2017 Western Trip - Day Six

About ten miles down the highway from Carlsbad, past oil wells and refineries burning off the methane, then seven miles up a canyon road brings us to Carlsbad Caverns National Park, also a World Heritage Site. All of the ranger-led tours had been booked, so we took the self-guided tour, aided by a museum-style audio guide. This tour included only the aptly named "Big Room" - longer than four football fields - while the ranger-led tours explored many other areas.

The hardy can enter the natural cave entrance, down steep ramps and almost a mile-long sloping passage. We chose the easier way, entering via an elevator which descends 800+ feet into the main cave. From there, the tour follows a paved path through some of the most fantastic formations of stalactites, stalagmites, draperies, etc. I've ever seen. The formations are lighted in such a way as to display the best features of  the element (and to help the observer overlook the fact that we're 850 feet underground). The tour took about two hours, stopping as we did at each of the narrative points. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. And with a fast elevator ride up, we were once again in the sunshine.

We finished our Carlsbad Cavern experience with a nature walk in the area around the natural cave entrance. In the space of about a mile and a half we encountered the varieties of plant life which flourish in the desert, including some cacti in bloom. Near the end of the nature walk we found the amphitheater where, should we be there at dusk, we could witness the thousands of Mexican free-tailed bats emerge to begin their evening search for food.

On the way out we took a driving tour through Walnut Canyon aided by a park-provided descriptive pamphlet.  Moving along at a leisurely 15 miles per hour gave us more opportunity to take in the incredible geology of the area.

Tomorrow we travel a little further south into Texas to the Guadalupe Mountain National Park.