Carlsbad Caverns National Park, New Mexico - Exquisite Lower Cave

Experience the exquisite beauty and wonders of the Lower Cave!

The casual visitor to Carlsbad Caverns can experience many of the cave's greatest wonders on comfortable, paved, well-lit trails: the Big Room, the natural entrance, the bat flights, the King's and Queen's Palaces, etc. For the more adventurous, the Park Service offers several ranger led, "off-trail" tours. One such tour is to the magnificent Lower Cave. Here one walks on the dirt and wears a helmet with flashlight. The trip starts with a fifty foot descent into the darkness down a steel ladder. (This is quite an improvement over the National Geographic expedition of 1924 which reached Lower Cave by descending a ninety foot pit on a free-hanging, wire ladder, the remains of which are still visible today!)

Because many parts of the Lower Cave are highly moist, many of the formations are active and growing. These "fresh" formations are often white and glazed with the look of sculpted marble. In many places one can see drops of water hanging on the tips of stalactites (see left). This creates an extraordinary sparkling effect which cannot be seen in any of the well-lit main rooms. It is not that easy to get good pictures of these phenomena: on a short tour like this there is only time for quick flash photos. (However it is possible to do time exposures in the main rooms, such as the Big Room, which are backlit.) The ranger guide does a good job of explaining the science and history of the cave as well as pointing out highly unusual and beautiful formations.

One of the most unusual is called the "toothpick" (left). This is a huge stalagmite which stands perhaps eight feet tall and is several feet wide at the base. Several years ago a core sample was taken from it, and scientists guesstimated its age at about 300,000 years! (In contrast a man-made tunnel drilled adjacent to King's Palace in 1932 has several stalactites growing from the ceiling, none of which is as long as one inch!)

The Lower Cave tour is described as "moderately strenuous". The only part which might make some people uncomfortable is the initial descent.

More scenes from the Lower Cave: