Exploring the Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico

After the excitement of our stay at the Caverns of Sonora RV Park, our visit to Carlsbad, New Mexico, was almost downright boring. There are times, of course, when boring is good!

We got up earlier than usual and cleared out of Sonora to make an uneventful drive along I-10 and US-285 that took us through the thriving metropolitan areas of Fort Stockton and Pecos, Texas, before we arrived in Carlsbad, New Mexico. The main reason for stopping here was to see the Carlsbad Caverns at the National Park bearing the same name. I was also looking at heading up to Roswell to check out the UFO lore when I was doing the initial trip planning, but it’s about 90 minutes each way from Carlsbad, so I decided to give up that little side trip for now. The aliens will have to wait.

We stayed at the aptly named Carlsbad RV Park, which is toward the southwest edge of town along US-180/National Parks Highway. In researching a place to stay, I saw that the park had gotten some very mixed reviews on Google. However, we had a very pleasant, no-fuss experience here. The staff was very friendly and informative when Jan checked us in (this is a big “we notice” thing, especially since the silliness we encountered at Green Caye outside Houston), the park is well-kept and in a good location for getting to the caverns. If I had a quibble, it would be with the WiFi connectivity; in the park’s defense, however, the staff said that they were in the middle of changing over to a new service provider, so hopefully this will be improved in the near future.

As soon as we got in and set up, we pondered what to do about the caverns. There are two ways to enter: one is by what’s called the natural entrance, which involves an 800 foot descent over the course of a mile before you get to the main area of the cavern set up for visitors. The other way is by elevator that takes you down 750 feet. We wanted to do the natural entrance, but it closes a bit earlier than the elevator, and we initially didn’t think we’d make it. Then I remembered that we’d gained an hour heading west, so we should have plenty of time (note: the time zone changes between Texas and New Mexico down in the south made my head spin!).

We hopped in the car and headed down National Parks Highway/US-180 to the park. Now, for some reason I had thought that the RV park was actually collocated with the caverns. Don’t ask me how. But it’s about a 30-40 minute drive to get to the park. There is an RV park, Whites City RV Park, located right at the entrance to the national park (which encompasses much more than just the caverns, by the way), but from what I could see from the road and looking at Google Maps, the sites looked pretty crammed together. Just from that, I probably wouldn’t have stayed here, anyway.

Once into the park, you take a winding road up to the top of a mountain, which is where you’ll find the building that houses the entrance to the caverns, a gift shop, cafe, library, and informational movie theater. Like all the National Park facilities I’ve been to so far, everything was nice, clean, and the park personnel were uniformly friendly. Or friendly and uniformed. Something like that.

Again, however, disappointment struck. The natural entrance had been closed for the day because of concerns over the rain storm that was heading into the area. I didn’t collapse to the floor and sob, but I was really looking forward to it, partly because it sounded really cool, and partly because we both needed the exercise. While Jan and I had the best of intentions, the only exercise we’ve gotten so far has been a bit of walking. The rest of the time we’ve been pretty sedentary (driving all day does that to you!) and eating more yummy food than we probably should. But the natural entrance to the cave looked like a great way to get in a little bit of fat burning, but it wasn’t to be. We were stuck with those extra lipids for now.

So, down in the elevator we went. It’s sort of weird, thinking about dropping down the equivalent of a 75 story building into the ground. Once the doors opened, it was off into the caverns.

I’ve been in a few caverns, and have always found them fascinating, and have never been able to fathom what possessed the original explorers (who, back then, didn’t have all the tech and gear like flashlights that we take for granted now) to go poking around in theses dark recesses of the earth. On the other hand, I’m glad they did, because if it was up to my chicken self, places like this would still be a mystery, at least until the guys from Google Maps get it sorted out (from the looks of it, that may be in the works, evidenced by the Google car we saw in the parking lot).

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Once we were done with the cavern tour, we headed back up to the visitor center, where we nabbed some t-shirts from the gift shop and had dinner at the cafe. The food wasn’t spectacular, but it was decent and reasonably priced, which is always good for hungry cave explorers.

After that, we headed back home, making a stop or two to grab some pics of some of the scenic areas of the park, which were enhanced by the nearby storm.

The verdict on Carlsbad is that if you enjoy scenic wonders in general and caverns in particular, it’s a must-see. I’ll be honest and say that I think some of the other caverns I’ve seen had a bit more eye candy, but how can you really compare amazing to amazing? Also, be sure to take a moment to wander over to the edge of the parking lot at the visitor center and get an eyeful of the vista that awaits you, and consider stopping at some of the exhibit points along the road up to the visitor center.

Next stop: Las Cruces, New Mexico…

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