When we arrived, we went to the Visitor's Center to get some information on the best way to see the caverns. We spoke to a Ranger who told us that we could start out by hiking into the "natural entrance" to the cave, which is a 1.25 mile hike that descends 750 feet into the cave!!!
After that we could see the "Big Room", which is also about a 1.25 mile trail, though mostly flat, which winds its way through the caverns.
He told us that there might still be some spaces left on one of the "King's Palace" tours, which would enable us to see a portion of the caverns that is only accessible on a Ranger led tour.
With that information in hand, we went to the ticket counter, and luckily, got the last 2 spots on the 12:00 King's Palace tour. It was about 10:15, so we decided that our plan would be to do the natural entrance hike, then take the tour, and then do the Big Room trail.
We walked over to the natural entrance and started heading down.
At the entrance to the caves, there were dozens of small birds flying in and out of the cave. As we were walking down the trail, one of the birds decided to "drop a bomb" on my shoulder. Josh was hysterical!!!
The caverns were amazing, and as usual, the pictures below don't do it justice. It was also really interesting to see the things my camera's "night scene" mode did with the lighting. Any colors you see in the photos below were created by the camera ... the rock is all essentially the same light brown color.
We finished our first hike, rode the elevator back to the top and grabbed a quick snack and then took our King's Palace tour. After that, we did the Big Room trail hike and then headed back to town. We needed to pick up a few things so we stopped at the Wal-Mart and then headed back to our campground. It was blazing hot (about 102 degrees) so we went back to the game room and played a few games of ping pong.
After that, we made dinner and then pretty much hung out for the rest of the night.
On day 11, we'll be driving from Carlsbad, NM to Tucson, AZ. It's another fairly long drive, with little or nothing to see or do on the way.
<> -Sweet!
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