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49 free Carlsbad Caverns National Park trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Carlsbad Caverns National Park trivia quiz covers the great show cave in the Guadalupe Mountains of southeastern New Mexico and the more than 119 other caves in the park around it. Questions cover the geology (a Permian reef, hydrogen sulfide from oil fields, sulfuric acid eating limestone from below), the Big Room and the named chambers, the speleothems, and the pristine Lechuguilla Cave with its gypsum chandeliers and ancient antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The human story centres on Jim White, the teenage cowboy who followed a 'whirlwind' of bats to the entrance in 1898 and spent decades exploring, naming and promoting the cave, plus the guano miners, the photographer whose pictures made the New York Times, Coolidge's 1923 monument, the 1930 park, the 1932 elevators, the Cold War fallout-shelter test and the balloon-borne discovery of the Spirit World. Bats get their due too: the Mexican free-tailed colony, the evening flight and the thermal-camera counts. Questions run from easy to expert with the difficulty shown on each one. Every answer was checked against a reference page and each question carries its citation. If you enjoy this one, try our Big Bend and US National Parks quizzes next.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Carlsbad Caverns National Park is in which US state?
New Mexico
New Mexico: the park lies in the Guadalupe Mountains in the state's southeastern corner, about 18 miles southwest of the town of Carlsbad.
Q 02How can visitors get down into the main cavern?
On foot or by elevator
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.
Q 03The Big Room, the cave's main chamber, holds what distinction?
Largest of its kind in North America
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.
Q 04Roughly how long is the Big Room?
Almost 4,000 feet
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.
Q 05Unlike most limestone caves, Carlsbad was dissolved mainly by what rising from below?
Sulfuric acid
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.
Q 06What gas seeped up from underlying petroleum to start the cave-making chemistry?
Hydrogen sulfide
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.
Q 07The limestone the caverns are cut into began as what, about 250 million years ago?
A reef beside an inland sea
The Permian Capitan Reef was built by bryozoans, sponges and microbes rather than corals, then buried under evaporites and finally lifted up.
Q 08Which mineral found in the cave confirms how it was carved?
Gypsum
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.
Q 09Which formations grow down from a cave ceiling?
Stalactites
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.
Q 10Which teenage cowboy explored the cavern in 1898 with a homemade wire ladder and named most of its rooms?
Jim White
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.
Q 11What first drew the young cowboy's attention to the cave entrance?
A plume of bats he mistook for a volcano or whirlwind
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'.
Q 12The 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
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.
Q 13What was mined from the Bat Cave section in the early 20th century?
Q 21How deep is the cavern's Bottomless Pit, named because thrown stones made no sound?
About 140 feet
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.
Q 22How did explorers reach the Spirit World, high in the Big Room ceiling, in 1985?
They floated a cord over a stalagmite with helium balloons
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.
Q 23A chamber discovered on 31 October 2013 was named what?
Bat guano
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.
Q 14Before a staircase was installed in 1925, how did the first tourists get into the cave?
In an iron guano bucket
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.
Q 15Which newspaper first published Ray V. Davis's photos from inside the cavern in 1923?
The New York Times
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.
Q 16Which president proclaimed Carlsbad Cave National Monument on 25 October 1923?
Calvin Coolidge
Calvin Coolidge signed the proclamation on 25 October 1923, creating Carlsbad Cave National Monument; Congress later elevated the monument to a national park.
Q 17In which year did Carlsbad Caverns become a national park?
1930
1930: Congress upgraded the monument to Carlsbad Caverns National Park on 14 May 1930; about two-thirds of the park is designated wilderness.
Q 18Which organisation sponsored Willis T. Lee's 1924 exploration of the caverns?
The National Geographic Society
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.
Q 19What did the new visitor center add in 1932 that changed how people reached the cave?
Two elevators
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.
Q 20The town of Carlsbad, which lends its name to the park, is named after a spa town in which present-day country?
Czech Republic
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.
Halloween Hall
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.
Q 24The Green Lake Room was used in the early 1960s to test what?
Whether a far-off nuclear blast would ripple its pool
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.
Q 25What is the lowest known point in the cavern?
Lake of the Clouds
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.
Q 26The Guadalupe Room, discovered in 1966, is famous for its dense collection of what?
Soda-straw stalactites
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.
Q 27Roughly how many miles of Carlsbad Cavern had been surveyed by the end of the 2010s?
Almost 40
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.
Q 28How many caves does the park contain in all?
More than 119
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.
Q 29Which park cave, opened by cavers in 1986, had over 150 miles mapped by 2020?
Lechuguilla
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.
Q 30The park's Chandelier Ballroom cave, with 20-foot crystal chandeliers, appeared in which BBC series?
Planet Earth
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.