Carlsbad Caverns National Park

Where Is It: 150 miles east of El Paso, TX, or 300 miles southeast of Albuquerque, NM.

The Birth: In 1923, President Calvin Coolidge established Carlsbad Cave National Monument. In 1930, Congress authorized and then President Herbert Hoover approved the Carlsbad Caverns National Park.

Size: 46,766 acres.

# Visitors: 2012 visitation was 381,058 people. July was the peak month, and January the least attended … even though the cave is a constant 56*, year round.

Plants: From the Park’s website:

The park’s diverse ecosystem provides habitat for many plants that are at the geographic limits of their ranges. For example, the Ponderosa Pine reaches its extreme eastern limit here and Chinkapin Oak is at the western edge of its range.

There is more diversity of cacti in the Chihuahuan Desert than in any other region. Experts believe that this plant family originated here or to the south, and expanded out through the New World. The park’s vascular plant list notes 26 species or subspecies of cacti, including two species that are federally listed.

The plant families with the most species in the park are species in the sunflower family, with 153 species, and grasses, with 135 species. There are more than 60 known species of the legume family and more than 30 each from the mustard and poinsettia families.

Animals: 17 species of bats live in the Park, including Mexican free-tailed bats. That species’ population in the Park was once estimated in the millions, but is now a fraction of that number. A study published in 2009 by a team from Boston University questions whether millions of bats ever existed in the caverns.

Choices: From NationalGeographic.com:

One full day allows you time to tour the main cavern and take a nature walk or a drive before watching the bats fly at sunset. For a second day’s activity, reserve space on a tour of “unimproved” Slaughter Canyon Cave, if you’re ready for a more rugged caving experience.

At the visitor center, select either the Natural Entrance Tour or the Big Room Tour (both are 1.25-mile walks). Try the first unless you have walking, breathing, or heart problems. It starts at the natural entrance and is mostly downhill, except for one stretch where you climb 83 feet; an elevator whisks you back to ground level. The Natural Entrance Tour is more intimate and may be less crowded than the Big Room.

Fees: Any tour costs each visitor $10.

Staying There: There are no campgrounds and no lodges in the Park. Backcountry camping is by permit; permits are free.

Contact Info:

3225 National Parks Highway
Carlsbad, New Mexico 88220

Visitor Information: 575.785.2232

Bat Flight Information: 575.785.3012

Current Issues: From Albuquerque Journal:

It’s been more than two decades since a discovery this big has been made at Carlsbad Caverns National Park in southeastern New Mexico.

Park officials announced this week that a new room has been discovered high in the ceiling of the main cavern. It was found on Halloween night by Derek Bristol, a caver and volunteer with the Cave Research Foundation, and Shawn Thomas, a cave technician at the park.

The two had climbed more than 250 feet to the “Spirit World” area to finish surveying as part of work to create a new map of the caverns. Once inside, they decided to make their way to a ledge about 15 feet away. The ledge had been observed on previous trips but never explored.

“Most of the time, obscure leads like this go nowhere,” Thomas said.

To their surprise, it opened up to a long passage.

“I remember being really shocked. I couldn’t believe this was happening,” said Thomas, who followed Bristol through the passage and into the large room they dubbed Halloween Hall. “There hasn’t been a room this big discovered in decades.”

Inside the colorful room were football-size crystal formations, light-blue endellite clay, a cascade of flow stone left behind by mineral deposits and thousands of bat bones. The room is about 100 feet in diameter.

Don’t Miss This: From GORP.com:

More than 300 known caves lie beneath the surface of the Chihuahuan Desert and Guadalupe Mountains of southeastern New Mexico and west Texas. The Carlsbad Caverns National Park contains 113 of these caves, two of which—Carlsbad Caverns and Lechuguilla Cave—are among the largest and most magnificent underground formations in the world.

