Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico

The Caverns are about 20 miles from the small town of Carlsbad in southeast New Mexico. We arrived about 15 minutes after the gates opened and were surprised to see only a handful of people. However, when we exited the Caverns three and a half hours later the parking lot was overflowing.

We purchased tickets for the self-guided tour plus a tour led by a park ranger into additional rooms not open to anyone. We certainly got our money's worth. Anyone eligible for a Senior Pass to the national parks should take advantage of the opportunity. It's only $10 and is a lifetime pass. A regular pass for the younger folks is $80 and good only for one year.

We entered the Caverns near the roosting spot for several hundred thousand bats. Each day at dusk they fly out of the main entrance to begin their nightly pursuit of insects. It takes about two hours for all of them to exit the cave. All jolks aside the bats perform a service to man and other animals that is immeasurable.

As we entered the cave to begin out descent the ranger asked if we were confident that we could physically manage the journey down. Since we walk several miles each afternoon as part of our daily routine we marched on confidently. Some people opted for the elevator. We read that it was 58 degrees constant in the cave so we layered up before starting the hike. By the time we got to the bottom we had stripped down to the basic clothing articles.

Carlsbad Caverns is truly one of the great wonders of the world. Although we took many pictures, most of which were too dark to print, nothing can do justice to the sights except being there. Pat had taken a geology course in college, so I relied on her to help out during the descent. Amazing what you forget in a few decades, huh?

At the bottom of the cave which was over 800 ft. below ground, we entered the 'Great Room' which they say is the size of 8 football fields. By this time we thought that we had seen just about everything there was to see. We learned otherwise a few minutes later when we began the tour with a park ranger as our guide.

After a briefing from the ranger we began the hike to a wonder named the Kings' Palace with a ceiling of about 300 feet. There were a million stalagtites, stalagmites (excuse the spelling) and many other 'mites' that were unbelievable. From the first room we went into another room with even more formations that are too difficult to describe. The park ranger provided a little history on the young man who discovered the caves in 1898 with only a candle. He did live long enough to see the caverns as a national park.

In the fourth and final chamber the ranger had us sit on stone benches and then had another ranger extinguish the lights along the foot path and ceiling. There we sat for ten minutes in utter darkness while the ranger talked about the development of this national park. There are over thirty miles of trails, of which only about 8 miles are accessible to the public. On some of the trails hikers have to be certified for rope climbing and willing to crawl through narrow openings face down in the mud.

We chose not to stay until the evening to see the bats fly out which apparently is a real tourist attraction. Instead we decided to drive up to Albuquerque for the night on our way to the Santa Fe area for several days. The landscape from west Texas up to Albuquerque is barren with only scrub grass, small bushes and no trees. Many oil well derricks are evident which is apparently the only thing the land is good for in that hot and dry climate.