49 Fun Facts About Carlsbad Caverns National Park

Carlsbad Caverns National Park is in which US state?

New Mexico: the park lies in the Guadalupe Mountains in the state's southeastern corner, about 18 miles southwest of the town of Carlsbad.

How can visitors get down into the main cavern?

On foot or by elevator: visitors can hike the 1.25-mile Natural Entrance Trail down its switchbacks or ride an elevator from the visitor center to the Big Room.

The Big Room, the cave's main chamber, holds what distinction?

Largest of its kind in North America: the Big Room, also called the Hall of the Giants, is the largest single cave chamber by volume on the continent, with a floor of about 8.2 acres.

Roughly how long is the Big Room?

Almost 4,000 feet: the Big Room stretches nearly 4,000 feet long and about 625 feet wide, rising to 255 feet at its highest, with a floor of 357,469 square feet.

Unlike most limestone caves, Carlsbad was dissolved mainly by what rising from below?

Sulfuric acid: a sulfur-bearing gas rising from deep oil deposits met oxygen in the groundwater and formed sulfuric acid, which dissolved the limestone from below rather than from rainwater above.

What gas seeped up from underlying petroleum to start the cave-making chemistry?

Hydrogen sulfide: the gas rose from Permian Basin oil deposits beneath the limestone, met oxygen-rich groundwater and became the acid that hollowed out the cave several million years ago.

The limestone the caverns are cut into began as what, about 250 million years ago?

The Permian Capitan Reef was built by bryozoans, sponges and microbes rather than corals, then buried under evaporites and finally lifted up.

Which mineral found in the cave confirms how it was carved?

Gypsum: when the acid that carved the cave attacked limestone it left gypsum behind; thick gypsum blocks lie on the Big Room floor, and a neighbouring park cave holds 20-foot gypsum chandeliers.

Which formations grow down from a cave ceiling?

Stalactites: each drip of water carrying dissolved calcium carbonate leaves a trace on the ceiling, so stalactites lengthen downward while stalagmites build up from the floor beneath them.

Which teenage cowboy explored the cavern in 1898 with a homemade wire ladder and named most of its rooms?

Jim White, a 16-year-old ranch hand, climbed in with a wire ladder in 1898 and named the Big Room, King's Palace, Totem Pole and Rock of Ages; a 'J White 1898' inscription was found deep inside in the 1980s.

What first drew the young cowboy's attention to the cave entrance?

A plume of bats he mistook for a volcano or whirlwind: the cowboy took the dark column rising from the ground at dusk for smoke, rode over and found 'the biggest and blackest hole I had ever seen'.

The teenage explorer's companion on his first three-day cave trip was a 15-year-old known only by which nicknames?

Muchacho, The Kid or Pothead: the 15-year-old Mexican boy's real name was never recorded; the pair carried torches, food, water and a ball of string to find their way back out.

What was mined from the Bat Cave section in the early 20th century?

Bat guano: some 100,000 tons of bat droppings were hauled up a mine shaft in the first two decades of the 1900s and sold, at up to $90 a ton, as fertiliser for California citrus groves.

Before a staircase was installed in 1925, how did the first tourists get into the cave?

In an iron guano bucket: before the 1925 stairway, the cowboy explorer winched early sightseers down the old mining shaft in the big iron bucket that had hauled up bat droppings.

Which newspaper first published Ray V. Davis's photos from inside the cavern in 1923?

The New York Times ran Ray V. Davis's underground photographs in 1923, the year Robert Holley of the General Land Office surveyed the cave with Davis; Davis had been photographing inside since 1915.

Which president proclaimed Carlsbad Cave National Monument on 25 October 1923?

Calvin Coolidge signed the proclamation on 25 October 1923, creating Carlsbad Cave National Monument; Congress later elevated the monument to a national park.

In which year did Carlsbad Caverns become a national park?

1930: Congress upgraded the monument to Carlsbad Caverns National Park on 14 May 1930; about two-thirds of the park is designated wilderness.

Which organisation sponsored Willis T. Lee's 1924 exploration of the caverns?

The National Geographic Society funded Willis T. Lee's six-month survey in 1924, and Lee's account ran in the Society's magazine in 1925, spreading the cave's fame.

What did the new visitor center add in 1932 that changed how people reached the cave?

Two elevators: the 1932 building, with its cafeteria, museum and first-aid room, added a pair of elevators so visitors no longer had to climb the switchback trail back out of the cave.

The town of Carlsbad, which lends its name to the park, is named after a spa town in which present-day country?

Czech Republic: Karlsbad, now Karlovy Vary in the Czech Republic, means 'Charles' Baths', and the local town adopted the name in 1899 to promote its own mineral springs.

How deep is the cavern's Bottomless Pit, named because thrown stones made no sound?

About 140 feet: the pit's floor is soft dirt, which swallowed thrown stones without a sound and fooled early explorers into thinking it had no bottom.

How did explorers reach the Spirit World, high in the Big Room ceiling, in 1985?

They floated a cord over a stalagmite with helium balloons: in 1985 the balloon-borne cord went 255 feet up and over, a rope followed, and the white formations inside looked like angels, hence the name.

A chamber discovered on 31 October 2013 was named what?

Halloween Hall: found on 31 October 2013, the chamber is about 100 feet across, lies hundreds of feet above the Spirit World and held more than 1,000 bat bones.

The Green Lake Room was used in the early 1960s to test what?

Whether a far-off nuclear blast would ripple its pool: the military, weighing the cavern as a fallout shelter, watched the Green Lake for ripples from a distant nuclear test in the early 1960s; none ever appeared.

