Touring Southern NM- Carlsbad Caverns

Views of the desert above.

The Big room- 'Chandelier'

Carlsbad Caverns National Park is located in the Guadalupe Mountains, a mountain range that runs from west Texas into southeastern New Mexico.

As you are driving through this desert you might never guess there are more than 300 known caves beneath the surface. The park contains 113 of these caves, formed when sulfuric acid dissolved the surrounding limestone, creating some of the largest caves in North America. This is unlike many caves in the world that were carved by running water and streams.

The Big Room- Everyone visiting the park should tour the main section of the cave, the Big Room self-guided tour. You begin by descending 900 feet in an elevator that starts from inside the visitor center. 'The Big Room', is 1,800 feet long and 250 feet wide, where you will witness the most impressive formations. The one mile path follows a circular route up one side of the chambers and back along the other, and the cave is so large that the two parts of the route are generally out of sight of each other. The formations are labeled names such as Hall of the Giants, Bottomless Pit, Temple of the Sun and Rock of Ages, and are lit with electric lights of various subtle colors. There are many small underground pools, also illuminated, whose reflections add another dimension to the delicate formations above. The weather in the cave is a mild 56°F (13°C) year-round.

The Bat Flight- From mid-May through mid-October, visitors to Carlsbad Caverns National Park can enjoy the evening Bat Flight program.
Each evening in summer, nearly 400,000 Brazilian (aka Mexican) free-tail bats exit Carlsbad Cavern in search of insects for dinner. We'll have to come back for this program. Everyone whose seen the Bat Flight highly recommends it. Can't wait.....