It’s interesting how I just didn’t expect much from Carlsbad Caverns. I knew it would be beautiful (it is a National Park, after all), but I didn’t expect it to be amazing.
I love being wrong.
Carlsbad Caverns is shocking to experience. If at all possible, do the walk down into the abyss instead of taking the elevator. The walk in is like a gradual, overwhelming shock to the senses. Walking down the ramp into a ginormous hole is a pretty trippy experience.
We opted to get both kids the walkie-talkie for a guided tour. They have 2 versions, one for kids and one for adults. (In retrospect, we should have gotten those for the adults, too. I have a feeling the kids came out of there with a much better understanding of what they were seeing than we did. There are scattered signs throughout the walking tour, but not a great deal of information on them, so if you’re the kind of person that wants the details of what you’re seeing, pay the few dollars extra to get the walkie-talkies.
The Caverns are relatively well-lit once your eyes adjust to the absence of sunlight. Although we saw some folks there with flashlights and headlamps, we didn’t need them.
Walking through the Caverns, it’s impossible not to think about Jim White, Teenager Cowboy, stealing down into these caves on his own in the 1800’s. Obviously, the Mescalero Apache and the Zuni Pueblo peoples all know about this area, but in “modern history”, it’s this young kid that’s credited with really exploring the Caverns and bringing them attention.
Beyond this, there aren’t really a whole lot of great words to describe the caverns. They’re huge and gorgeous and with every turn, you think you’ve seen all of it, but then there’s another room to explore. The park is doing a great job keeping everyone socially-distanced – I think the closest we got to anyone was on the elevator ride back up to the top, but even the folks in line there were all appropriately masked and spacing well.
I’m certain the pictures won’t do it justice, especially when it comes to the scale of the formations, but it’s a start.
