Carlsbad Cavern National Park

Carlsbad Caverns NP is only about 40 minutes from Guadalupe. Between our two hiking days at Guadalupe we drive up to the cavern. Prior to our trip, we secured tickets for a ranger led your of the lower cavern. There were only 12 people on the tour, which is only done once per week. We were required to wear helmet, headlamps, and gloves. The gloves were to protect the rocks, the headlamps because it is dark in the lower level, and the helmets to protect our heads which were greatly appreciated a few times. The tour did not involve a lot of tight crawl spaces but there was enough to be fun. We had to use a rope followed by a series of ladders to descend. Our lead ranger was full of stories about how the caves were discovered and how some of the formations got their names.

After the tour we ate lunch in our car and then had a coffee from the cafe before walking through the main part of caverns. This involved a 2.5 mile, 2 hour walk starting at the mouth of the cave. Here swallows and bats live just inside the opening. The swallows swarm the area during the day searching for food and the bats come out at night. There is a special viewing from May to Sept when millions of bats exit the cave at dusk. The main cavern is known as the big room as a very large part of the cave is a large, open area. There are so many formations.

After we finished with the caves we went into the town of Carlsbad. We went to Nurvis Purvis Brewery where we had one beer. Because the food truck wasn't open, we went to the Lucky Bull Grill to eat. We had burgers and then ice cream at the Ice Cream Shop before heading back to our campsite at Guadalupe.Read more