Today we went to the Carlsbad Caverns. We woke up to rain and cloudy conditions. The caverns are a constant 56 degrees with 90% humidity, so, what better way to spend a bad weather day then in a cave. Carlsbad Caverns are a National Park and the entrance fee is $10/person. The entrance ticket is good for 3 days, which is good as it is hard to cover everything we wanted to see in 1 day. We had tickets for 2 different ranger led cave tours. Got to the park and the first thing we saw were sheep. They weren’t the Bighorn sheep that you would expect to find roaming the hills in New Mexico, but Barbary sheep (native to North Africa). The Bighorn sheep were killed off in this area of New Mexico in the 1940’s. About that same time some Barbary sheep escaped from a private ranch in the area and made their home in the National Park. These escapees have seemingly flourished in the hills around the caverns and were interesting to see with their long haired necks.
Our first tour was with Ranger Caving Dave and he comes from a caving family. So, I guess you could say caving is in his blood. Ranger Dave lead us on the Kings’ Palace tour. This was a great tour with some really beautiful formations. This portion of the cavern used to be part of the self-guided portion, but is now a ranger led tour only.
Our afternoon tour was the Left Hand Tunnel Tour with Ranger Mark. This tour takes you to a section of the caverns that has been left in it’s natural form. You also go in with only a candle lantern lighting your way. This tour gives you a much better idea what it was like to explore a cave when one flame was your only light source.
It was not really understood how these caves were created until the late 1990’s. While many caves are formed by rivers these caverns are said to be formed by sulfuric acid. In much the same way the cave was created a modern day example is sulfuric acid causing the collapse of many city sewer systems, by breaking down the large concrete pipes. Will, the Civil Engineer, loved that correlation and it made it easy for him to understand. Me, I was wondering how guys always seem to bring conversations around to bathroom related functions.
Day 2 of our cavern tours were self-guided. As one of the Rangers told us, 90% of the caverns that is available for touring is self-guided. And if you still have crappy weather outside, might as well be touring a cave. We entered through the natural entrance. This is also the entrance where the bats fly out of at dusk. The bats winter in Brazil, so we didn’t get to see them. Maybe next time. My pictures just aren’t able to show the magnitude of the caverns. This is one of those that you really have to see for yourself. To come down the natural entrance takes about an 1 and a half hours to get to the Big Room. You can then either catch the elevator back up or tour the Big Room. Just to do the circuit around the Big Room is about another 1 and a half.
We then decided to head down to the Guadalupe Mountains National Park. This park is in Texas about 40 miles south of the caverns. The weather was a total change from the foggy cold that we had been experiencing. It was a beautiful day. As it was already afternoon we asked the park ranger for a good 2 mile or so hike. We ended up doing the Smith Spring hike, which is a 2.3 mile loop. The hike begins at the Frijole Ranch. This was an actual ranch where there were orchards and sold the fruit in the nearest town, 60 bumpy wagon miles away. There was also a school house that educated 8 kids from nearby families. The teacher made $30/month plus room and board and a horse. The area was beautiful and the spring provided an oasis in the desert for these settlers. We plan on returning to this park. They have over 80 miles of hiking trails and the park is also home to the tallest peak in Texas, Guadalupe Peak at 8,750. It was then time to head back to the RV and back to the cold and fog.