Carlsbad Carlsbad Caverns National Park sits within the Chihuahuan desert. The Chihuahuan desert is the largest desert system out of the four in the United States with over 220,000 square miles. From the Park’s Facebook page.

Beautiful shot of the “Big Room” area of the cavern. Photo credit: Emily Ficker. From the Park’s Facebook page.

This is beautiful, purple Dotted Gayfeather (Liatris punctata) blooming in the desert of Carlsbad Caverns. From the Park’s Facebook page.

From the Park’s Facebook page.

Cave technicians surveyed in Spider Cave in September 2013, and were able to complete 0.22 miles over the three days, all in the recently discovered Gilead section. With this new survey, it brings the total length of the cave to 5.28 miles. Cave Technician, Shawn Thomas said, “The passages were mostly low, gritty crawls but we also got into some nice passage that was heavily decorated with gypsum flowers and needles.” The photo is of a gypsum flower taken for NPS by Shawn Thomas. From the Park’s Facebook page.

From the Park’s Facebook page.

Turkey vulture. From the Park’s Facebook page.

Just one of the many forms of calcite–perfect little spheres called cave pearls. If we could cut one open it would reveal a nucleus, a tiny bit of sand or other material that over time was coated with the mineral calcite. Who needs oysters? This is New Mexico! Emily Ficker Photo . From the Park’s Facebook page.

Spotted near the visitor center, this giant desert centipede (Scolopendra heros) made a bee-line for grass and leaf litter when it saw us approaching. Both ends of the centipede are pictured, if a little tough to see. If you find yourself having a hard time telling its head from its tail, well, that’s exactly the point. Imagine a predator experiencing the same conundrum. From the Park’s Facebook page.

From the Park’s Facebook page.

Crevice spiny lizard. From the Park’s Facebook page.

From the Park’s Facebook page.

Spider Cave is one of the most strenuous tours offered at Carlsbad Caverns National Park. Visitors on the tour will belly crawl, chimney over pits, and resign themselves to lots of stooping. The rewards, however, are fantastic! Take, for instance, this view of helictites and helicmites in the Medusa Room. Tours are offered every Sunday at 1 p.m. Reserve early because they sell out. Helmet, gloves, and knee pads provided. From the Park’s Facebook page.

A predator with a mouthful spines from this horned lizard couldn’t claim the lizard was asking for trouble. In fact, horned lizards do all they can to avoid being seen–and eaten. Just look at the camoflauge on this one. The lateral spikes (the ones along its flanks) help to break up the lizard’s shadow, making it difficult to spot from the air. And, when they sense a predator, horned lizards instinctually freeze, helping them remain unseen. If all that fails, however, there are always the spikes to make a predator think twice about swallowing, especially when a horned lizard puffs up like a blowfish. As a final defense, some horned lizards squirt blood from their eyes. Turns out their blood tastes awful to some predators, especially canines. From the Park’s Facebook page.

From the Park’s Facebook page.

Who has a good recipe for tuna of the prickly pear variety? July’s prickly pear cactus blooms have given way to August’s fruits, called tunas. When ripe, tunas are red to purple, and they protrude from prickly pear pads like so many red clown noses. If you look closely you can see that the juices from one of these tunas has dripped onto the pad of the prickly pear. If you’d like to try one, be careful! Like the rest of the prickly pear, they have spines. Use gloves and make sure to peel the skin before eating. Visitors can collect up to one gallon of tunas a day from the park, but only from areas within 100 feet of the Walnut Canyon Entrance Road or the Walnut Canyon Scenic Drive. From the Park’s Facebook page.

From the Park’s Facebook page.

Think cave photography is tough? Photographer Ansel Adams came to Carlsbad Cavern in 1936 and 1941, but he was never really happy with his work. Adams said that the cave was “something that should not exist in relation to human beings. Something that is as remote as the galaxy, incomprehensible as a nightmare, and beautiful in spite of everything.” From the Park’s Facebook page.