We spent 2 half days in Carlsbad Caverns. The first day, we went to the caverns with Nuith and Robert, a couple that we had met at Guadalupe Mountains NP. Even though we have the National Park pass, we had to wait in line to get tickets to enter the caverns. The line wasn’t terrible but I do suggest going early as the line can get long. Each National Park pass holder is allowed to get 4 tickets. The tickets are valid for 3 days so you don’t have to wait in line again if you decide you want to come back within 3 days. We got to the Visitor’s Center early, so we picked up our 4 tickets and gave our 2 extra ones to Nuith and Robert, so they wouldn’t have to wait in line/pay to get in.
There are 2 options to enter the caverns: you can take an elevator down or walk down through the Natural Entrance, 1.25 miles that goes 750 feet deep into the cavern, which takes about 45 minutes to walk. We opted to walk down and then take the elevator back up because let’s be real, going down is easier than going up.
When we got to the opening of the caverns we could already tell it was going to be a cool experience. Looking down from the mouth of the caverns you could see the path winding down halfway but the rest was dark. As we got deeper and deeper, we had to let our eyes adjust so that we would be able to see all of the cool stalagmites and formations.
We were only able to do half of the caverns because I had an interview scheduled that afternoon. We saw all of the formations that were highlighted on the Natural Entrance Trail. We walked all the way to the fork that splits to the Big Room Trail and the elevators. That’s where we had to stop our tour because we had to make it back up to a city with cell signal so I could do my call. We said good bye to our new friends and made plans to meet up that night to hang out.
We took the elevator up to the surface. The elevator ride was pretty fast, our ears were definitely popping on the way up. Once we got to the surface, we made our way to a Taco Bell (our go-to meal) in the nearest city, Carlsbad, NM. After my interview (unfortunately, I didn’t get the job), we had some time to kill before meeting up with our friends so we decided to run some errands. We gave Yogi a bath and went grocery shopping.
We decided to get some drinks at Guadalupe Mountain Brewing Co. before meeting up with our new friends for bowling at Cal’s Cactus Lanes Bowling and Recreation Center. After a couple of games, we went to play pool at the bar next door, Cal’s Shade Western.
We ended the night and decided to drive 1.5hrs to Last Chance Canyon in Queen, NM. The other couple we met at Guadalupe Mountains, Tommy and Artemis, had invited us to a camp spot in that area. Per usual, we drove up to the canyon in the dark and by the time we got up to the top, we were ready to pass out. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find our friends.
We woke up with the wind pounding on the tent. It literally sounded like someone was trying to get inside and was pushing every wall in. The wind was so strong, Enoch had trouble putting the cover back on the tent after folding it up. Here is the view from our tent:
We did not want to stay in the wind any longer, so we quickly packed up and headed down. We stopped to get lunch at Danny’s Place, a bbq joint (another one of our go-to’s) in Carlsbad. The food and prices were pretty good, we would recommend.
We started the day kind of late and were feeling lazy so we just chilled the rest of the day and set up camp earlier than normal at a spot close to Carlsbad Caverns.
The next day we explored Carlsbad Caverns again. When we got to the Visitor’s Center, an alarm started going off. The rangers evacuated the building and had everyone waiting in the parking lot. We found out that someone had triggered the fire alarm and they had to wait until the fire department came to turn off the alarm. The nearest fire department was at least 30 minutes away and apparently they take awhile to get there. I think we had to wait about 1hr before we were allowed to go back into the Visitor’s Center.
A lot of people had left by the time we were allowed back into the building. so once we got inside we rushed to the Natural Entrance and began our descent again. We sped through the whole Natural Entrance trail because we had already seen it the other day. This time we did the Big Room trail all the way through and looped back around to the elevators. There were a lot more large stalagmites in this area and lots of deep holes.
We finished exploring the caverns by 3pm. Big Bend National Park, about 4 hours away, was our next stop. We decided to make that drive and arrive at the park by night time. #obvi It’s what we do. Beautiful sunset along the drive:
MoLeisureXventures 