We arrived at the Carlsbad
RV Park on February 22, 2015 for one week. We had cancelled our prior
reservation here when we made the unexpected detour to Red Bay, AL. We didn’t want to miss a tour of Carlsbad
Caverns and see the Guadalupe Mountains.
It was a long drive here in the rain and just as we arrived it started to snow!! Luckily we didn’t have to drive in the snow. Mike had to set up in the cold and snow and you know how he hates the cold! A cup of hot chocolate helped to warm him up!
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| Mike setting up the RV in the snow! |
Carlsbad Caverns
Carlsbad Caverns
is considered by many as the Eighth Wonder of the World. It was established as a National Park in 1930
and was named a World Heritage Site in 1995. Cavern development began about 250
million years ago when a reef formed along the edge of an inland sea. The sea
eventually evaporated and left the reef buried under deposits of gypsum and
salts.
About 20 to 30
million years later, the Guadalupe Mountains were uplifted thousands of feet
above sea level, fracturing the ancient reef. Rainwater percolated down from
the surface and mixed with hydrogen sulfide-rich brine from local oil and gas
deposits to form sulfuric acid. This very strong acid carved out the large
rooms and passageways that exist today. Finally, about 500,000 years ago, after
groundwater levels had dropped, the slow process of speleothem – stalactites,
stalagmites, and flowstone – formation began with a single drop of water. Drop
by drop…billions and billions of drops later, park visitors marvel at these
monuments of time.
We had made prior
reservations for three tours in Carlsbad. We did not hear that our first tour
on the next day was cancelled due to snow, so we got up early and drove to the
park. It was very cold with snow flurries. The salt trucks were on the roads
and we saw a couple of overturned trucks due to the icy conditions. When we
arrived there was a gate across the entrance that the park was closed.
On the way to Carlsbad Caverns...
On the way to Carlsbad Caverns...
So we missed our first tour of the “King Palace Tour.” It would have been a moderately strenuous tour. There is a steep 80’ hill you must go down initially and then back up at the end of the tour. There are four naturally-decorated chambers with a variety of cave formations after descending to the deepest portion of the cavern.
We did do two self-guided tours of The Natural Entrance, The Big Room and be sure to see the last section of the blog for our 750' underground tour of The Lower Cave (head lamps, flashlights, gloves, total darkness!)
Self-Guided Tours in Carlsbad Caverns
We decided to drive back to Carlsbad the following day and took a self-guided tour to see the Natural Entrance, a 1.25 mile (1 hour) hike similar to walking into a steep canyon; and the Big Room, a 1.25 mile hike (1.5 hours) underground hike. There was still snow on the ground and it was cold, but underground it was a warmer constant temperature and we soon shed our jackets!
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| Bat Cave: summer home of thousands of Mexican freetail bats |
The 750-foot descent into the Natural Entrance is steep with numerous switchbacks. The cavern featured Devil’s Spring, Witch’s Finger and Iceberg Rock.
The Big Room
The Big Room is the largest natural limestone chamber in the United States. This remarkable geologic phenomenon began to take shape 6 million years ago. The caverns were formed by an ancient limestone reef dissolved by sulfuric acid as an ancient sea receded leaving this underworld marvel! It featured the Lion’s Tail, Hall of Giants, Bottomless Pit, and Rock of Ages.
Guadalupe
Mountains National Park
The next day we
took an hour drive to Guadalupe Mountains National Park. We had beautiful blue skies. Rising from the Chihuahuan Desert just 55
miles south of Carlsbad is the Guadalupe Mountains National Park. El Capitan, an 8,085’ high monolithic landmark
that can be seen for fifty miles, rises in serene majesty out of the desert
floor. The 86,416 acre park was established on September 30, 1972 and preserves
a 260 million year old fossilized reef, and boasts the second largest gypsum
dune field in the United States (third largest in the world), part of the 2,000
acre Salt Basin Dunes on the western flank of the park, which was involved in
the El Paso Salt War in the late 1800s. Although the lower elevations are
dominated by Chihuahuan desert, the high country is an oak woodland forest.
We stopped in at the Pine Springs Visitor Center. The elevation at the visitor center was 5,730’. It was late in the day so we only had time for a short .75 mile hike on the Pinery Trail to the fragile limestone ruins of the old Pinery Station, once the highest stop on the original 2,800 mile Butterfield Overland Mail Route, which connected St. Louis and Memphis to San Francisco from September 15, 1858 until June 30, 1861. The Pinery Station was abandoned in August 1859 when the Butterfield Overland Mail started using the Southern Route.
There are 60 mammal species in the Guadalupe Mountains, including black bear, mountain lion, bobcat, kit fox, gray fox, coyote, badger, ringtail, raccoon, mule deer, elk, striped skunk, hog nosed skunk, black-tailed jackrabbit, rock squirrels, javelin, a variety of rodents and 16 bat species. Here are some of the animals that were displayed in the visitor's center.
Lower
Cave Tour in Carlsbad Caverns
We went back to
Carlsbad one more time as we registered for the three hour “Lower Cave Tour”. This
was a challenging and strenuous hike. The initial descent is 10’ down a
flowstone slope by knotted rope, then a 50’ descent down three sets of ladders.
We had to wear helmets, take flashlights and with no fear of enclosed spaces or
darkness! This was the best cavern tour we have ever taken and most fun,
especially when we had to rappel down the rope, crawl into a small space and
turn all of our flashlights off so we were in total darkness. It featured
highly decorated passageways and rare cave pearls.
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| Sharon in her Cavern Gear |
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| Sharon pauses before leaning back to take the plunge |
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| Next the ladders...into the darkness we go |
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| Rare Cave Pearls |
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| We crawled into this small cave & turned head lamps off - total darkness |
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| We survived our journey 750' underground |
The Carlsbad Caverns were amazing. Each cavern was so unique and different from the others. One of the most exciting attractions at the park is the Bat Flight which we were unable to view as the program begins in late May and ends mid-October.
Watch for our next
blog on Las Cruces, New Mexico which features our visit to White Sands National
Monument!
Mike & Sharon
“I am alone with the
beating of my heart.”
Lui Chi
