National Park Spotlight: Carlsbad Caverns

Last week, in the first installment of my series on National Parks, I wrote about my trip to Florida’s Atlantic Coast to visit five National Park System units. This week, I’m talking about a park that’s a little closer to home for me – or at least, closer to my current home. Living in Southeastern New Mexico, Carlsbad Caverns National Park is only a short, 30-minute drive from my place. Guadalupe Mountains National Park, much lesser known, is just 40 minutes past that, so it’s easy to visit both in a weekend – however, I’d recommend much more time than that, if you can spare it. In this article, we’re focusing on the former.

Carlsbad Caverns National Park is not only a U.S. National Park, but a UNESCO World Heritage Site – and rightfully so. You’ll notice that in the title of the park, “Caverns” is plural. That’s because there are over 100 caves within the bounds of the park, which is a major reason for its status as a World Heritage Site. However, almost all of these caves, like Lechuguilla Cave – the 9th longest cave in the world – are off-limits to visitors, and for good reason. Regular human presence damages caves no matter how carefully protected they are, and Lechuguilla is an extremely important research cave. When fully staffed and running all normal programs, the only two caves in this park open to the public are Carlsbad Cavern and Slaughter Canyon Cave – and make no mistake, this is a good thing. We’ll talk about exactly why later in the article.

First off, before you do anything else, make a timed-entry reservation to get into the cave. The park is very busy, and there are a limited number of tickets available to keep the cave from getting too crowded. There is also a hard cut-off to get into the cave at 2:30pm, with the last ticket sold at 2:15pm. At least once a day, someone who didn’t do their research walks up to the desk and is enraged when they find out that they can’t enter the cave because walk-up tickets are sold out, or it’s 3:45pm and “the website said you close at 5!” – just the visitor center hours, and the website does have the cave hours on it as well. The rangers are very friendly, and really don’t like having to tell you that you can’t get in the cave, but they will if they have to. Park Rangers, in general, are overworked and underpaid – don’t give them more grief than they already get. On a similar note, dogs aren’t allowed in the cave, so leave your dog at home. Don’t try to pass your pet off as a service dog. Anyone can buy a “service dog” vest on Amazon, it doesn’t mean your dog is one. Service dogs are trained to perform a specific task to help people with disabilities If you’re one of the people who does this, you are frankly lower than the shit in the campground pit toilets as a human being, and I mean that whole-heartedly. Rules against bringing pets into certain areas in parks are designed to protect your pet, other people, and/or delicate ecosystems. If you ignore that and lie about your dog being a service dog anyway, you obviously don’t care about the delicate ecosystem you’re visiting, the damaging impact you are having on the rights of people with actual disabilities who need service dogs in this country, the potential risk to others, or even the health and safety of your own pet. Get a dogsitter, dickhead.

Once you’ve taken care of that, the best course of action for visiting is to fly in to El Paso or Midland-Odessa and drive to Carlsbad, then get a hotel for the night. In the morning, the first thing you need to do is navigate Carlsbad’s traffic, which is mostly caused by oil workers who drive like they’re the only people on the road. Then head down US-62/US-180 and turn off in Whites City, a bustling metropolis with about 14 permanent residents. Founded as a resort by Charles White in 1920, it had over 100 residents at one point in time and even has its own U.S. Post Office and zip code, separate from that of Carlsbad despite everything around it having the Carlsbad zip code. There’s a hotel and a privately operated campground in town, if you want to stay closer to the park. After the 15-second drive through Whites City, you’ll be in the park. It’s about a seven-mile drive to the visitor center. On the way, keep an eye out for Desert Mule Deer and Aoudad on the sides of the road. There are also several overlooks to stop at, some of which have interpretive signs. You’ll also see the above-ground beauty of the Chihuahuan Desert, with beautiful limestone outcroppings and plants like Ocotillo, Mescal, Lechuguilla, Yucca, Cholla, Sotol, and Prickly Pear. You might even be tempted to hike some of the trails, like the Old Guano Road Trail or the short, ¼-mile Nature Trail, to experience the beauty of the Chihuahuan Desert, and get some nice views of the Permian Basin and the Guadalupe Mountains. It’s breathtaking.

One of the many overlooks along the road on the way up to the visitor center.

At the visitor center – the largest visitor center I’ve ever seen at a park – you’ll just walk up and present your reservation at the ticket counter. If you have an America the Beautiful Pass, that’ll cover up to four people. After that, you’ve got two options for entering the cave self-guided. There’s the natural entrance, which allows you to walk into the cave and down the main corridor, which is about a 1.25-mile trail at a steep downhill grade. It ultimately leads to the Big Room, which is the largest naturally occurring cave chamber in the United States. If you have knee or back problems, I don’t recommend that one; instead, take the elevators straight down to the Big Room, then walk around the 1.25-mile Big Room route. You can also walk up the main corridor out of the natural entrance, but it’s physically strenuous because it’s a steep uphill grade. Ultimately, if you do both routes, you’re looking at a 2.5-mile round trip that takes about one to two hours. You can also get guided tours with Rangers in various parts of the cave, but separate reservations are needed for those ahead of time.

