NewMexico

CARLSBAD CAVERNS
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Carlsbad Caverns National Park, New Mexico

	Where there are caves, there are bats, and Carlsbad Caverns National Park (located in the Southeast corner of New Mexico, about an hour Northeast of Guadalupe) has approximately 450,000 of them.  Every evening just before sunset (from mid-May to mid-October or thereabouts), these Mexican Free-Tailed bats - who spend their summers in Carlsbad Caverns and their winters in Mexico, and have for the last 5,000 years – along with approximately 16 other different types of bats, fly up and out the Natural Entrance of the Cavern in swooping spirals, starting narrow at the mouth, getting wider and wider, and then heading off toward the South and the East in long meandering black clouds as far as the eye can see.  It takes between 45 minutes and 2 hours for all of the bats to get out of the cave.   After feasting on half their body weight worth of insects in a single night, the bats return pre-dawn, entering the mouth of the cave by flying up hundreds of feet high, tucking in their wings, and dropping like stones into the darkness below, where they come to rest on the roof and walls of Bat Cave until the next evening.  They say that nearly 100 of these bats and their babies can fit into one square foot – crazy!!   This spectacular exodus is a must see if you make the visit to Carlsbad Caverns National Park, and it is made even better by the free Ranger program on the bats, held in the outdoor amphitheater just below the main visitor center about one hour before sunset every evening from mid-May to mid-October, depending on when the bats arrive from or return to Mexico.  

	Of course, we watched this amazing phenomenon, and then headed into the town of Carlsbad (about 15 miles north of the Park) in search of a cheap motel.  We settled on the Great Western, which was 27 per night, including the tax.  The rooms were clean, and it had a pool and hot tub.  As for the town of Carlsbad, there is not much there except for a Chilis, and even better, the Fiesta Drive In Theater, a rare gem in the United States these days.  The only other working drive-in theater we have seen in four months of cruising around the United States was just outside of Ruthie’s home town, Gloversville.  At the Fiesta, doors opened at 7:15 p.m. and the movie started at 7:45.  Armed with a Mc Flurry and a chocolate shake from McDonalds, we got our spot for (we are almost embarrassed to admit it) . . . First Daughter.  The other movies were Napoleon Dynamite, which is a fabulous and very funny movie, but one we have already seen, and the Forgotten, which seemed a bit too heavy for the mood we were in; so, First Daughter it was.  ‘Nuf said!

	The next day, we headed back to Carlsbad Caverns National Park to experience the wonders that lay hundreds of feet below the earth’s surface.  Carlsbad Caverns is literally like another world, and the pictures simply do not do it justice.  Starting at the main visitor’s center, we opted for the Natural Entrance Tour and the Big Room tour, which are both self-guided, as well as the Ranger led King’s Palace Tour.  You need tickets for all three, but the first two are free with the park admission; the latter cost $8 a person.  There are other tours available too, including a few limited crawling and climbing tours, which you apparently have to reserve very far in advance, as they are in high demand. 

	The Natural Entrance Tour started out in the same amphitheater from where we watched the bats fly out the evening before.  As you may be able to tell from the pictures it is a huge hole in the side of a cliff.   Early settlers “discovered” it when they saw the clouds of bats flying out of the cliff side.  There is also evidence that Native Americans (specifically, the Mescalero Apaches) knew about the cave, and had explored at least the upper most portion of it for about 400 years ago.  But, the first recorded exploration came when, in the late 1800s/early 1900s, a teenage boy, Jim White, descended on wire and rope into the cave, using only candles for light.  




	History tells us that Jim descended a little bit farther and farther into the cavern on each expedition, charting its course as he went.  His discoveries prompted the mining of bat guano (bat dung).  From 1903-1923, before Carlsbad Caverns became a national park, there was nearly 40 feet of bat guano in this area of the cave.  Since bat guano apparently is an excellent fertilizer which goes for about $10 a pound (or the same price as coffee) - who knew – Abijha Long mined this guano.  Once the Caverns became a national park, the mining stopped and the guano has started to accumulate again.   Jim also took people on tours of the cave, using the same large buckets employed by the bat guano miners, to lower folks down.  

