Current Location: Roswell, NM, N 33 24.458', W 104 31.398', elev 3606 ft.

On thursday, I left Van Horn, TX and headed north on Texas 54, which met up with US 180 near Guadalupe Mountain National Park on the Texas, New Mexico border. I stopped briefly in the park, and took a photo or two, but the park is mostly trails, and no driving route, so I continued north on US 180, which turned into US 62 in New Mexico. Within 40 minutes, I was at Carlsbad Caverns National Park, where I spent the bulk of the day.

Carlsbad (N 32 10.520', W 104 26.582', elev. 4398 ft.) was excellent. Entrance was $6 for the main self guided tours, but the fee was waived with my National Parks Pass, though I did pay $3 for the audio tour. Carlsbad is a living cave, meaning it is still forming, and very wet, unlike Mammoth Cave, which is dry for the most part. The formations in the cave were astounding, supposedly the most beautiful in the world (though I've only been to two caves). Once again, I took a lot of photos. The entrance to the cave is huge, but the smell emanating from the cave takes some getting used to. The smell is caused by the swallows who inhabit the mouth of the cave during the day (the park rangers refer to them as the day shift), and the evening shift, the famous bats of the park.



The audio tour detailed the history of the park, and the geology, and gave plenty of warnings about not touching the formations.



At about 5 PM, I finished touring the caves, and had about 2 and a half hours to kill before the big bat show. Both of my camera batteries were dead, so I went back to the car and charged them while driving the dirt road scenic loop of the park. The park is on top of a huge cliff, (maybe a mesa or plateau I guess), and four or five hundred feet below is nothing but desert plains for hundreds of miles (at least in one direction). It was a breathtaking sight to witness. The photos do not do it justice.

I got the camera batteries all charged up, and went to the cave amphitheater at about 7:30, where the rangers started to go through an educational program about the history of the cave bats, and ecology of the bats. This lasted a while, and slowly but surely, the swallows finished going into the cave.

At about 8:10, about 10 or 15 minutes before sunset, a small amount of bats started to come out of the cave. They begin by flying in a huge circle near the mouth of the cave, swirling and swirling, it looks like a mini tornado. Thousands of bats started pouring out of the cave, still flying in circles to pick up speed to launch. All of a sudden some break off from the circling column and fly off in a huge clump, a swarm of bats. Thousands of bats, streaming away, looking like dancing smoke. The moon was out and very bright and the sky was purple, and the visibility for the bats was astounding. This is was one of the most amazing sights I have ever seen. The park rangers estimate about 400,000 bats stream out of the cave every night (a far cry from the 8 million when the cave was first discovered). The bats are helpful for insect control, as they eat about 2 and a half tons of insects every night, in a radius up to 30 miles from the cave.

Here are some photos.



Bats, the night shift

Here are the rest of the photos.

I also took 4 short movies with my camera, and two of them came out really well. (Better than I expected). Here are the links to the videos. The videos are similar, but taken from different magnification. Carlsbad, while no my favorite national park, it ranks up there. I highly recommend going to see the bats (they are in the park from March to October.)

I left the park at about 8:40 and drove north on US 62 / US 180, and caught US 285 in the town of Carlsbad. I drove north on US 285 to Roswell.