The Guadalupe Mountains span the Texas/New Mexico border and rise to heights of 8,749 feet, in great contrast to the flat desert land all around. Two National Parks are found within their range; Guadalupe Mountains (in Texas), which has rocky peaks and scenic valleys with varied wildlife, and Carlsbad Caverns, one of the oldest and most famous cave systems in the world. These are a full days drive from any of the other major attractions in the Southwest, but are well worth the long journey - they have several vast underground chambers, up to 250 feet high, filled with amazing formations of many colors and shapes.
Approach: A long straight road is a common feature of the Southwest, and the caverns are reached by one such route; US 62/180 that links Carlsbad with El Paso. The western stretches in Texas pass 100 miles of salt flats, sandy wasteland and grassy prairie before the forested Guadalupe Mountains come slowly into view. The turn-off to the National Park is marked by a collection of souvenir shops and lodgings, known as Whites City. From here a narrow, winding side road climbs for 7 miles through a limestone canyon - this has attractive rocky scenery with particularly abundant Chihuahuan desert plants including agaves and opuntia cacti.
Carlsbad Caverns Map:
 PDF format map of Carlsbad Caverns National Park, from the National Park Service.
Hotels: The nearest place with hotels close to Carlsbad Caverns National Park is Carlsbad, 27 miles from the cave entrance.
Features: The entrance to Carlsbad Caverns is on the plateau at the top of the canyon, where a huge visitor complex has been built, with acres of parking and a network of service roads. The official fees to enter the caves are $6 per person (unchanged for many years), and these are not covered by the National Park Golden Eagle Pass, although entrance to the park is free. Other attractions include the 9.5 mile Walnut Canyon Scenic Drive through the nearby desert (no vehicles over 20 feet allowed) and a one mile nature trail through similar scenery close to the cave entrance, but of course almost all people come only for the trips underground. The far end of the nature trail passes a fenced-off shaft, and soon after leads right past the main natural cave entrance, seemingly by-passing the need for payment to enter the caverns.
The usual way to see the caves of Carlsbad Caverns is by one of three walking tours, the first two of which are self-guiding:
- Big Room Tour - visitors descend 900 feet in an elevator that starts from inside the visitor center to be greeted, rather incongruously, by a rest-area and lunch room, but a short walk along a wide passage leads to the main cave area - 'The Big Room', 1,800 feet long and 250 feet wide, where most of the impressive formations are found. 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 bear grandiose names such as Hall of the Giants, Temple of the Sun and Rock of Ages, and are lit with electric lights of various subtle colors with slightly artificial results, although the spectacle is still most enchanting. There are many small underground pools, also illuminated, whose reflections add another dimension to the delicate formations above. Rangers are stationed at frequent intervals to answer questions, and the tours are usually very busy, so this is hardly a wilderness experience, but still very rewarding.
- The Natural Entrance - a gentle half mile walk leads to a huge opening in the desert plateau, where the path zig-zags down into the darkness below. This chasm is the place of egress for a colony of up to 300,000 Mexican free-tail bats that live in one of the branches of the cave below from April to September, and it is a memorable event at sunset to watch the colony emerge, which takes up to half an hour. The bats spend winter in the warmer lands of Mexico. An amphitheatre has been constructed at the entrance, and organised evening sittings are provided in season. Underground, the walking tour is quite steep at first as it drops 750 feet, and then proceeds along a lengthy passage which is devoid of formations near the start, but becomes more scenic, with small side-caves filled with intricate rock forms, eventually arriving at the elevator to the surface visitor center and continuing with the Big Room tour as above.
- Kings Palace - a separate chamber accessed from a cave near the surface elevator. This is the deepest part of the Caverns currently open to the public, 830 feet in one section, and may be visited as part of a ranger-led tour that lasts 90 minutes.
Other Caves: The chambers open to the public are just a small fraction of the 30 miles of the caverns, and there are at least 80 other caves within the park boundaries. Only a few of these are open; visitors must make reservations some time in advance, and often some degree of skill is required. Continuing explorations often reveal new sections of the Carlsbad Caverns system.
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Carlsbad Caverns - Similar Places
The Lehman Caves in the Great Basin National Park in Nevada also have many nice formations
Colossal Cave, near Tucson in Arizona contains more limestone features | |
