Carlsbad Caverns National Park

We awoke before sunrise, ready to face a long day of driving to catch our flight out of Albuquerque that evening. On the way north lay Carlsbad Caverns National Park. And although I can’t say I’m a cave fan, particularly, there was no way we were going to miss the chance to visit.

From one of the mountains to the other

Carlsbad Caverns lies at the northeastern end of the Guadalupe Mountains, and it was a fast drive there on the flat landscape of the Permian Basin, with morning light glowing on the mountains to the west of the highway. On the access road, we spotted a critter I’d been looking for: the Barbary sheep, or aoudad.

Native to Northern Africa, aoudads were introduced to New Mexico in 1941 on the private McKnight Ranch about 100 miles north of Carlsbad Caverns. Intended for private hunting parties, the sheep were kept in a fenced enclosure. In the early 1950s, the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish released aoudads into the wild in two other areas of the state to provide hunters with exotic and exciting game.

As with so many other invasive species, the best intentions went wildly awry, as sheep escaped from the McKnight Ranch and the two state-released groups enthusiastically took to their new surroundings, increasing in population. They compete for habitat with endangered native desert bighorn and may carry diseases that affect the native sheep. So I’m not disposed to like them, even though they are quite handsome with their caramel coats and gold eyes. New Mexico and Texas both encourage hunting of Barbary sheep so long as hunters have the correct permits.

Arriving at the caverns

I don’t know what I was expecting, exactly, but Carlsbad Caverns’ parking lot provides no clue that a vast wonderland lies underground. Visitors are funneled into the visitor center, where they get timed tickets for entry into the cave. On the day we arrived, the elevators weren’t working, which was fine with us since we planned to walk through fairly quickly.

We attended the mandatory orientation and joined the first group entering the cave, descending switchback after switchback until we reached the main corridor, 500 feet below the surface. The Park Service is appropriately strict about what visitors can and cannot do in the caverns. We followed the 1.25-mile natural entrance route down to the Big Room, where we followed the path another 1.25 miles around the 8.2-acre space.

Carlsbad Cavern and Lechuguilla Cavern

Although more than 30 miles of Carlsbad Cavern have been mapped, visitors are restricted to just a few rooms. Another cave, Lechuguilla Cavern, is off-limits except to researchers, who have mapped more than 140 miles there while studying the effects of humans on the caverns, as well as wildlife and geology.

In Carlsbad Cavern, about a half-million visitors each year collectively shed eight to ten pounds of lint and dust. Debris from blasting and construction to create cave access has accumulated in certain areas. Bat guano harvesting added more human impact. Simply opening the cavern to visitors is problematic. The parking lots at the surface collect oil, grease, antifreeze, and other toxins, which seep into the fragile limestone structure during rainstorms. All of this presents a challenge for the National Park Service. The agency works to identify problems in cave health and take appropriate measures to address them. Given that closing the cavern to the public isn’t an option, underground pollution is an ongoing concern.

In the bowels of the earth

The Big Room loop path is well-lit, with handrails to prevent people from falling over the edge and to discourage them from messing with the cave’s natural features. Weird formations appeared in the gloom, spotlit by hidden lights. The temperature is a steady 56 degrees and humid, so I was sort of simultaneously chilled and sweating.

Because of our tight schedule, we maintained a pretty good pace through the Big Room, stopping only for photos. The formations have fanciful names, many dating to the early 1900s, when local cowboy Jim White started promoting the wonders of the caverns. Most people didn’t believe his wild stories, but when a professional photographer accompanied White into the cave and published his pictures, interest increased. Eventually, the Department of the Interior sent a representative to check out the cave, and his report led to President Coolidge declaring the caverns a national monument in 1923. Seven years later, Congress established Carlsbad Caverns National Park.

Back to the surface

We huffed and puffed our way back up all those switchbacks, arriving at the surface about two hours after we’d started. As we caught our breath, a stream of bats swirled around on their way into the caverns. Hundreds of thousands of Brazilian free-trailed bats roost and raise their young in the cave during the spring and summer, then migrate to Mexico in the fall.

The big event at Carlsbad is the night flight, a thick spiral of bats exiting the cave at dusk. It’s so well-known that you can call the park to check the scheduled flight time, which is preceded by a ranger talk. We didn’t have time to stay for that, but it was impressive to watch the bats returning to the cave to rest for the day.

And with that, we said farewell to Carlsbad Caverns, heading out of the park (barely time to admire the desert wilderness landscape, darn it) and to Albuquerque and our flight home. New Mexico wowed us yet again. We can’t wait to go back.