Carlsbad Caverns

On Christmas eve, we left Alamogordo and headed to Carlsbad Caverns NP. I had envisioned that the area near the Caverns would be mountainous and wooded, sort of like what we had seen around Jewel and Wind Caves in South Dakota, or the Oregon Caves, so I thought it would be a nice area to stay at for Christmas Day. However, it's not like that. Rather, the Caverns are in a big tall hill on the edge of the Chihuahuan desert.

We decided to try to quickly complete the Jr Ranger program at Carlsbad, then go to the Guadalupe Mountains, and then drive south to Van Horn for the night. We listened to a brief talk about bats, then went down the elevator for a walk around the "Big Room". We only did about half of the total trail through it - it would have been nice to have had more time to go to the very back, as well as walking overland to the natural entrance.The "Big Room" at Carlsbad Caverns is pretty impressive. I'm pretty sure it's much bigger than any cavern I've been in before, and it's full of limestone formations. It takes over an hour to make a circuit around it - as I mentioned earlier, we took a shortcut and cut out the back half. 

From talking to the rangers, spring time would be a good time to visit the park, because the bats are active then. Plus it would probably be a little greener. I'd recommend spending at least 4 hours to experience this park, although we got a pretty good feel for it in about 3. It takes about 20 minutes to drive from the highway to the visitor center.