50 Fun Facts About Carlsbad Caverns National Park

Carlsbad Caverns National Park is in which US state?

It sits in the Guadalupe Mountains in the state's southeastern corner, about 18 miles from the town that gives it its name.

How can visitors get down into the main cavern?

The self-guided walk down the switchbacks takes you 750 feet below the surface.

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

It ranks 32nd largest in the world and is also called the Hall of the Giants.

Roughly how long is the Big Room?

Its floor covers 357,469 square feet; it is also known as the Hall of the Giants.

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

A gas seeping up from oil deposits mixed with oxygen in the groundwater; a tell-tale mineral left in the cave is the by-product.

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

The oil sits deep below the limestone as part of the Mid-Continent Oil Field; the reaction ran near the end of the Cenozoic.

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?

It forms when the acid reacts with limestone; a cave next door has 20-foot chandeliers of it.

Which formations grow down from a cave ceiling?

Water carrying carbon dioxide leaves a tiny calcium-carbonate deposit each time it drips; the floor-grown twins build up from below.

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

He named the Big Room, King's Palace, Queen's Chamber and formations like the Totem Pole and Rock of Ages; an inscription 'J White 1898' was found deep inside in the 1980s.

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

He was mending fences for the Lucas ranch when he saw the swarm; he tied up his horse 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?

They carried food, water, homemade torches and a big ball of string to find their way out; the boy's real name has never been established.

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

It sold for about $90 a ton to fertilise California orchards; the shaft's big iron bucket doubled as the first tourist lift.

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

The cowboy explorer lowered hundreds of visitors in the bucket; it later served as his booklet stand in the Underground Lunchroom.

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

He had begun shooting underground in 1915; that same year he and Robert Holley of the General Land Office surveyed the cave with White as guide.

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

The proclamation praised a cavern 'equal, if not superior' to better-known caves; Congress made it a national park seven years later.

In which year did Carlsbad Caverns become a national park?

UNESCO added it to the World Heritage list in 1995, and about two-thirds of the park is designated wilderness.

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

Lee and White also built the first trails, stairs and lights between 1923 and 1927.

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

Until then everyone walked a switchback ramp 750 feet down and, worse, back up; the building also had a cafeteria, museum and first-aid room.

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

Karlsbad, now Karlovy Vary, means 'Charles' Baths'; the local town was renamed to promote its own mineral springs.

The Bottomless Pit got its name because stones thrown in made no sound. How deep did it turn out to be?

The floor is soft dirt, which swallowed the stones silently.

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

A balsa loop carried the cord 255 feet up and back down; the white stalagmites inside looked like angels. A smaller room found the same way became the Balloon Ballroom.

A chamber discovered on 31 October 2013 was named what?

About 100 feet across and hundreds of feet above the Spirit World, it held more than 1,000 bat bones.

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

The military was checking if the cavern could serve as a fallout shelter; no ripples ever appeared.

The Mystery Room is named for what?

It slopes off the Queen's Chamber, where the discoverer's lantern once went out and left him in the dark for half an hour.

What is the lowest known point in the cavern?

Its globular, cloud-like rock formed underwater when the lake was much higher; the Lake of Muddy Misery, mapped in 2018, is only 13 feet above it.

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

It is the second largest room in the cavern; the Rookery in Lower Cave is where the cave pearls are.

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

A 2018 push through a tiny passage in the Mystery Room added names like Tomb of the Sky Bears and Wriggler's Relief to the map.

How many caves does the park contain in all?

Only three are open to the public: the main cavern plus Slaughter Canyon Cave and Spider Cave on guided 'adventure' tours.

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

Cavers had heard wind roaring up through the rocks since the 1950s; access has been limited to permitted scientific expeditions.

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

The 'Caves' episode aired in 2007; the crew waited two years for permission to film.

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?

The most numerous by far is the Mexican free-tailed bat, present from spring to autumn.

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

Older claims of millions may never have been true; a 2009 Boston University study questioned them, and pesticides like DDT are suspected in any decline.

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

The flight starts around sunset and lasts about three hours; rangers give a talk in the amphitheater from Memorial Day weekend to mid-October.

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

About 1.5 million roost under one bridge in Austin, and Bracken Cave near San Antonio holds the largest colony on Earth at nearly 20 million.

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

Once a year the park also holds a bat-flight breakfast for people who come to watch the pre-dawn return.

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

The park's detached Rattlesnake Springs oasis is another IBA, with more than 300 bird species recorded.

Rattlesnake Springs, a detached oasis in the park, has recorded over 300 bird species. How many have been recorded in the whole state?

The wooded riparian patch in the desert is a National Register historic district as well as an Audubon Important Bird Area.

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

Peak crowds come on the weekends after Memorial Day and the Fourth of July; self-guided tours are free on some holidays.

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

The National Parks and Recreation Act put 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?

Its maze of small passages totals nearly a mile; the Bifrost Room, found in 1982, is named for the Norse rainbow bridge.

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

Their high point, Guadalupe Peak at 8,751 feet, lies across the state line; the range ends near White's City by the park.

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?

The Big Room ranks as the 32nd-largest cave chamber in the world.

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

The rainbow-bridge name fits its colourful oxide-stained formations high above the lake.

Where did Jim White's lantern go out, leaving him in the dark for over half an hour?

The chamber is widely regarded as the most beautiful part of the cave.

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

The walk back up was tiring for some, which is why the new visitor center added two elevators.

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

Slaughter Canyon Cave and Spider Cave are undeveloped apart from paths for guided adventure tours.

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

Roughly two-thirds of the park is designated wilderness so its habitat cannot be altered.