Carlsbad Caverns National Park

Bud and I had visited Carlsbad Caverns in January of 2020, but Jack had never been so today we went. The National Park is less than an hour from our campsite at Brantley Lake. You can enter the caverns through the natural entrance, seen here, or you can take an elevator down.

Since Jack hadn’t been here before we went in through the natural entrance, which is the best way to experience the immensity of the caves.

You do quite a bit of walking and go down a ways before you even get past the entry.

This time the entry was alive with birds. I tried to capture them flitting about. You could hear them as you descended even after you could no longer see them.

There were some formations near the entrance.

We had been walking for about 10 minutes when we passed below the entrance and through the last of the sunlight.

Now there was just the dim lighting and things were really starting to look like a cavern.

But we were still walking down…

and down.

Formations were getting more extensive…

and larger,

but we weren’t down yet.

In fact, if you walk in the natural entrance you walk 1.2 miles before you get to the “Big Room”. There are benches (stone, of course) where you can take a break, and we did, here. We had been walking steadily downhill for about 40 minutes at this point.

But we weren’t down yet.

Finally, nearly an hour after we started into the cavern we reached the Big Room. Once there you have another 1.2 miles of walkway around its perimeter.

If you look at the people and the railings you can get a sense of the size of these formations.

Wonder…

after wonder.

We were constantly gazing all around.

This formation, named the Lion’s Tail, hung right over our heads.

Here are more of what we passed.

There were huge holes above, too.

See that rope? In 1985 a small team of cavers used helium balloons to lift a rope to the ceiling where they eventually were able to snag a stalagmite. Amazingly they then ascended the rope and found another large passage above the Big Room which they named Spirit World. Then in 2014 another group of cavers found a room above that. They named it Halloween Hall.

There are also further rooms below the level of the Big Room. This fence wire and stick ladder made by Jim White, an early explorer was used by Dr. Willis T. Lee in a 1924 photo expedition for National Geographic. Lee had done an expedition in 1923 that led to the establishment of Carlsbad Cave National Monument in 1923.

The bravery of the people who explore these caves with ropes and ladders and lanterns humbles me.

Meanwhile we continued to walk through this surreal landscape they had made accessible.

We came around to a vantage point on the other side of this end of the Big Room. There was the rope, dangling through it.

We passed ornate stalactites,

and colossal stalagmites.

This is the largest formation here that is still growing. I had thought all this part of the cavern was “dead”, with no seeping water adding minerals to the formations. But there is some water still here and in fact I had a drop hit me when I was stopped to take a picture.

Imagine walking more than a mile

through such splendor.

It’s almost sensory overload.

These platelike structures that formed on the surface of long gone pools are some of my favorites.

After walking…

and looking…

for about two hours…

we took the elevator 750 feet up to the surface.

The vast, sunny desert was a bit of a shock.

And so was this.

A dust storm,

coming right at us.

We drove out through a dusty desert, all part of the experience of this part of the country.