New Mexico Road Trip - Living Desert State Park and Carlsbad Caverns (Day 2)

A cluster of cactus and a few desert flowers grow atop the crest of this hill.

UPDATED: 2/5/2023

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Day 2: Exploring Southern New Mexico: Living Desert State Park and Carlsbad Caverns

Thanks to our grocery store run the evening before, we packed a peanut butter and jelly picnic lunch for a day exploring the south-central part of New Mexico. Our route would back-track us from our stay in Artesia (read the prior day’s post here for more details on that town) towards the Texas border on Interstate 62.

Our route for the day:

A strange sculpture depicts a bird landing to roost near the beginning of the trail at the Living Desert State Park.

Visiting living desert state park

The best way to describe Living Desert State Park is as a desert botanical garden and zoo. Near the parking lot is a visitor’s center that includes all of the highlights typical of state park visitors’ centers: information to read about the area, interactive displays, animal skeletons, and other touchable items. The back exit of the visitor’s center opens out to the 1.3 mile self-guided trek through a microcosm of the Chihuahuan Desert.

Shooting with a UV filter gives beautiful contrast between the sky, earth, and vegetation.

The Chihuahuan Desert is the largest desert in North America at more than 200,000 acres. The majority of the massive desert lies in Mexico, with significant portions in southeastern Arizona, southern New Mexico, and western Texas. Any flora or fauna living in this hot, dusty desert has developed some serious survival skills!

We absolutely loved exploring and touring this park. While their own website says the self-guided portion takes about 90 minutes, we definitely spent longer than that. The park is arranged to capture different zones of the desert, starting with the orange ‘desert sand hills’ section. You can view a park map here. We took our sweet time enjoying the vistas, photographing animals, plants, and landscapes, and enjoying our time in the desert. The highlights include an aviary, endangered Mexican wolves, a black bear, and more; there are over 40 native animal species housed here. The flora includes various cactus, juniper, cottonwood, and other plants that thrive in this environment.

One of the funny aspects of air travel is that you board a plane in one place - in our case, Virginia, with its Blue Ridge mountains and trees - and then pop out at the end of the journey in what can be a drastically different environment with no ease of transition, like you would get if you drove. At first, this can be a bit jarring, but usually within a day or two, I find myself easing into the new environment. On this trip, the drive across the desert on our first day, coupled with this desert park completed my transition into the Southwest. By the time we returned to the car for our picnic lunch and hit the road towards Carlsbad, I was in full desert mode.

After this hike through the desert and a picnic lunch in our rented vehicle, we headed south towards Carlsbad Caverns.

The first desert flowers were beginning to bloom during our trip.

A manmade oasis at the Living Desert State Park.

Well, this is one thorny way to ensure people don’t stray off the trail!

visiting carlsbad caverns

If you expect Carlsbad Caverns to be located in the small city of Carlsbad, New Mexico, you will be about 20 miles (or a 30 minute drive) out of place. Carlsbad Caverns is actually located southwest of Carlsbad, near the small town of Whites City, and abuts the Guadalupe Mountain range. (Fun fact: Whites City is named after Jim White, a teenager who in 1898 discovered Carlsbad Caverns. Seriously, why are most caves and caverns discovered by teenagers?!)

Carlsbad Caverns is popular! It was like all of a sudden, we entered Disneyland. I have no idea how all the people materialized there, but there they were. Even though we were in a rural part of the state in an area that had seemed isolated, the parking lot at Carlsbad Caverns is massive and was quite full of vehicles. Our trip was in early April during spring break season for a lot of families, so I suspect it was abnormally busy, but who knows? Annually, Carlsbad Caverns has over 400,000 visitors.

Carlsbad is renowned for a couple of things in particular. One is the evening flight of bats out of the main entrance to the cave. It is so impressive that the site has built an amphitheater around the cave entrance and hosts (free) evening talks and viewings for visitors during the warmer months. You can learn more about the specific details and schedule here. Unfortunately our visit was earlier in the season; however, we would absolutely return here again to be able to watch this. Secondly, Carlsbad Caverns has been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site for its unique features and attributes. The main cave is more than 30 miles long and another cave at the park called Lechuguilla Cave, which was discovered in the 1980s, is the deepest known limestone cave in the United States at a depth of 1,604 feet. The caves themselves are predominantly within the same Permian limestone reef that make up the nearby Guadalupe Mountains that I described above.

We have no photos from inside Carlsbad Caverns so hopefully you will enjoy these flowers.

If you want to read more about the trail options and other tips for visiting Carlsbad Caverns, we’ll cover that below (see “What to expect at Carlsbad Caverns”). For our visit, we had planned on taking a specific guided tour to go a bit off the beaten path. We had even checked ahead and were arriving on a day of the week it was offered. What we did not anticipate were the long lines, the fact that tours could be sold out, etc. Oops! In retrospect, this is of course obvious. Reservations book up, so order tickets in advance and be smarter than us.

But, we quickly changed course and decided to visit the main cave. There was some debate among the group of 4 of us whether to take the natural entrance, which was described as very steep, or to skip halfway into the cave via the elevator entrance. (You can read more about this distinction below to determine which is right for you.) For our part, we decided on the natural cave entrance, bought our tickets, and headed to the cave!

