Day 41 April 14



Just plain cool

One tall stalagmite

Looks like another planet

Giants patiently waiting in the big room

Looking into the cave from the natural entrance

Back at Carlsbad Caverns for the day, we walked in through the "natural entrance." Although it has obviously been altered a bit since James White first descended on a rope in (year), it is still fairly true to the route he took into the cave. The entrance is the same one used by Mexican Free-tail bats (500,000 of the in the summer!) when they exit the cave each night at dusk to hunt for insects. This species of bat is non-hibernating and does not spend the winter in Carlsbad Caverns, so we were here a little too early in the year to see the nightly exodus. After hiking approximately one mile down into the cave, we walked another one mile trail around "The Big Room," a single underground cave that covers 7 acres! There were many examples of different cave formations including (photos) The reason these caves are bigger than most limestone caves is that they were formed using sulfuric acid rather tan very week carbonic acid.  Sulfur leaching upward from the oil fields below met oxygenated ground water from the surface creating bands of sulfuric acid which quickly (1000s of years) dissolved the rock.  When the old coral reef was uplifted the slower process of the carbonic acid took over creating the current formations.  There are several levels to the caves depending on the sulfur water mix line so there are many levels to the cave structure.