Carlsbad Caverns National Park

Another National Park day, this time just a day trip to Carlsbad Caverns. In the caverns there are a few options for which caves to explore, including self guided and ranger guided trips. I decided to go down the Natural Entrance and then explore the Big Cave, which are both self-guided trips. That covers more than 90% of the actual caverns, so I didn't miss much by skipping out on the ranger guided trips.

The first thing I was impressed by was the sheer scale of the caverns. In the Natural Entrance, you start going down a steep path, and then you just keep going down further and further. Looking up in the caverns gives you a feel for the scale of the caves, but they are gigantic.

Then you start factoring in all of the 'decorations' of the caves, which are the stone structures that have been created over thousands of years. A lot of them are pretty plain, but some are actually quite intricate, with all sorts of ripples, folds, and coloring. The whole cave is lit by electric lights, but in an appropriate way. The lighting lends a feel of being in a cathedral, and everyone tended to talk in whispers.

Probably my best pictures:


See the rest of my Carlsbad pictures here.

Guadalupe Mountains National Park

I just spent the last three days exploring Guadalupe Mountains National Park, finally spending a night in one of the parks. They allow free backcountry camping, so I left my bike at the visitor center and took off for two nights to go backpacking for a bit. The only catch is that there are no water sources in the backcountry, so I had to carry all of my water with me. I had already been doing that on the bike, so I had enough capacity, but it was still pretty heavy. Good thing I'm in good shape from previous backpacking and now all the biking.

I left the visitor center in the afternoon and hiked about 4 miles up 2000 feet to a campsite called Pine Top for the first night. Thankfully there were a bunch of trees in the area, because it was pretty windy all day long. Camping in a bunch of trees is definitely a nice change from what I have been doing. Also, getting away from any traffic noises was a nice reward for the steep climb up.

The second day I went for a day-hike from my camp, on a loop called The Bowl, which is basically a big depression on the top of the mountains, which has been home to a Ponderosa Pine forest. There was some fire damage from a forest fire in 1990, but the forest has regrown quite a bit since then.

The last day I hiked back down to the visitor center, then went on a day hike from the visitor center to a place called Devils Hall, which is a natural stone staircase at the bottom of a steep canyon with nearly vertical walls.



See the rest of my Guadalupe pictures here.

Saguaro National Park

I'm not quite sure what I was expecting for Saguaro National Park, but this wasn't really it. I visited the eastern portion of Saguaro National Park, which is right on the border of Tuscon, AZ. Essentially this visit consisted of an 8 mile loop road that went through a bunch of desert terrain. It was pretty cool to be zooming downhill past a bunch of really sharp plants on either side.

The actual "saguaro" forest has been coming and going since the creation of the park. Apparently a variety of environmental factors have caused a lot of them to die off, creating much less of a forest appearance. Then, restrictions on grazing rights in the park have caused an increase in the number of new saguaro plants growing, so we'll have to wait and see if the forest can recover.

See the pictures:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/61247038@N02/sets/72157632090894504/