What is the lowest known point in the cavern?

Lake of the Clouds: the cavern's lowest known point holds a lake whose globular, cloud-like rock formed underwater when the water stood much higher.

The Guadalupe Room, discovered in 1966, is famous for its dense collection of what?

Soda-straw stalactites: the Guadalupe Room, found by a ranger in 1966 and the cavern's second-largest room, is packed with thin, hollow soda-straw stalactites; cave pearls belong to the Rookery in Lower Cave.

Roughly how many miles of Carlsbad Cavern had been surveyed by the end of the 2010s?

Almost 40: by the end of the 2010s the survey of Carlsbad Cavern stood close to 40 miles, pushed out by 2018 finds through a tight passage in the Mystery Room.

How many caves does the park contain in all?

More than 119: the park's limestone hides over 119 known caves, but the great majority are closed to visitors and entered only by permitted researchers.

Which park cave, opened by cavers in 1986, had over 150 miles mapped by 2020?

Lechuguilla: cavers who had heard wind roaring up through rubble since the 1950s broke into it in 1986, and its surveyed passages passed 150 miles by 2020, making it one of the world's longest caves.

The park's Chandelier Ballroom cave, with 20-foot crystal chandeliers, appeared in which BBC series?

Planet Earth: the 'Caves' episode of the BBC's 2006 series took viewers into the Chandelier Ballroom, a chamber reachable only on permitted expeditions into the park's back-country cave.

Bacteria found in the park's isolated back-country cave provided evidence of what?

The microbes had never met modern drugs yet resisted them, showing resistance genes long predate medicine.

How many bat species live in the park?

Seventeen: the park is home to 17 bat species, by far the most numerous being the Mexican free-tailed bat, which roosts in the cavern from spring to autumn.

A 2005 thermal-imaging count estimated the peak bat population in the cavern at about how many?

793,000: the 2005 thermal-imaging survey put the peak colony at roughly 793,000 bats, far below the millions once claimed; a 2009 Boston University study argued the old counts were exaggerated rather than evidence of collapse.

In which direction do the bats corkscrew as they emerge each evening?

Upwards and counterclockwise: the bats spiral counterclockwise up out of the natural entrance around sunset, an outflight that can run from minutes to a few hours, watched from the amphitheater in the warmer months.

The Mexican free-tailed bat is the official flying mammal of which state?

Texas adopted the Mexican free-tailed bat as its official flying mammal; about 1.5 million roost under Austin's Congress Avenue Bridge, and Bracken Cave near San Antonio holds the largest colony on Earth, around 20 million.

When is the best time to watch the bat flight, when the year's pups first join the adults?

July and August: pups born in June start flying with the adults by late summer, so the evening outflights are biggest in July and August.

The natural entrance is an Important Bird Area for its colony of which bird, possibly the largest in the world?

Cave swallows: thousands nest in the natural entrance each summer, a colony thought to be the largest known for the species, earning the site Important Bird Area status.

Which detached unit of the park is a wooded desert oasis and Important Bird Area?

Rattlesnake Springs, a detached unit several miles from the main park, is a wooded desert oasis listed as an Audubon Important Bird Area with more than 300 recorded bird species; it also supplies the park's water.

How many people visited the park in an average year between 2007 and 2016?

About 410,000: visitation averaged roughly 410,000 a year from 2007 to 2016, peaking on the weekends after Memorial Day and the Fourth of July.

Which president signed the 1978 act creating the Carlsbad Caverns Wilderness?

Jimmy Carter signed the National Parks and Recreation Act in November 1978, placing roughly two-thirds of the park under wilderness protection.

Which chamber, discovered in 1993 above a mud-filled pit, was the biggest find since 1966?

Chocolate High, a maze of small passages totalling nearly a mile, was found in 1993 in a room's ceiling above a mud-filled pit, the cavern's biggest discovery since the Guadalupe Room in 1966.

The Guadalupe Mountains, which hold the park, rise how far above the surrounding Chihuahuan Desert floor?

More than 3,000 feet: the range climbs over 3,000 feet above the desert floor to Guadalupe Peak, 8,751 feet, which lies just across the state line; the mountains peter out near Whites City at the park's gate.

The town of Carlsbad was originally christened what in 1888?

It honoured rancher Charles B. Eddy; the Pecos River Flume there is billed as the only place a river crosses itself.

In which year was Carlsbad Caverns recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site?

1995: UNESCO inscribed Carlsbad Caverns National Park on the World Heritage List in 1995 for its outstanding cave geology and the long passages of its back-country cave.

The Bifrost Room, found in 1982, takes its name from a rainbow bridge in which mythology?

Norse: Bifrost is the rainbow bridge linking earth and the gods' realm in Norse myth, a fitting name for the colourful oxide-stained formations of a room found high above a lake in 1982.

Where did the young cowboy's lantern go out, leaving him in darkness for half an hour?

Queen's Chamber: widely regarded as the cave's most beautiful section, it is where the explorer's lantern failed and left him in darkness for over half an hour.

How far below the surface did the switchback ramp take visitors before elevators opened in 1932?

750 feet: the switchback trail from the natural entrance dropped 750 feet to the Big Room level, and the climb back out was so tiring that the 1932 building added elevators.

How many of the park's caves are open to public tours?

Three: besides the main cavern, only Slaughter Canyon Cave and Spider Cave are open, both undeveloped and visited on guided adventure tours.

Which US highway passes the park entrance about 18 miles southwest of the town of Carlsbad?

US 62/180: the concurrent US Routes 62 and 180 run southwest from Carlsbad past Whites City, where the park road turns off toward the visitor center.