The Beautiful Carlsbad Caverns of New Mexico

If you have not been to Carlsbad Caverns, tell your boss you need a few days off, lock up the house, hop on a plane and head on out to New Mexico. It’s like another world down there in the caverns of Carlsbad, some 750 feet below the surface of the Chihuahuan Desert. We journeyed in on a self-guided tour through the natural entrance which carried us along winding paths down in to the darkness. The caverns seem to stretch on for miles and at times, the grade is steep so make sure you do some stretching before you leave the surface. Touring the caverns is not only a workout on your legs, it’s a workout on your eyes and neck as you look not just in front, but above and behind you as well at all the amazing rock formations. The formations or ‘decorations’ are comprised of several elegant and sometimes bold formations - stalagtite, stalagmites, columns, popcorn formations (a new one to me) and drapes. We walked for about 4 hours in the caves and never lost interest in what we were seeing (until we realized the time and had to hurry out so that we could get back to the cabin for dinner and a swim before returning to the caverns in the evening to see the 200,000+ bats fly out for their nightly feed. Luckily the paths through the cavern did not take us directly through their digs. You won't get any photos of their flight. No electronic devices as the noise bothers them. Pretty cool to see though.). The tour was free with our NPS yearly membership pass - aahhh I love the National Parks. We could have bought a tour, but honestly you just don’t need to (this confirmed by our campsite neighbors from Maine who took the King’s Palace tour and told us we really didn’t miss anything). I could go on and on about the caverns – the best we’ve ever seen – and really not do them any justice. It's magical down there, breathtaking and otherworldly. Ansel Adams photos taken as part of the Mural Project he did in the 30s were on display in the ranger station along with a magnificent quote which sums up my Carlsbad experience: “…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.”