Tour of Carlsbad, New Mexico Caverns

We took the self-guided tour through the main section of the cave, which is called the Big Room. It is one of the world's largest underground chambers and has MANY beautiful formations. Also, the fact that the cave temperature stays at about 56 degrees was very interesting. In addition to the cave experience, we really enjoyed the great views of the countryside from the high levels outside. The evening flight of hundreds of thousands of bats was an amazing sight.

Quick Tips:

Rent headphones, tape player, and tape so you can hear about the many things as you see them on your self-guided tour. An elevator will take you down to the level where the tour begins. The Natural Entrance is supposedly very impressive, but it is very steep is not recommended for anyone with health problems. Another of the more than 100 known caves in the park is Lechuguilla Cave. It is the USA's deepest limestone cave (1,567 feet) and is third longest.

Best Way To Get Around:

You must either have a car or take a tour bus to get to the park. It is in "no where land". Once there, you will find many places for hiking both above ground and in the caverns.

We had never been in this part of Texas before and we need to find a place to spend the night before going to Carlsbad Caverns. There was not much choice of vacancies in Pecos. We had to stay at Motel 6. It was in pretty good condition, clean and fairly comfortable, but it was a Motel 6. The staff was friendly. I would recommend you calling ahead and reserving a room in the Holiday Inn or one of the better motels--I failed to do that.

Naturally, there is only one place to eat in the park. The cafe is fairly large to handle the many visitors. The cleanliness is ok, but not really good. You must go to the counter and place your order and then return and pick it up when it is ready. The price of the food for pretty reasonable for a park. The quality was similar to a greasy spoon hamburger joint, but it beat going hungry.

The park has a very large welcome area. From the side of the parking lot, there are areas where you can stand and view the countryside for a great distance because the park is pretty high up. The welcome center is very large. It has a large area for helping guests and selling tickets, a nice souvenir shop and a cafe. Once inside the building you should go ahead first thing and get your tour tickets and rent the recorders for the self-guided tour. The ticket and recorder lines get pretty long.

Once you are ready to start your tour, you will take an elevator deep into the earth to the level of the caverns. You can choose as you take the tour how long you want to go because there is a route for a short tour and a continuation route for a long tour. My wife is afraid of heights, so we only toured the Big Room. It had a large variety of formations and they were many colors. At some points, the trail through the cavern came to some fairly high drop-offs, but my wife held to me and was able to get past them. The inside of the cavern has a pretty good artificial lighting system, but it could be better.

We really enjoyed the tour; however, I would recommend a tour of Natural Bridge Caverns north of San Antonio, TX. The cave is not nearly as big as the big one at Carlsbad, but it has some beautiful formations. I thought the color and variety of the Natural Bridge formations were better.