Carlsbad Caverns National Park. 28th National Park.
Within the Chihuahuan Desert is the largest and wettest desert in North America.
Carlsbad Caverns are HUGE. They are not the biggest, longest or deepest caves in the world, but it seemed pretty large to me. And so different from Lehman Cave in Great Basin National Park. Lehman Caves are only 50’ below ground, with much smaller spaces and rooms, but highly decorated. Carlsbad is 750’ below the Earths surface with large areas and didn’t seem as decorated, but here the decorations were large. Or maybe just because the space was so big it didn’t seem as intricate. The cave is large enough that you are doing a 2 1/2 mile self guided tour on a paved path. There are ranger led tours in smaller rooms but even though we called a few days ago they were all sold out for the next few days. The self guided us lit by lights around the cave. One of the pluses of s ranger tour is you walk with lanterns and they have you turn off the lights multiple times. I’m happy we got to experience that in Lehman Cave because I would not have believed how dark dark actually is. You think you’ll eyes will adjust. They don’t.
So how do these caves exist? Happen? 250 mya in Pangea this area was a coastline. Marine plants and animals built a limestone reef (from the skeletons of marine life) here. About 60 mya, hydrogen sulfide gas from oil and gas deposits deep in the Earth formed sulfuric acid and dissolved the limestone creating large cavities. As large cavities were formed and water receded, water dripping via rainfall through the limestone dissolves the calcite. It is the calcite from the limestone that form all these decorations or speleothems, the stalactites, stalagmites, cave drapery, cave popcorn etc…
Bats. They’re kind of important here at the cave. They travel south to Mexico for winter and only live here in the summer months, May to October, 1/2 million of them. A few different species. At dusk it’s supposedly quite spectacular to witness them fly out of the cave. Bats are nocturnal, so they leave the cave at night to feed, returning at dawn to sleep during the day.
In the early 1900s they began harvesting guano – you know what guano is if you’ve seen Ace Ventura Pet Detective 2 When Nature Calls. If you don’t, please reference the movie…or guess, but I highly recommend both Ventura movies instead 🙂 The guano below the roosting chamber was more than 40’ deep. They mined the guano from 1902 – 1958 and most of it was sent via train to California and was used as fertilizer in the citrus farms in CA. Of course bat population numbers began declining and scientists were blaming pesticides and habitat destruction. In 1981 the park plugged a shaft in the roosting chamber made their during guano mining era. With the hole plugged, the Brazilian free-tailed bats have begun reoccupying the area. The hole in the roosting chamber changed the temperature, humidity, and airflow in the roof of the chamber.
Even though I guess I knew this…or maybe I didn’t, but the rest of the family seemed to know that bats are mammals. I don’t know if I thought they were birds, or really I think I just never really thought much about bats before, It was interesting to see the anatomy of a bag wing to that of our hands.
Bats play an important role in our ecosystem. They do a lot to control the pest population. They do a lot for agriculture by eating their fair number of moths. Something else about moths, only a few species drink blood and that’s primarily the blood from cows…not people. And they are NOT blind nor can they see in the dark, They have eyes similar to ours and can see quite well during the day. What they do have is echolocation. Similar to sonar used by boats, bats can see in the dark and can process information in milliseconds. Bats also have a heart rate of 900 beats/minute or 15 beats/second.
This is the beginning of the natural entrance. They have a built in amphitheater to sit and enjoy the flight of the bats…another time. It’s about 1 1/4 mile down to the main chamber, down 750 vertical feet.
Once we got to the main room 750’ below we took the 1 minute elevator ride up to check in with Edwin. He wanted to ride the elevator down and explore the big room.
Jim White, is considered the 1st explorer of the cave. People knew about it, but no one entered after the dark zone. He was a 16 year old cowboy who entered the cave on his own in the late 1890s after he saw the amount of bats leaving one night. There are signs Native Americans went into the opening, but not pass the twilight zone or dark zone. He built this ladder in 1924 to do a 6 month exploration sponsored by the National Geographic Society. Imagine exploring the cave with little light…how Jim didn’t perish in his years of exploring.
Don’t mess with Texas. 19th State.
Guadalupe Mountains National Park. 29th National Park.
There’s one camping spot near the visitor center. Really it’s just a parking lot, but there’s nothing else around and the surrounding mountains are really pretty so it doesn’t matter. It’s better than a random RV place on the side of a road, like the one in Whites City outside Carlsbad Caverns.
It was like a party. We immediately ran into some older couples we talked with at White Sands. And then ran into 2 other groups that we had fun talking with, a plus being they were more in our age group. One, Girard, is a travelling physical therapist on the road for a few months. His destination is the Bay Area so I set him up with the Oakland and Transbay locations. The more exciting meeting was with Jamal, because he’s travelling with his wife and 2 kids, ages 9 & 11, 3rd and 6th grade. They’re going the exact opposite way heading in the direction we just cane from and vice versa. It was fun talking to someone doing the same thing and hearing some of the places they’ve gone and where they liked etc… Vera made quick friends with Alia and Isabella and Isaac did too. It’s been awhile since they’ve had kids their age to play with.
It was past dinner time and even though all the kids were hungry you could tell no one wanted the hanging out to stop. So even though it was pitch black and cold they had a little picnic outside and it was pretty cute when Alia said “we’re having a Buddha bowl too”. Bowl of salad, cabbage, with some pearl couscous, protein (this time pork from TC ~ thanks btw, theirs was shrimp), avocado, and cut up veggies. RV life yo.
