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Carlsbad - New Mexico
Descriptive:
Featuring some of the largest known underground chambers, the subterranean beauty of Carlsbad Caverns is one of the world's marvels. Many of the miles of winding underground passageways have still not been completely explored.
The full Park covers almost 50,000 acres of scenic desert, canyons and mountain wilderness in the Guadalupe mountain range of southeastern New Mexico.
Key locations:
Natural Entrance Tour is an entrance into the cave that is somewhat steep and strenuous. The tour ends in the Big Room, an immense chamber with dimensions of approximately 14 acres under a 200 foot high ceiling. An elevator ride returns you approximately seventy stories to the surface.
For the adventurous explorer, Slaughter Canyon Cave offers a more rugged experience than the trip through the main cavern and is similar to spelunking trips cavers regularly undertake. This undeveloped cave offers much for the adventurous spirit.
Walnut Canyon Desert Drive is a serene tour through the Chihuahuan desert surrounding Carlsbad Caverns National Park.
Activities:
The nightly exodus of about a half a million bats is an astonishing sight not to be missed. Called Bat Flight, this spectacle is one of the park's great attractions. The bats sleep in the cavern during the day and each evening around sunset fly out to feed on insects. Swallowed by the flapping of tiny wings, the evening is overrun in an eerie din as these countless creatures make their mass egress. These bats were critical in the initial discovery of the caverns, and the discoverer, Jim White, notes that he was drawn by a column of black "smoke" being emitted from the cave's mouth -- at just about sunset.
