Why Carlsbad Caverns Should Be Your Next Adventure
Among all the national parks that we have visited till date, we’ve witnessed some amazing beauty all around us – mostly above the surface of the earth! Carlsbad Caverns National Park breaks these norms as it is not only surrounded by some striking landscape but it’s dramatic beauty below the surface away from natural light rendered us speechless!
The caverns decorations which are called speleothems are truly poetic in every sense! At first, we were totally bewildered seeing such a magnificent world hidden deep down inside the mother earth! The caverns are filled with rooms after rooms with fragile formations like soda straws, stalactites, stalagmites, draperies, popcorn clusters and columns to name a few.
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Did you know?
Early American Indians around 1000 years ago, were the early venturers of the park based on the petroglyphs you will notice at the natural entrance walls.
Explorer Jim White spent hours after hours exploring the caverns. It was his passion and enthusiasm that brought to light these marvelous formations some 900 feet below the earth’s surface. Just to put in perspective that’s equivalent to almost 80 story building below the surface.
In 1915 Ray V Davis captured the caverns through photographs. After seeing his photographs, people were more than excited to see these caverns firsthand.
Jim White took the people on a tour by descending 170 foot from the entrance via bucket. By 1930 Carlsbad Caverns became a National Park and we are glad it did!
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We had booked our King’s Palace Tour which was scheduled around 10:00 am. So we arrived at the park at 9:00 am and spent some time at the visitor center browsing through the exhibits, before taking the elevator down to the underground rest area from where we embarked on our exploration of these majestic caverns.
King’s Palace Guided Tour
King’s Palace Cave tour is a ranger-led tour. The tour is 1.5 hour and its schedule for the year is posted on the NPS website. The Tour starts underground near the rest/lunch area.
King’s Palace is the deepest part of the caverns (829 feet below the surface) that is accessible to the visitors. The tour takes you through four rooms – Papoose Room, Queen’s Chamber, King’s Palace and Green Lake Room.
The tour starts with hiking up towards natural entrance trail (self-guided trail) for less than half a mile, before heading towards the Papoose Room which is behind a gated area of the caverns that can only be viewed via the tour. Our ranger guide for the tour was Katie.
Papoose Room with Drapery, Stalactites and Stalegmites formations
Ranger Katie took us through the entire journey from how the caverns were discovered to how scientists are still exploring them. She was very informative and made sure we were engaged during the entire tour. As we went through one room to another, we were amazed at all the different stalactites, stalagmites and other formations some of which are still actively forming even now.
Monochromatic capture of Kings Palace at Carlsbad Caverns
The rooms in this tour included some of the coolest draperies formations of the caverns. Along with that, you will be able to see elegant speleothems. We had enough time to capture them through our lenses. In this area, some of the formations were very vibrant due to the presence of iron and manganese, along with the calcite.
During the latter part of the tour, Ranger Katie made us experience the caverns in absolute darkness! We were all asked to sit on a bench lined along the continuous curved trail and turned off all the lights so that we can relive the moments of early explorers of the caves. With pitch-black darkness and everyone remaining quiet, we were able to hear the sound of the small droplets of water navigating their way in the caverns. After a couple of minutes, Ranger Katie sang a beautiful high octave song about the caverns magic and it was one of the surreal moments for us! The cave is a natural place of the symphony, with amazing acoustics all around!
Stacked Stalactites at Carlsbad Formation
Cave Pearls were seen in the Green Lake Room as we started making our way back towards the natural entrance trail route. We highly recommend everyone planning to visit the national park, to book a tour of King’s Palace, since there is so much of natural beauty around that it will definitely be the highlight of your visit! At the same time, this tour is less challenging that does not involve crawling and climbing as compared to the other tours offered by the Park.
Reflections of formations in Emerald Pool
Natural Entrance Hike
After the spellbinding tour, it was time for lunch, so we took the elevator back to the visitor center. The cafeteria in the visitor center had some very good vegetarian and vegan meal option. After a delicious meal, we started our descend back into the cave from the visitor center via the natural entrance trail.
Formation called "Whales Mouth" at Carlsbad Caverns
This is self-guiding trail and another must-do part of the park, as it gives you an opportunity to experience the journey from light to dark! The trail is 1.25 mile long. The trail starts at the Bat Flight Amphitheater, where you will see the entrance to the cave inviting in every way! We did not witness bats during our visit, but small birds were flying in and out of the natural entrance. These birds are called cave swallows.
