Carlsbad Caverns

We visited Carlsbad in the past . It was such a terrific cave (my favorite) we had to visit again. The cave is immense with all types of formations. The part I like best is that you can walk into the cave (1 mile down) and travel a path (1.25 miles) all on your own without guides. So you can spend time looking at things that interest you.

At this time of the year the place isn’t very busy. I hear the route is busy during the summer but while we saw people on the path, it never felt crowded.

We talked to several rangers. One thing we learned is that they are trying to update to LED lighting but all kinds of things are going wrong. The contractor who started the job laid large cable all over the cave. In the past the cable was hidden but this contractor didn’t do this so you see a lot of ugly cable. The whole project has been delayed for various reasons. With the new LED lights, the life of the lamps should be around 10 years. Because they still have the old lights, lights are constantly failing but the park has only one person who changes lights on a part-time basis. We noticed quite a few areas without lights so that you are walking in the dark. The cavern is still wonderful!

These are stalactites with popcorn formations at the bottom that they call “Lion’s Tail”.

While driving on the roads within the park, we saw several (4?) mountain sheep. We had to use binoculars so there aren’t any pictures, but it was great to see them climbing the rocky hills.