Carlsbad Caverns

I’ve been in two very spectacular caves before in the western US: Lehman Cave at Great Basin National Park, and Oregon Caves National Monument. Both had ornate features of various shapes such as stalactites and drapery, precipitated inside the caves slowly over countless years. However Carlsbad Caverns, by its palatial size and seemingly endless collection of geological treasures, is in a league of its own. 

The extensive caverns hundreds of feet below the surface are the main attraction of this smaller national park in southern New Mexico. The park rests on the rim of an ancient limestone reef from the Permian Era (251-299 mya) that once encircled a shallow sea in southern New Mexico and northern Texas. (Guadalupe Mountains National Park in northwest Texas is part of this same reef system.) That limestone setting provided the geologic and chemical ingredients for cave formation.

Map of the ancient Permian limestone reef system that includes present day Carlsbad Caverns at left (source) and the natural entrance to the caverns at right.

I took the self-guided tour to view the publicly-accessible caverns, entering at the “natural entrance” and spent over three hours underground, amazed at the size, variety, and sheer number of formations. These formations included stalactites, stalagmites, columns, drapery, and other features, each given different names. 

Stalactites and stalagmites.

The “Big Room” is immense and itself can take well over an hour to view at a leisurely pace. There were several pools underground too and I was particularly drawn to these including one called “Mirror Lake”. Drops of water falling from above kept sending ripples through the pool. Of course naturally all of these features would be hidden to the human eye in complete darkness, but the Park Service carefully uses dim lights throughout the cave system to highlight features.

Features in the Big Room.

The main caverns are apparently only one of over a hundred caves that have been discovered so far in Carlsbad Caverns National Park. Discovery and mapping of caves continues. There is more to the park than the caverns themselves – as amazing as they are – and in the next blog post I’ll feature some of what I observed while backpacking into the park’s wilderness.

This large column has been named "Rock of Ages".

Other types of formations in the caverns. At right is a formation termed "popcorn", although this type more reminds me of a coral reef.

Formations reflected in the water at "Mirror Lake".

Another pool with formations. The faint green color is due to algae, which apparently will grow eventually hundreds of feet below ground if a dim light source is available.

An area termed the "Boneyard" by earlier explorers.

A ladder from earlier exploration in the 1920s (left) and a view of Lower Cave from the main caverns (right).

More stalactites.

Perhaps some 800 feet directly below the Visitor's Center there is almost an underground city where there are bathrooms, vendors and this mail drop. Elevators lead to the surface. Though I walked in via the natural entrance gradually descending into the caves, I took an elevator up (here photographed at 250 ft below ground).