Formations at Carlsbad Caverns
As you start descending into the cave, firstly you will enter the Bat Cave, which is 200 feet below the surface of the earth. From there going further, you will pass by the Devil’s Den which is 500 feet below the surface of the earth and houses the Devil’s Spring. Along the way, you will see some phenomenal nature’s creations. One of them is the Iceberg Rock. This is a huge rock weighing 200,000 tons resulting from a cave ceiling collapse.
The trail is basically an alternate way you can get to the caves instead of the elevator shaft. The trail loops around the rest area and you can either climb up 750 feet to the entrance of the trail or take the elevator!
Big Room At Carlsbad caverns
Big Room
After we descended into the caves via the natural entrance trail, passing the Boneyard area we continued on our self-guiding tour of the Big Room. This is the popular 1.25-mile loop trail which is relatively flat. It is the largest single cave chamber in by volume in North America.
Twin Dome and Giant Dome in Big Room at Carlsbad Caverns
You will witness from the most intricate to the dazzling spectacles of cave formations all around you as you walk on the trail. The first section of the trail is the Hall Giants! As the name suggests you will see some towering stalagmites named Giant Dome and Twin Domes as seen above.
Stalactite, Stalagmite and reflections in water at Carlsbad Caverns
With the company of the formations all along the way, you will reach the Caveman junction, which gives you an opportunity to cut short your Big Room tour by 0.5 miles, but we recommend you to keep going further towards the Bottomless pit which is 140 feet deep hole. Along the way, you will come across the View of Lower Cave, Top of the Cross, Mirror Lake.
The next stop was the Rock of Ages which is a giant 30 feet column right in the middle of the Big Room. In 1920’s -1940’s music was performed at this place and even now during six days of Christmas, there is a recreation of historic Rock of Ages ceremony performed.
Along this self-guiding tour, the sheer volume of the cave decorations that one can see is mind-blowing! If you are short on time and are contemplating between Natural Entrance Trail and Big Room, we recommend taking the elevator down and doing the Big Room as this area of the caverns is just spectacular and sensational.
After the Big Room tour, we took the elevator up to the visitor center and decided to spend some time exploring the walnut canyon which is surrounding the caverns. There is a 9.5-mile one-way loop Walnut Canyon Desert Drive that starts across from the Visitor Center. The drive takes across the canyons which lie above these caves and gives you an opportunity to see the landscape above the surface of the earth in this area.
Panaromic view of Walnut Canyon at Carlsbad Caverns National Park
The road is gravel, but most of the passenger vehicles can travel through. Along the way, you can stop by at points of interest. The views of the canyons along the scenic drive are great and if you fancy hike, there are a couple of good trails too! Do stop by at Rattlesnake Canyon Viewpoint and Mesal Pit.
There are very few places, which gives us a chance to go around 900 feet deep below the earth’s surface and explore rooms after rooms with gorgeous decorations all around. Carlsbad Caverns is no doubt one of the rarest gems of a place that you can visit in your lifetime.
In our travel adventures, we were lucky enough to visit some of the amazing places on earth. But we were completely blown away with the amount of beauty inside these caverns. Tucked away so far below the earth’s surface these caverns depict the nature’s marvel where each drop of water counts!
Plan your visit
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Summer Holiday is the peak season for the Park. The park is open every day except Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day.
However, we visited the Park in Early Spring and the weather was perfect with fewer crowds.
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Albuquerque International Sunport (305 miles) in New Mexico and El Paso International Airport in Texas (144 miles) are closest to the park.
Carlsbad, NM is the closest city (24 miles) from the visitor center.
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Inside the visitor center, the Park's cafeteria has quite a good selection of vegan and vegetarian options.
Park does not offer any overnight camping and lodging facilities, so please check the details here before you plan your visit.
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Carry tripod in permitted areas. It was definitely a huge challenge to capture images with limited lighting.
Please read Park’s Things to Know before your visit.
Always check any Park’s alert.
Ranger Guided Tours sell out quickly for the months April through October. We highly recommend making reservations in advance since there are limited hours per day. Guided cave tours can be booked by calling 877-444-6777 or visiting www.recreation.gov.
Please make a note of the timing of the elevator operations, so that you can plan accordingly if you are visiting during the peak season of the park.
Wear comfortable walking shoes.
Consider bringing a light jacket or sweater as the year-round temperature in the cave is 56ºF.
There is no doubt that Carlsbad Caverns National Park will truly wow every age group that will visit it. We had a blast on our visit to Carlsbad Caverns and we hope you will too!
Feel free to share your experiences in the comments below and keep following us on our adventures!
