Carlsbad Caverns National Park

Trip

Visiting and camping at the base of Calsbad Cavern. The town at the base is quarky

The Cave

Calsbad Cavern has been on my list to visit for as long as I can remember. Our trip to Kartchner Caverns solidified the visit as the cave had me excited to visit “all the caves”. I don’t want to spelunk, however I do want to explore and discover already known/mapped caves. Visiting Carlsbad allowed me to appreciate the care taken at Kartchner, where the cave and ecosystem inside of it is paramount.

The Cave’s Scale

The scale/size of Carslbad Cave is impressive. The hike down is many switchbacks, they dive 75 stories into the earth. Once inside the cave lighting is supplied via incandescent bulbs. A constant flow of air can be felt and the cave is cool and well ventilated. What was surprising to me was that cave systems above and below it exist. Many other large caves exist in the park, 120 known about today. Researchers expect to find more. Although Carlsbad scale is impressive (Big Room 8.2 Acres, 30 miles of caves) Lechuguilla Cave is 140 miles, 1600 deep and is only open to researchers.

The Landscape

Traveling through the area its easy to spot other landscapes that appear the same as Calsbad, it is fun to imagine that a cave system exists beneath all of the hills and to consider the vast amount of discovery that is available under our feet.

Food and Drink

We visited Carlsbad (the city) for dinner one night. We had dinner at YellowBrix Restaurant. The restaurant was severely understaffed. Our server who mentioned she was the manager, took care of us. The food was good, the service was horrible. One of the comments from the manager/server was that she had never waited tables before. Which had me questioning some of my general rules of life. EG: if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. If you don’t have experience in it, you should not manage it.

I then started to notice the flow of the restaurant and quickly realized that the problems were mostly of their own creation. Side note, I am glad I don’t work in the restaurant business any longer.

Coffee

I didn’t chase any coffee while in Carlsbad.

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Where we camped

We stayed in White’s City, the “city” is at the base of the Carlsbad entrance, a small campground, fuel station, and store exist. The store was quirky with a alien theme.

The Dogs

Carlsbad has kennels for use, we left our dogs in the trailer as we could not get Doowee influenza vaccine quick enough for this trip. Essentially the trailer is their rolling crate, both were happy to be along for the trip even though they were alone for a few hours.

Minny

Minny Minny is doing well, she is happy, feisty with brother and enjoying walks.

DooWee

Doowee Doowee is happy, dealing with his sister. He would like to go into the cave.

Carlsbad Caverns and White’s city gallery

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