carlsbad new mexico

Her View

Carlsbad - Caywood's perspective

Carlsbad: a 750-foot walk down into the caverns. We went to this small city in New Mexico solely to do the Carlsbad Caverns National Park. I’m glad we went, but if you’ve been to Mammoth Caves, these aren’t as good.

The drive from the National Park entrance to the caverns entrance was spectacular. Lots of cacti, lots of sand, vultures, etc. Very desert-like… I’m sure that’s not shocking. It was very interesting to us how drastically different the landscape in New Mexico is.

We walked down ramps 75 stories into the ground to see the caverns in Carlsbad, New Mexico. Stalagmites, stalactites, popcorn, cave pearls, and more. There isn’t really much to say about the caverns - pictures are more fun, so take a look below. I was bummed that these caverns didn’t have any type of waterfalls. There was of course the dripping water and random small pools of still water. But growing up so close to Mammoth Caves, I expected to see some sort of waterfall in the caves.

My advice from our experience:

1. I would recommend deeply considering the guided tours. We did the self-guided tour to save money. It was fun and a decent time; it took us about two hours. But the guided tours take you to some more beautiful parts of the caverns, and also allow for some “adventure” tours (tight spaces to crawl through to get to more unique rooms of the caves) if you’re into that sort of thing. Feliks and I did an “adventure tour” at Mammoth Caves a couple of years ago and that was definitely the best cavern experience I’ve had thus far. (This guided adventure tour took us about 6-hours.)

His View

Carlsbad - Feliks' perspective

The Carlsbad Caverns were kind of out there, not really close to a whole lot of things, but the drive was definitely scenic. The caverns themselves were quite a bit bigger than I expected, but it was nice that they had a self-guided tour. We descended 750-feet through a winding trail to the bottom of the upper cavern. If you’ve ever been to a cave, you kinda get the gist. But this one did have some really giant caverns, that could easily hold a 747. The trail leading around the edge of the cavern was very easy to walk. We did see “Wheelchair Not Accessible” signs in some places. But overall, it was a nice self-guided tour.

Some of the lighting was not the best, so I’m glad I brought my flashlight or we could have missed some really cool formations. Definitely worth the stop and the two hours of walking, because I doubt I’ll ever see a cavern like that again. If you go, make sure your camera takes good low light pictures, as we struggled a little with the flash.

Cacti	In the caves
Feliks = funny	Lions Tail
Cool formation	Caves
Whale mouth	Formation
At the entrance	Right outside the caves
North Entrance	Rainfall over the desert
Van in the desert	Desert terrain
Cactus	Selfie in the desert
Cactus	Stick bug
In the desert