realm of the Floating Islands, Fallen Arrows Corridor, Underground Railroad, Sparkly Carpet Hall and The Crawl from Hell.
Then there’s the Crystal Crawl – all 750 feet of it. Deep inside Snowy River Cave, scientists must be calm, collected, excellent cavers and at the height of personal fitness. In the darkness, there can be no emergencies. Far back in the cave are other chambers. There may be rooms with beautiful flow stone, stalagmites, stalactites and crystals of translucent beauty and fragility. All await the silent beam of a caver’s headlamp and a scientist stepping where no one has gone before.
Andrew Gulliford is an award-winning author and editor and a professor of history at Fort Lewis College. Gulliford can be reached at gulliford_a@fortlewis.edu.
