Article

Iceberg Rock Staircase Virtual Visit

The Carlsbad Caverns are located near Carlsbad, New Mexico. Beginning in 1925, the newly-established Carlsbad Caverns National Park undertook the construction of a system of wooden staircases in order to enable visitor access to the caverns. Within a decade, however, the park had begun the construction of a sequence of paved paths and switchback ramps as a more pedestrian-accessible replacement to the stairs, which were subsequently abandoned and partially dismantled. The six flights of stairs documented by the HDP team, located on the east side of Iceberg Rock, are the last surviving portion of the original stair system. Over the years the high humidity level in the caverns (close to 100%) has fostered the growth of mold on the stairs. The mold has deteriorated the wooden material, to the point that the stairs are no longer safe and have been condemned.

Project Information

Heritage Documentation Programs (HDP) undertook Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) documentation of the Iceberg Rock Staircase in 2013. HABS architect Mark Schara, HAER architect Jeremy T. Mauro, HABS historian Lisa P. Davidson, and HAER photographer Jet Lowe traveled to document the historic stairs before the planned demolition. The project was sponsored by Carlsbad Caverns National Park.

This fly-through of the Carlsbad Caverns stairs is comprised of multiple individual scan stations using an HDR Pano Photo textured point cloud rendered in Pointools. The fly-through video animation was produced by Jeremy T. Mauro.