Carlsbad Caverns NP

Carlsbad Caverns NP is not far from Guadalupe Mountain NP.  In fact we left Harvey at Guadalupe and just drove up to Carlsbad twice.  Once to tour the cavern and once to see the bats.  The caverns are hugh and offer a nice but long self guided walk threw large portions.  But the caverns go on forever and there are some portions not available to the public.

The entrance

Inside the formation are massive, beautiful and very delicate.

The tour took us about 2.5 hours and was fantastic.

The cavern is summer home to about half a million bats.  Some have migrated back to the cave but many were not there yet.  In the summer the park hosts a program each evening as the bats exit the cave.  While the program had not started yet, there were still lots of bats.  So one evening we drove back up to see them.  No electronic devices such as cameras or cell phone are permitted because the signals interfere with the bats radar.  The rangers on duty were very clear about NO electronics.  We have no idea how many bats we saw that night but it must have been thousands.  We sat for at least 1/2 hour with a steady stream of bats exiting the cave.  But no pictures.  So we took a picture of a refrigerator magnet to include here.  Yes we did buy the magnet.