New Mexico: Carlsbad Caverns

Last weekend we decided to go camp at White Sands National Monument. Since the drive there from Santa Fe is about 4 hours, we thought it would be a good idea to take advantage of the fact that we were going to be in the south of New Mexico, and drive about 3 hours East of white sands to go to Carlsbad Caverns National Park.

The entrance. Look at the handrails on top and the people in the bottom. The pictures don't show it much, but everything in this cave was extremely large.

This park has over 117 caves, including Lechuguilla Cave, which is the deepest limestone cave in the US. However, it is not open to the public. Look at how incredible it is: 

Lechuguilla Cave. People are not allowed in here

We were toasted from our camping trip in the desert, so the coolness of the cave felt really good. We got there pretty late, so we only had about two hours to explore before we headed back. Here are our photos:

The Whale's Mouth

In this photo, if you look up close, you can find a person's silhouette standing in the back. This shows you how large this place is

The park has different tours available. Some of them involve dragging yourself in tiny passages, with just flashlights to illuminate your way. I really wish we could have done one of these tours, but we didn't have enough time. Another thing to see is the exit of the bats from the cave. At sunset hundreds of thousands of bats exit the cave together, and there is an amphitheater from which to watch this. We had to drive 5 hours back home, so waiting for the sunset was out of the question.

Who knows, maybe one day we'll be able to come back and do those things we didn't get to do. But even if we don't, I'm very happy that we got to visit.