	With the exception of these people and the bat guano miners, very few others believed Jim’s stories about the caverns’ wonders.  It was not until 1918, when Jim was about 30, that he took a 21 year old photographer by the name of Ray Davis into the cave with him, that Carlsbad Caverns received national attention.  As the story goes, in 1923, Ray’s photographs of the natural wonders of Carlsbad Caverns somehow found their way to New York Times.  Soon thereafter, Robert Holly of the General Land Office accompanied Jim White and Ray Davis into the caves.  After several expeditions into the Caverns, the site was recommended for national monument, and then national park, status.  Jim White appropriately became the Park’s first Superintendent.  Although the Park initially considered dynamiting an entrance through the lower part of the caverns so that people could drive their cars into the cave from White’s City, a town about 15 miles East of the Visitor Center, thankfully, it opted to go with a different means of entrance.  A visitor center was erected at the site where the main center stands today, and wooden stairs were built down into the cave.  These stairs were soon abandoned for a number of reasons and the paved, switch-back paths that exist today were put in.  

	As we descended down into the darkness of the cavern on these paths, we could smell and see the bat (and some bird) guano deposited as the bats fly in and out.  Just past the guano is Bat Cave, where the bats rest during the daylight hours, and just past Bat Cave, the smell starts to dissipate.  Shortly past this point, the natural light ceases, and is replaced with sparse lighting which has been installed by the Park Service.  Then things get interesting.

	The initial 750 foot descent does not entail spelunking through narrow caves and crawl spaces, but rather staring up in wonder and awe at the cavernous ceiling, which is 100-300 feet high.  The sheer enormity of open space so far underground is shocking, especially in comparison to Wind Cave National Park.  As we continued our descent, stalactites (hanging from the ceiling), stalagmites (rising out of the floor), draperies (stalactites which were formed on slanted ceilings), soda straws (pencil like stalactites), popcorn, and columns (when a stalactite and stalagmite touch) - all of which are collectively in the speleothem family - begin to appear in brilliant reds, browns, whites, oranges and yellows.  The number and size of these speleothems, which are routinely 10-40 feet in length, with some even larger, is stupefying.  It’s tough to believe you are not on another planet, especially when you realize that the wonders “grow” roughly at a rate of between ½-1 inch every 70 years.  

	After the initial descent we arrived in the “Big Room,” one of the world’s largest contiguous open cave spaces that spans about a mile and a half.  In a nutshell, the floor and ceiling is covered with multicolored stalagmites, stalactites, columns, and pretty much every other type of “decoration” - yes, that is apparently a professionally accepted term for all formations in caves - which rise up and hang down in every shape and form from 2-100 feet.  Most of the speleothems are dry or inactive, meaning that water is no longer actively leaching through the limestone and adding calcite to the decorations. However, the Big Room, and all of Carlsbad Caverns does have about 5% of speleothems which are “wet” and thus still growing.  Because they are literally wet, they definitely stand out, and make for great viewing; though difficult to photograph.  Actually, as we learned, everything is tough to photograph down there unless you have professional equipment.  

	After the “Big Room” we took the “King’s Palace” guided ranger tour, which is completely worth the $8 per person.  Our guide, Mike, was very knowledgeable and an incredible public speaker.  He should think about running for office one day.  The tour is unique because you are able to view four highly decorated chambers; the “King’s Chamber,” “Queens Chamber,” and two others for which we cannot remember the names.  They all seemed to have every type of decoration seen throughout the rest of the cave in relatively small spaces, and each room emphasizes each type.  Also, on this tour, you are in the deepest charted accessible point in the cavern – 830 feet.

	As a final thought, for better or worse, when you’re done, an elevator takes you back up the 750 feet.  We have to admit, we were glad we did not have to walk the 750 feet back to the top!
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