“You’re doing fine, Dad! You can make it.” With that, my youngest son Ben, less than half my age, entreated me as I climbed and descended a mountain — all part of his and his wife Heather’s gift on my birthday. I didn’t need a pep talk; I needed some horse liniment.
The invitation was for my wife Bonnie and me to join Ben and Heather for a weekend at Carlsbad Caverns. We were to explore the famous Big Room by going through the Natural Entrance. I’d visited the caverns before, when I was about Ben’s age and much more physically fit than I am today.
The first physics lesson a visitor learns is that even though going 75 stories downhill does not require all the heavy lifting of going up, the body nevertheless uses muscles — different muscles — to provide resistance against falling and tumbling down. With every step I took in the descent, I became aware of how I’d be sore — but differently sore — the next morning. At least the path was even.
The real fun began early the following morning, as “The Gift” entered Phase II. That involved a car trip miles from Carlsbad Caverns, to a place appropriately named Slaughter Canyon, a grueling 600-foot mountain buried somewhere in the bare desert of the Guadalupe Mountains deep into southern New Mexico.
Ben had gotten reservations for the four of us to meet at the beginning of the trail, climb Slaughter Mountain on our own, and wait for the guide and other climbers to lead us into a newer cave. The story is that decades ago, a boy discovered the cave when tracking down a stray goat. The name “Slaughter” refers to a family name, not any kind of ritual. That we know of.
The half-mile trek took about 80 minutes, interrupted several times so we oldsters could catch our breath.
Unlike the main Carlsbad Caverns, this trail is primitive, unimproved, uneven, slippery and winding. For people who climb Beaver Trail on Hermit’s Peak, for example, slipping off the trail merely means falling into bushes, or possibly the Gallinas. Falling off the trail at Slaughter Canyon, conversely, could mean slipping entirely off the mountain.
The trail appears to have been formed strictly by human traffic, certainly not by modern improvements. Spaces along the path narrow to the width of one person, and parts of the zig-zagging trail put hikers perilously close to pure space.
Amid a chorus of “You’re doing fine, Dad! You can make it,” we got to the top ahead of the other hikers. Heather, in her 20s, never seemed to slow down; Bonnie did well, stopping only a few times to rest; Ben wasn’t even breathing hard; as for me, well, let’s not discuss it right now.
Ben and Heather ought to be in top physical condition. Ben developed a passion for mountain climbing last year in scaling Washington’s Mount Rainier; later that year he climbed Mont Blanc in France; in March he took on a mountain in Vermont, and his and Heather’s next conquest will be Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.
Met by our guide, Bo Ramirez, the 10 of us prepared to enter Slaughter Cavern. My group chose to enter last. But only 30 seconds into the cave (it was illuminated only by our flashlights), we almost tripped over a woman who had missed a step and snapped her ankle.
What now? The planned two-hour exploration came to an end as the ranger and others secured the woman’s ankle, strapped her to a stretcher and sweated to lift the 200-pound woman to the makeshift ladder at the entrance. In this cave, far away from cell phones, with trails whose descent can be more perilous than the climbing, we imagined the nightmare of lowering the injured woman.
Ramirez had explained that in the olden days, a half-mile-long cable used to stretch from the cave to the floor of the mountain to transport bat guano for sale. He even joked about wishing there were such a cable today.
Ben surmised that he and Heather, the youngest of the group, would be asked to assist in carrying the stretcher, and he repeated to me, “You’ll do fine, Dad. Just worry about getting Mom and yourself down the mountain.”
Why did Ben have to use the word “worry”?
The ranger dispatched all of us down the mountain, to make room on the trail and at the cave for a team of in-shape rangers who’d probably been contacted at home to join the rescue.
Going down the mountain is not my idea of good times. Though physically easier, the falls are not fun. I don’t mind falling up, but tumbling in the other direction is painful. We made the half-mile down in about 45 minutes and waited at the unmanned visitors’ center, hoping to see the rescue crew coming down.
They hadn’t arrived by the time we left, almost an hour later.
As we left the cave, the injured woman, an Albuquerque resident, uttered profuse but unnecessary apologies for “ruining the day.” To a man, we assured her the apologies weren’t necessary. And the ranger promised us a full two-hour tour “once we get this woman to the hospital,” but no one took him up on the offer.
Tired, relieved and somewhat wiser, we all wished we’d been able to help with more than the ibuprofen and bottled water I gave the woman.
Today, my calves and thighs refuse to cooperate and act as if I’d climbed Everest on stilts. Meanwhile, Ben, Heather and Bonnie carry on as if they make the jaunt up Slaughter Cavern every day.
Our children’s gift for my 70th birthday, April 21, is appreciated, but I wonder if perhaps for my next birthday Ben and Heather would just buy me a necktie or even a musical greeting card that blares out, “You’re doing fine, Dad!”