If you read our last post about Roswell, NM then you know what this post is about: Carlsbad Caverns National Park!
After I reached my goal of seeing all 50 states (#2Cooks50statesB450), we needed a secondary goal to focus on while we wait for David to visit his last state (Hawaii- coming soon!). It is also helpful to have another goal to work toward as we explore and travel full time. We decided to set another lofty goal of seeing all of the National Parks. With that said, I say “lofty” because at the time I firmly declared our latest goal I thought we were already about halfway there! Ha!!! It turns out we have only visited 12 out of the 63 National Parks, so we still have a quite a few to go. 🤦🏻♀️ Well, we knew that after visiting Roswell, NM it only made sense to make the short drive to Carlsbad Caverns National Park and check another one off the list. It is about an hour away and definitely worth it. Most of the national parks are above ground for obvious reasons, but this is one of the few below ground! I will say that it is a little odd to approach the entrance to this park because you drive up almost the entire way. I suppose I thought we’d travel downwards toward the cave instead of up the mountain and then descend into the cave.
Anyway- prior to visiting there are a few things to keep in mind: 1. You have to get a timed entrance ticket prior to going to the park. This is to ensure you reserve a spot to enter the cave. You can do this when you enter the gift shop, but there is not a guarantee that there will be room.
2. Dogs are NOT allowed in the park. It is dangerous, and even deadly, for them if they should get loose. This caused us a little concern since we were traveling with Frodo. The park does provide a kennel of sorts for your pet, but we strongly caution against this from what we have heard/read. The park service does not have the resources for a doggy daycare, so your dog is put in a back room in a cage. It is not a maintained space. We were not comfortable with that so we went with a dog sitter from the Rover.com app. It worked out for us, but it was difficult leaving Frodo with strangers even though the couple that watched our pup was amazing. (Lynette B. is the person to go with if you are planning on visiting Carlsbad with a dog and use the Rover app!) Once you arrive at the park, you will check into the visitors center and pay the park entrance fee (or use your park pass). After that, you have two options: You can take the elevator down 800 feet or hike down the 800 feet at the natural entrance. Hiking down is the preferred option, but you need to be in good physical condition to do this hike. Its like hiking down an 80 story building and it takes around an hour and a half to hike down the natural entrance. The elevator, on the other hand, takes about a minute to descend to the main cavern/big room.
Due to time constraints we took the elevator, but we do plan to go back again and hike the natural entrance next time. Our elevator ride was uneventful- we arrived in the big room and noted that the path throughout was paved and had railings on both sides of the pathway. There was enough light throughout the cave to take pictures and there is no worry about getting lost. The entire hike does take between an hour and a half and two hours to complete though! They aren’t joking when they call it the big room.
We suggest taking your time as you hike through the cavern. It can get a little claustrophobic for some people, but there is so much to see that I promise that you won’t think about the millions of pounds of rock above your head. 😉 🪨 There are numerous signs throughout the cavern to help explain what you are looking at and plenty of interesting things to learn. The temperature stays consistently in the low 50’s Inside the cave, so that was a treat for us as well. We took our jackets with us to be safe, but we didn’t need them. I imagine that it must feel like paradise in the summertime.
Can you imagine how shocking this cavern must have been to the original people who found it? There was not any light, so for them to see anything they would have had to strap whatever head lamp or light that they had into their head as the descended into the cave. The cavern must have looked a lot different with little light and no trails. There is even one hole called the bottomless pit. Scientists have tried to measure how deep the hole is, but they have never reached the bottom. Yikes! Don’t slip down into that hole. The picture below is an example of the type of ladder people would have used to first explore this cavern.
After we finished up our hike we got to explore the gift shop. It is definitely one of the best park gift shops we have seen and I am happy to report that we walked away with quite a bit of “swag”. Once we were done with that, we drove back to pick up Frodo and then it was off to Guadalupe National Park and then Big Bend National Park!
Oh, one last note: If you do go to Carlsbad Caverns remember to check the bat schedule. The bats fly out from the natural entrance every evening. However, they do migrate depending on the season, so keep that in mind if you are interested in watching this event. The bats were in migration when we visited, so I am excited to revisit and see them all take flight.
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