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Day three of our trip to Carlsbad Caverns was the day we planned to do activities all together with both families. We had breakfast together, then packed up our cabin as we weren’t spending another night and then all headed down to the park. We had two choices:

1. Take the elevator straight down to the Big Room
2. Walk the trail down to the Big Room by way of the Natural Entrance.

We were all eager to see the natural entrance and knew that we ran the risk of burning out the kids before we even got into the caves, but decided to go for long route anyway. The trail through the Natural Entrance is paved and about 1.25 miles long. The Natural Entrance itself is just short of enormous and I’m sure that if it weren’t in the middle of nowhere the settlers would have found it much earlier. As it was Jim White, a young cowboy, found it while following what he thought was a smoke plume that turned out to be bats leaving the cave entrance. This wasn’t until 1898. Of course native tribes had known about it much longer and there are still remnants of ceremonial pits just next to the entrance.

Amber and I almost had a minor tragedy. We had forgotten to bring the extra memory card for the camera. Don’t ask how it got out of the camera bag in the first place, I don’t want any more tense moments. We took a few pictures leading up to the entrance, but quickly filled the card which already contained a large number of photos from earlier in the trip and from back home. Luckily I had failed to upload our photos to flickr the night before and had a copy of everything on my laptop. So we were free to delete everything on the card. I’m not sure what we would have done, to be honest, but it wouldn’t have been pretty. As it turns out shooting in the Big Room was difficult because of the lack of light, the immensity of the place and because we didn’t have the time to do it right.

The walk into the cave is really great actually. There are some huge boulders (think bigger than your house) that fell from the ceiling. Some pools and examples of just about every cave formation. The size of the cave is pretty amazing here. Often huge ceilings and very wide you’ll turn a corner and end up having to duck to squeeze through a narrow passage. Careful if your son is in a carrier on your back (sorry Emmett and Wesley). The kids were done before we got to the end of the trail. They were glad to get to the cafeteria and have a snack and a break. The cafeteria is just what it sounds like. A working cafeteria with picnic tables all over the place and of course a gift shop. It was mostly shut down while we were there because the restrooms were closed for renovations. I must have seen a hundred signs saying “There are no restrooms in the caverns”. Now I’ll have to go back just so I can pee 750+ feet under ground.

We started to take the Big Room tour, but before we even got into it the room the kids had pretty much lost it. The path doesn’t really keep you off the cave floor if you are less than 3 feet tall so that was a problem. New plan. Amy and Jason go first, we’ll watch the kids in the cafeteria. They’ll get back and take the kids up for lunch while we explored the Big Room. Amber and I flew through the Big Room. They say to leave about 1.5 hours for the tour. Frankly that is really much faster than I would have gone. Given my druthers I’d say 4 hours maybe a little more. We did the whole thing, including many pictures in just about 45 minutes.

The Big Room is rather amazing. Just huge with a staggering number of features. The trail winds in and around some very neat ones. The room it turns out is sort of cross shaped with the long main access branching off into two side rooms. Among the notable features is the Bottomless Pit. Turns out it is only about 140 feet deep. Amazing what electric lights can do. One of the most amazing things to me was that this room sits directly on top of Lower Cave where we had spent 4 hours the day before. That is a tremendous amount of rock to be supported by a bunch of air. At a couple of places you can see down into Lower Cave from the Big Room, assuming you know what you are looking at.

Carlsbad: Day 1

Carlsbad: Day 2

All our Day 3 photos

We started day 2 early. All of the kids in both cabins were up early despite not sleeping much the night before. Amber cooked us a hearty breakfast of eggs, pancakes and bacon and we all chowed down. Wesley drank his coffee (really Swiss Miss with tiny marshmallows). Today is the day that we go on our tours of the cave.

Amy and Jason went first leaving Gracie and Emmett with Amber and I. They drove down to the park, rode the elevator down to the lunch room inside the cave and started their ranger guided tour of Left Hand Tunnel. Their tour was about two hours long and given by old time lantern giving it a bit of the feel of the early exploration. Meanwhile at the campground Wesley and Gracie and I played at the playground while Emmett and Jillian slept and Amber did dishes. The kids had a good time on the see-saw and especially “under doggies” on the swings.

