Ever gone scuba diving? The silence, the solitude, the weightlessness as you float around astonished by the shapes of coral; Carlsbad Caverns is much like scuba diving.
With very low expectations of this park, we had our doubts about the grandness of this area. We’ve seen absolutely incredible things, this cave should not even compete. We were wrong. With miles of trails underground, the Caverns are filled with growing stalagmites and stalactites. There are crevasses that drop an addition 250 feet that were once thought to have been endless. There are more than 119 caves with one they call “the big room” in which you can fit two US Capitol buildings in. More parts of the caverns are being discovered and the bacteria that inhabit these deep dark caves are being studied.
If grandness was what we were searching for, we found it. No picture can do this park justice. You will never be able to capture the scale, the distance, the depth, and the poor lighting certainly destroyed every photograph we attempted to take. But let me tell you, if you are ever in the Chihuahuan Desert of New Mexico or western Texas, do yourself a favor and become an explorer for a day. See the amazing things this great country has hidden.
It took us forever to leave the caves, most certainly because we wanted to learn as much as we could about this place. We floated around, looking at all the different formations and taking in every detail. And although we were crunched on time, we still watched a short documentary in the visitors center just because of how amazed we were. I hope I don’t get expectations too high, it’s only a park you can visit for a half of a day, but the scale of how big the system of underground caves are is immensely overwhelming for our brains to comprehend.
We arrived at Guadalupe National Park late, only having time to set up camp. We were now in Southwestern Texas. If silence and isolation is what you’re interested in, this is your stop. Sleeping at the base of Texas’s tallest mountain and having the whole park illuminated by the soon to be supermoon was an experience I’ll never forget. We also had many compliments on De’Von’s Christmas lights!
Up next, Big Bend National Park.
Living for a Living 
Leave a comment