February 18, 2005

February 18, 2005

Lakewood to Carlsbad Caverns National Park, New Mexico & return

DAY 245

 

Carlsbad Caverns ... WOW !

Today was cloudy and cool, with a bit of rain late in the afternoon.

We left mid-morning for Carlsbad Caverns National Park. South on Hwy. 285 about 20 miles to Carlsbad, then southwest on Hwy. 62 / 180 about another 20 miles to Carlsbad Caverns National Park. The park is up in the mountains about 4400 ft. ASL. It was quite cool, and in the clouds, so we couldn't see the scenery very well.

Carlsbad Caverns are the most amazing underground caves ! ! ! Exploration of the caves began about 1898, and development began in the mid-1920's. There is an elevator entrance, but we opted for the "Natural Entrance". It's a trail about a mile long, entering into a cave opening and descending about 750 feet down inside the mountain to the caverns within. At the end of the descent, we entered "The Big Room", the main cavern. We walked around "The Big Room" trail, about a mile and a half around this enormous cavern filled with stalactites, stalagmites, flowstones, soda straws, columns, draperies, popcorn, lily pads, cave pearls, helictites, and all the other forms of speleothem ( underground geological ) formations whose names I can't recall. It's jaw dropping awesome. It's like "Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom". Neither Disney nor Spielberg could dream up something better than what Mother Nature created over a 250 million year period. I hope my pictures do it justice. It's extremely dark in the caverns, so I was shooting most of the pictures "blind". By the time we were finished, our legs were sore, and we were pretty tired. We took the elevator back to the surface. We went up to the roof top observation deck. Couldn't see anything. We were in cloud. We wandered around the gift shop, then left.

From spring until fall, every morning at dawn, and every evening at sunset, a quarter of a million bats enter and exit the cave. There is an outdoor amphitheatre at the natural entrance to the cave from which to view this spectacle. At sunset, a cloud of bats is flying out of the cave for 20 minutes ! At this time of year, the bats have migrated to warmer climes in Mexico.

On the way down the mountain, we took the 9.5 mile gravel scenic route. It would have been a gorgeous drive down a desert mountain, if we would have been able to see anything. We were in cloud most of the time. On the way back to "The Ranch" SKP Park, we stopped at Wal-Mart in Carlsbad, and stocked up on groceries. We're leaving tomorrow morning for Guadalupe Mountains National Park. It's in a pretty remote area on the New Mexico / Texas border. I don't think there's going to be any grocery stores nearby.

DSK