I’m planning my summer vacation, down to the nearest half-day, and was thinking of doing an “adventure tour” (i.e. a more intense, ranger-led cave tour) in Carlsbad Caverns.
Has anyone done these (anything on that page except the Kings Palace tour are Adventure Tours, plus I’ve done the Kings Palace already.)
Especially the Lower Cave versus the Left Hand Tunnel. These are the ones I am most interested in. The Lower Cave seems more interesting but the Left Hand Tunnel fits better in my schedule! Choices choices.
I went on the Slaughter Canyon tour years ago and it was pretty cool. Seeing the formation called “The Clansman” alone was worth the price of admission.
The times of that tour look good and it does seem more interesting than the Left Hand Tunnel – however, is there a strong bad* guano odor compared to the Natural Entrance? (since the NPS page does mention remnants of a guano mining operation.) Also, is there any water pools or streams there (since the page mentions it would be slippery. Water would be a plus, but would not necessarily make up for the guano odor unless I can figure out noseplugs :))
*Leaving accidental typo in there on purpose for humor.
I did the Lower Cave Tour about 17 years ago, but it sounds like it has changed a little bit. There was no knotted rope but we did use ladders to descend. It was a lot of fun; at one point we could see through an opening up into the Big Room, where tourists were pointing down at us.
I don’t remember Slaughter Canyon smelling horribly bad. As I recall, it’s still a “wet” cave in places, but I’m not sure about flowing or standing water. The “slippery conditions” are due to some of the trail going over flowstone and ancient compacted guano in places. One of the cool things the guide did was use a camera flash on an exposed knob of flowstone and it fluoresced with a eerie glow in the otherwise total darkness.
I went on an off-trail tour with my dad and brother when I was a teenager. I don’t know what the route was named because my dad was the one who booked it. It started with a descent down a slope assisted by a rope, sort of like rapelling but at a 45-degree angle and then climbing a few feet down a ladder. They made us promise not to tell anyone where the trailhead was. (It was close to the normal paths.)
I’ve done a Shasta Caverns tour that was pretty tame and a Lewis and Clark Caverns tour that was awesome. We did a lot of crawling and scrambling over things on the LCC tour and we did it by candlelight, it was pretty darned cool.
great blondebear, now I have three tours I can’t choose from instead of two
third, I think I’ve seen people climbing down into that when I did the self-guided tour. Looks like it might be Hall of the White Giant, which does look cool except I’m afraid I’ll have claustrophobia. Now I don’t have claustrophobia, as I’ve done some tunnel crawling in my time, but the idea of tons of rock being above me instead of just the street is a different proposition oddly enough. Other than that it looks awesome.
I think I’ll probably do the Left Hand Tunnel since it looks like it will have some water plus it is convenient time-wise, as long as I am not exhausted from doing a long-distance hike the previous day in Guadalupe Mtn National Park.