The cave entrance was absolutely massive in scale. It is no wonder that an entire amphitheater full of people can sit at the entrance and have a colony of bats flutter above them at twilight. The trail skirted the side of the cave’s entrance and immediately descended quite steeply into the cool, dampness of the cave. As we would discover upon reaching the second trail further into the cave, there are definitely fewer people who choose the natural entrance. If you want to enjoy more quiet and serenity, this is the place.

The trail proceeded using a lot of switchbacks to lessen the strain of the steep descent, and we found plenty of opportunities to stop so that we could look at the cave’s formations around us instead of just looking at the next piece of the trail. It is an odd feeling to walk underground and to keep walking and walking and have the trail go on for half an hour and then an hour. It is almost unfathomable to have so much hollow space hidden beneath the surface of the desert. At around the one hour mark, we officially graduated from the Natural Entrance Trail, 1.25 miles in length, and met up with the Big Room Trail.

The grade of the trail definitely shifted and became way more moderate at that juncture. We encountered all sorts of cave explorers: photographers with tripods (flash photography and tripods are permitted), race runners (you know, those people rushing to get through something as opposed to enjoying it), and multi-generational groups sometimes with bored children who redoubled up and back the trail. Ah, the huddled masses of humanity, underground.

We have been in plenty of caves and caverns across the country, and Carlsbad Caverns is one of a couple that truly stand out. In many ways, the stalagmites and stalactites look (to this untrained eye) similar. The uniqueness of Carlsbad was being able to go for such a lengthy hike through a forest of these formations and to do so at our own pace (no kitschy cavern tour here). We would absolutely return to Carlsbad again and probably look to explore some of the ranger-led tours. And we would be smarter and actually make those reservations in advance!

Everything felt so bright and open after being underground for hours.

what to expect at carlsbad caverns

There are a lot of different tours and options, so your best bet is always to look at the park service’s website for current offerings. Certain tours are only offered seasonally or on specific days of the week, so it is important to plan ahead if you have a specific goal in mind.

For most visitors, the popular hike is within the main cave, which is viewed as a self-guided tour. What’s great about this is that you can go at your own pace and take in all the wonders of this underground world.

If you have decided to take this main cave self-guided tour, here is what you should know:

You will need to select one of two options for this tour to determine your starting point. You can choose to enter via the natural cave entrance (the same one the bats fly out of in the evening) or can choose the elevator access point.
Natural entrance vs elevator entrance: The route from the elevator entrance (called the Big Room Trail) is 1.25 miles in length (entirely underground) and takes about 90 minutes to complete. The natural entrance (called the Natural Entrance Trail) adds another leg onto the self-guided tour that is an additional 1.25 miles (so, the total hike will be 2.5 miles), and adds about an additional hour on to your tour time (a total of 2.5 hours). In determining which option works best for you consider these factors: how far you want to hike, how much time you have to hike, and your level of fitness. The natural entrance is very steep and not recommended for visitors with heart or respiratory issues. According to the park’s website, the descent is the equivalent of traveling down a 75-story building. We took the Natural Entrance Trail (as described above), and I remember feeling the descent in my knees. For those who have the time, interest, and fitness level for it, I absolutely recommend the natural entrance! There is also a way to shave about half the distance off of the Big Room Trail using a short cut-over path for those looking for only a 0.6 mile trail option but who still want to see some of the highlights.
Accessibility option: Parts of the Big Room, which are at the bottom part of the cave are wheelchair accessible. More information about this is available here.
Cave map: If it’s easier for you to see the above depicted, check out this map. It clearly shows the natural entrance portion (the blue trail) as well as the elevator shift entrance (the red trail).
Clothing: Like all caves, the temperature change can be a surprise as compared to the surface temperature. The cave is about 56 degrees year-round, and remember that you will be spending a significant period of time inside it. Definitely bring a jacket or whatever you need to be comfortable.
Shoes: The ground can be a bit slick, and I would recommend solid shoes. If you’re doing the more strenuous natural entrance, even hiking boots would be a good idea.
Hydration: Plain water is allowed in the cave but no other beverages since they could harm the rock if spilled. Depending on the trail you select, bringing water to stay hydrated would be smart.
White-nose syndrome: For those unfamiliar, this fungal disease is harming bat populations. The cavern will have plenty of information an signs about this and how to prevent transmission. For example, if you have recently hiked in another cave, you should either wear different boots into this one or use materials on-site to clean them. There is no harm to humans according to current research.

After finishing our hike, we exited the cave via the elevator, which is the way out for everyone. It felt a bit anti-climactic to travel back to the surface in an elevator after all of that hiking into the cavern’s depths. Stepping out into the surface world was a lot like leaving a movie theater in the middle of the afternoon, where all you can do is blink your eyes against the light while feeling disoriented.

We spent much of the drive back to Artesia talking about what an amazing experience we had just had! The following day we would be leaving Artesia and the New Mexican desert for a much loftier destination over 8,600 feet up in the tree-filled Sacramento Mountains.

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