A M A Z I N G! Located in the Chihuahuan Desert of the Guadalupe Mountains lies Carlsbad Caverns National Park. Our journey down under today was nothing like we have done on this trip. It really seemed like an adventure to another world. Either that or Dr Seuss, Lewis Carroll, Salvador Dali and Andy Warhol all got together and created this magical masterpiece underground for us all to enjoy. This should be added as the eighth natural wonder of the world!
Only 120 miles of underground passages have been explored and mapped. The deepest depth was recorded at 1,600 feet. That makes this the second deepest sandstone cave in the United States. Tim and I only did two and a half miles of them. We chose to walk the steep 1.25 mile self-guided natural entry passage in. This is where we observed the Bat Flight last night. Then we explored another 1.25 miles in the Big Room Chamber. The Big Room is an 8.2 acre sized chamber. Our return to the surface by elevator took us 750’ straight up! Just mind boggling that we were that far underground.
The experience of exploring the steep paths and chambers, especially the Big Room, is very exciting. The amount of vehicles, buses and RVs had us thinking there would be crowds and hundreds of people in lines but not so. This National Park is so spread out between the natural entrance, elevator entry, museum, underground chambers and gift shop that you really don’t see everyone.
Washington Ranch has turned out to be the perfect stop for us here with it being so conveniently close to the caverns. We had time this afternoon to explore the ranch some more. Again it’s spacious, beautiful and serene here. A splendid oasis in the Chihuahuan Desert.
Tomorrow’s journey south from here will be a long one. I hope to get some high end shopping in and our next stop on this adventure will really BIG as well.
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