Shortly before lunch we packed up the kids in Amy and Jason’s minivan (side note: Amber now wants a minivan so she can carry the kids, their friends and relatives, plus everything they have ever owned) and drove down to the park. We met for lunch (side note number two: both Amy and Amber dislike sandwiches) at the site of the interpretive center, which had it not been closed for construction might have been worth a visit. Afterward Jason and Amy took the kids back to camp and Amber and I descended the 754ft down the elevator to go on our tour.

We had signed up for the Lower Cave tour, also ranger guided (many thanks to our guides Rob and Andy). Our tour was four hours long, required batteries for LED lanterns mounted on our hard hats and gloves for the rope and ladders we would need to descend and ascend. After a pretty thorough safety session we put on our hats and helmets and headed out into the Big Room. From there we stepped off the trail and walked down a slick slope using a knotted rope to keep us from sliding into the hole at the bottom. From the trail it really doesn’t look like much and in fact it took them several decades to find this route into Lower Cave which previously required a rope descent. Once we got down from the rope (pretty easy really and not really necessary if you didn’t mind doing a little sliding on your butt) we got ready to descend three ladders.

The first ladder was only a few rungs long, but it was wet and slippery, in a fairly tight opening, vertical, and didn’t offer much of a view of what you were doing. It made me a little nervous, but then I’m afraid of hitting the ground after falling from high up places. From the first ladder you step onto a slippery little platform made of the same material as plastic cutting boards and onto a longer second ladder. Backing down that you get onto the third longest ladder which is actually the easiest despite have a change in direction in the middle. The photos don’t really do it justice. From on the ladder it seems much steeper and more precarious than the photos make it seem. Apparently it is not uncommon for people to quit when they see the ladders, even before they enter the cave.

The tour was, well, amazing and Amber was exceptional. I had concerns initially about the ladders, but she was awesome. And when she got down into the cave I think she really had a great time. She asked a ton of questions and we got a lot more information out of the tour than we would have had she not been there to ask them. I’m so glad she came with and that she had a good time. Lower Cave isn’t the most spectacular of the caves, but it does offer perhaps the best combination of “adventure tour” and sight seeing. While the cave is large it doesn’t have enormous open spaces like the Big Room so photographing it was much easier.

We were led along the path which is marked with two kinds of tape. Solid orange marks the trail while alternating white and orange stripe tape indicates very sensitive areas (often inside the trail). To prevent the trail from widening (think of the way hiking trails get wider over time) we were not to step on the orange tape and to consider it out of bounds. We saw most of the cave formations that are found at Carlsbad including stalagmites, stalactites, draperies, cave popcorn and cave pearls. Apparently cave pearls are uncommon though the were abundant and often quite large in Lower Cave.

During the middle of our tour we did a fairly long lights out where we all sat down in one of the smaller rooms and turned off all our lights. This is as dark as it gets. No light at all. Almost perfectly quiet except for the occasional drops of water at a distance. I’ve never been in dark that was that dark. You couldn’t see a thing, it almost didn’t seem worth keeping your eyes open. I was impressed. Some people seemed disconcerted, but I found it rather calming.

The whole experience was wonderful. We saw so many beautiful, unusual things that I can’t really describe them. Maybe if I were a better writer I could do them some justice, but somehow I think you really have to see to understand. I was sad to have it be over, though my eyes were glad to have the extra light as I was getting a bit of a headache. I’d recommend that if you are going to Carlsbad to reserve every tour you can. They are worth every penny. If you have to do just one (like us), I highly recommend this one.

All Our Lower Cave photos on Flickr (many, many more)

Carlsbad: Day 1

Carlsbad: Day 3

Well, we made it home.  We had a great time, but I don’t think we’ll be doing anything quite that adventurous again.  At least not anytime really soon.  I’m planning to write more about each day of our trip in the coming days so stay tuned.  In the meantime you can peruse our pictures, many of which are blurry (it is hard to shoot in near total darkness inside a huge cavern, especially when you are rushed), are all here.