Carlsbad Caverns National Park

August 24th

After spending the night in Carlsbad, New Mexico, we drove the 17 miles south to Carlsbad Caverns National Park.  As mentioned in the previous blog, we had the opportunity to see the Mexican Long Tail bats leave the cave at sunset the night before. We talked with the ranger about our best option for touring the cave.  Several of the guided tours were already full for the day.   Our AAA guide had indicated that you could rent a self-guided tour tape for several of the walks, and the ranger agreed this was a good option.  The self-guided tours, consisting of the Natural Opening Tour and the Big Room tour, allow you to see 90% of the cave.  The last 10% is the King's Palace, a highly decorated room that is considered delicate, so can only be seen with a guide.

We rented the tour tape, which is like a wand with a speaker on it, that allows you to "dial in" the number next to any display in the cave to hear the information.  Certainly worth the $5 apiece to rent.  We walked to the Natural Entrance, named because this entrance was created thousands of years ago when part of the cave's ceiling collapsed.  This is the entrance to one of the deepest, largest and most ornate caverns ever found.  Will Rogers once referred to it as "the Grand Canyon with a roof on it".  The caves are actually in the same "reef" that makes up the Guadalupe Mountains.  Because they are primarily limestone, naturally occurring sulfuric acid seeped into the cracks, enlarging them to form multiple chambers.  New caves are still being found today.  The" decorations" are formed when limestone-laden moisture slowly drips down, creating a variety of formations.  The decorations consist of stalactites that hang from the ceiling, stalagmites that grow up from the floor, columns- when the stalactites and stalagmites meet in the middle, plus others that look like melted rock in different shapes.

Entering through the Natural Entrance requires you to walk downhill until you are about 750 feet underground.  The Main Corridor into which you walk extends more than 200 feet above your head.  The decorations were beautiful.  We passed several underground pools, where you can hear the water dripping.  The water comes from rain and snow that percolates through the earth.  Now, the area is dryer and only receives about 14-19 inches per year, so some of the formations are no longer growing.  The tape also noted that it has been determined that the buildings and parking lot that has been installed over the caverns by the National Park Service has negatively impacted the growth of the caverns.  In the future, they plan to remove some of the impervious parking material and replace it with material that will allow water to flow through the earth to the caverns.

The Natural Entrance tour is about a mile, and takes about 1 hour to complete (according to the guide).  You can than opt to take the elevator back to the surface or continue on into the Big Room tour, another mile.  Surprisingly, at this underground junction of elevator and two tours, there are restrooms, a snack area, and a shop selling T-shirts!  We decided to continue on to the Big Room.  This is the largest single cave room in the world, (except for one in Borneo that is not decorated)- 1800 feet long, 1100 feet wide, encompassing 8.2 acres.  The tour takes you around the perimeter of the room, which is more highly decorated than the previous cave.  Here, there are columns that extend to the roof, huge stalagmites, and just beautiful walls that appear to be carved from alabaster.  At one point, near the end of the tour, I turned around to look back over the length of the room- it was like looking at a movie set for some strange, distant world.  And here it is- right here on earth!  One of the great things about a self-guided tour is you can travel at your own pace, not needing to stay with the group on the ranger's time-frame.  The two tours we took should have taken 2 hours.  We were underground for almost 4 hours- and enjoyed every minute!  We were happy, though, not to have to walk out.  The 75 story elevator had us back to the top in about a minute.  This is a definite "recommend" to tour if you are ever in the area- you won't see anything like it anywhere else in the country.

We stayed for lunch, then got back on the road.  We planned to stay in a town called Fort Stockton, about two hours south of Carlsbad Caverns.  There is not much between the two areas except desert, occasional ranches, and a few tiny towns without much to see.  The town of Pecos, about half way between, does have a few stores and a gas station.  We also found out it has the only fire department around.  After we had been driving about 45 minutes, we noticed smoke up ahead and assumed it was a wildfire.  As we came around a bend, we realized it was a tanker truck on fire, with the cab completely engulfed in flame and thick, dark smoke roiling out from the fire.  Since we did not know what was in the tanker, we pulled over a safe distance back.  There was a pickup pulled over on the other side with a man and woman watching the truck.  When they saw us stop, the man came over, we were reassured he was the driver and unhurt and that he had called for help.  It turns out the tanker was carrying water- nothing combustible.  Another truck pulled over, and we had a discussion about the flammability or explosiveness of diesel- not very.  We could see something burning on the asphalt, and all decided the diesel had already been accessed by the fire, and if we stayed way over, we should be able to safely pass.

We were there about 15 minutes, we had been watching the smoke prior to that for about 5 minutes.  We drove another 30 miles before we passed the EMS and fire truck- lights flashing and sirens going- headed to the burning truck.  Again- isolated out here!

Natural Entrance- note walkway down

Looking from the inside out...

Cave decorations

Columns

Stalactites hanging from roof

Stalagmites growing up from floor

Almost a column....

Cave decoration called Lion's Tails

Decorations in the Big Room

Looks like a chandelier

More Big Room decorations

Decorations known as draperies

The burning tanker truck

The last piece of "excitement" on this drive was yet to come.  We were about 20 minutes out from our destination when we were hit by an incredible rain storm- the wind was howling, lightning hitting close on both sides, and the rain coming so hard you couldn't see the road.  The big concern was water on the road- these roads have no drainage and flood quickly in low spots.  Hard to see if there is flooding when you can't see the road!  Thank goodness it only lasted about 10 minutes, but what a "white-knuckle" drive!  Happy to reach the hotel room!