Finding Fantastic: Exploring Carlsbad Caverns. Cross Country Road Trip Part 3

In the last post, I discussed our stop at Lost Maples State Natural Area outside of San Antonio. After we finished at the park and drove 3.5 hours to small-town Fort Stockton in West Texas. There are arguably more exciting towns in West Texas, but we decided on Fort Stockton due to its location between Lost Maples and Carlsbad Caverns. After staying the night in Fort Stockton, we woke up early and grabbed breakfast at Mingo's Burrito before beginning the drive to Carlsbad Caverns. The drive took us about 3.5 hours to complete.

The entrance fee for Carlsbad is $15 per person and they have plenty of parking available. The "America the Beautiful" National Park Pass allows the cardholder plus three adults free entry. At Carlsbad, there are two major tour options, self-guided or with a guide. There are five tour options that cost a fee outside of the entrance fee. You can read more about the guided tours here. We opted for the self-guided tour. This option includes two trails to see the cavern, the Natural Entrance trail and the Big Room trail. Both of the trails are 1.25 miles roundtrip. There is an elevator that takes visitors straight to the Big Room trail if they wish to not hike down into the cavern or back up to the surface. This elevator is free of charge and convenient if you want to see the cavern but don't have a lot of time.

We hiked down into the cavern through the Natural Entrance trail. This took us about 45 minutes to complete and was at a moderately steep angle going down. This time was with stopping many times to take pictures as the cavern is absolutely beautiful. Once we had reached the bottom, we began the "Big Room" trail. This trail is mostly wheelchair accessible and has the option of being shortened with a short cut.

I found that my phone and my camera fared well in the dim lighting due to being able to adjust the settings. On my camera, the settings cannot be adjusted when taking a video, so the video footage turned out pretty dark.

Overall, I loved Carlsbad! The ability to do a self-guided tour was pretty unique compared to other caverns I have been to. I liked how customizable your experience is. In addition, it was not too crowded when we went in mid-January. If you find yourself in the area, I would definitely recommend stopping into Carlsbad.