Sunday, March 30, 2014

Day 5 - Mar 28 Carlsbad Caverns

Once again we are off to see a cave. Today we drove down to the Caverns. The visitors centers sits on top of the bluff making up the edge of the Guadalupe mountain range. The main cave is at about the same elevation as the local valley floor.

We took the self guided tour first, stopped for lunch, then took one of the ranger guided tours. The formations did not have much of a color variation but they were very impressive anyway.

The ranger told us the history of the cave, the effort that went into exploring it, as well as the effort to get other folks to come visit. In an effort to promote the cave they help meetings, weddings, rally', etc in one of the main cave rooms.

Part of the tour was to turn off all the lights for about 5 mins. Total darkness is something we seldom can experience but, we all did fine with it. 

The bats are not back yet so we were not able to see them. They have a colony of about 4 to 5 hundred thousand. Not as many as we see at the Austin river bridge, but then again there are literally a few more tons of insects for them to eat in Texas.

Carlsbad Caverens web site.

Some of our pictures: Carlsbad Pics.

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