The Natural Entrance is really cool, and even if you aren’t walking down it, I recommend going to see it. Depending on the time of year, you’ll hear the chittering of Cliff Swallows as you approach. This is one of the northernmost reaches of their breeding range, and they like to make their nests in the Twilight Zone – a term used for the parts of the cave close to the entrance where there is still some small amount of visible light. Once you’re past the twilight zone and into the dark zone, you’ll start seeing some of the formations that make this cave so special. At every National Park I’ve been to, there’s been some feature entitled “Devil’s _____.” I always look for it when I go to parks now that I’ve caught on, and the first feature with a name that you come to in the main corridor is the Devil’s Spring – so we can check that one off the list.

The natural entrance of Carlsbad Cavern.

You continue walking down the main corridor, glimpsing spectacular arrangements of cave décor, until you get to the bottom and join up with the Big Room. This place is massive; almost incomprehensibly so. As you walk around the Big Room, you’ll see equally enormous features within it – my favorite feature being the Rock of Ages. As the story goes, a renowned tenor named Cameron McClean was visiting the cave in the 20’s and was so moved by what he saw that he began to sing the hymn “Rock of Ages” in this spot, and the formation has been named as such ever since. Rangers used to sing the hymn on tours, but it was decided as the NPS mission changed from purely entertainment to education that the program was not consistent with those values, and it went away. Around 2000, the program was brought back as a living history program, and now it is presented for a limited time in December each year.

The Rock of Ages.

After the Rock of Ages, you make your way back to the elevators and the – [shudders] – underground lunch room. Back in the 1930’s, management was very different. As I alluded to with the Rock of Ages program, the NPS was much more about entertainment than preservation. They destroyed a huge section of cave to put in a lunch room, and expanded it in the 1950’s. As I understand it, the park tried to get rid of it, but outside pressure wouldn’t allow for that. So, they had a contractor come in and reduce the size of it, and that contractor runs it now on occasion. It does serve as a good landmark for meeting with tour guides, as all of the guided tours meet here.

Now, as for the guided tours, they are equally cool. At the time of this writing, there are two guided tours running: the King’s Palace and the Lower Cave. The Lower Cave Tour is a wild caving tour; you put on knee pads and a helmet, descend and ascend ropes, navigate a few tight spaces, and climb a few ladders over the course of the tour. It takes you down below the Big Room and allows you to have a more involved caving experience. The King’s Palace, on the other hand, is essentially a Ranger-guided extension of the self-guided routes. It’s fully paved and doesn’t require a tremendous amount of up-and-down (however, be advised that it is not handicap accessible). I know a lot of rangers at a lot of parks personally, and I have to say that Carlsbad Caverns has some exceptionally talented interpretive Rangers. I’ve seen several King’s Palace tours, and they’ve all been excellent. It is entirely worth the money to reserve a spot, and not only will you be treated to an awesome program, but these rooms are some of the most gorgeous spots in the whole cave.

The King’s Palace.

All-in-all, Carlsbad Caverns holds a special place in my heart. It’s got everything you want in a park – a short scenic drive, some nice hiking trails, and the cave adds an entire extra dimension to the beauty of it. Not only is it a fantastic park to visit, but I really feel that it encapsulates what parks are supposed to be in a way that not many other parks do.

If you want to protect something, you need people to care about protecting it, and the vast majority of people don’t care about protecting something they can’t see with their own eyes. However, allowing large-scale public access to an extremely delicate natural resource will inherently damage it. Carlsbad Cavern shows this every day; dedicated Park Rangers and selfless volunteers clean hair, trash, lint, and sometimes (way more often than you think) human waste off of the speleothems and trails every single day. So, how do you strike a balance between environmental destruction and preservation? You do exactly what Carlsbad Caverns National Park does. You limit access to the vast majority of the resource, but you allow public access in some of the most impressive areas – in this case, the largest naturally occurring cave chamber in the United States (and, in my opinion, the most beautiful). Allowing people to see a resource like this with their own eyes makes them want to protect it, and other resources like it.

This, in general, is how I feel about national parks. It’s what I believe the role of the National Parks System should be in a modern conservation system. National Parks are, in essence, sacrificial lambs that are managed for widespread public access. Rangers serve as interpreters and educators to teach the public about the resources within, and protectors to keep those resources from extensive damage that would come with unchecked public access. Visitors learn about the resources during their visits and are hopefully inspired to protect other, more restricted resources like wilderness areas and biosphere reserves. It’s worth pointing out that many National Parks have wilderness areas within their boundaries as well, away from the touristy front country spots.

I’ve seen this work within myself. This whole blog project has been about learning and growing as an outdoorsman. I probably would not have experienced this outdoor rebirth had it not been for my National Parks obsession. Not only that, but I never would have discovered my newfound love for caving, nor developed any other new skills and hobbies in the outdoors. Many people approach National Parks as though they are the end-all-be-all of public lands, but they’re wrong, in my judgment. National Parks are the gateway drug of conservation, not the end goal. That, my friends, is why they are so important. If you take nothing else from this article, take it as encouragement to get out and enjoy your parks today. Even if you’re just getting off work and you only have an hour or two of daylight – go for a stroll on a local nature trail. There’s almost certainly one near you. You’ll get some exercise, you’ll learn something, and you’ll be glad you did it. Get after it.