Sunday,
October 7, 2012
Jodi woke up about 5 and lingered in the warm
sleeping bag until 5:30 (it is still dark) and got up to get water for coffee
and the stove out. It was sooooo cold! I
could only find one of my gloves. We
were frozen. Jack got up and we decided
there was no way we were going to do this another night so took down
everything. If Jack would have had his way, I think we would have just left the
tent and drove away! It was the first
time the whole trip where I felt there was no way I wanted to keep
camping. No light, and freezing
cold. We had intended to hike up to
Guadalupe Peak today but neither of us felt well and decided with this cloud
sitting here and the way we felt we would skip it and do something else. We ended up hiking McKittrick Canyon.
Unfortunately it was still cloudy but still a
beautiful hike into a valley with mountains on each side to the Pratt cabin,
where the Pratts lived in the early 1900’s.
They gave the land to the National Park System. We hike as far as the
grotto which looks like a cave formation with thick stalactites and columns of
white. Very nice. Ate lunch there and then hiked back and
decided to go to Carlsbad Caverns. Our
hike was 6.8 miles, all level.
At
Carlsbad, we hiked in through the natural opening (where the bats fly out). They have a amphitheatre there so people can watch. Too bad we won’t be here tonight. Descended 750 ft down into the Caverns and followed the trail through the cave and then into the Big Room, which is enormous. The big room’s area would hold 14 football fields although it is not just one room but many. This is the largest cave we have ever been in. Beautiful formations, mostly dead, but a few that are still actively growing. They do not allow people in the area of where the bats sleep during the day. They are also the Mexican free tailed bats like under the Congress bridge and will most likely leave for Mexico any time now. Took the elevator up 75 floors which takes 1 minute. We got our passport stamp and headed toward the town of Carlsbad to find a room. Not willing to freeze again. Had another BBQ dinner at Danny’s place. Jack got to watch some football. Definitely a more comfortable and warmer night than last night!
Carlsbad, we hiked in through the natural opening (where the bats fly out). They have a amphitheatre there so people can watch. Too bad we won’t be here tonight. Descended 750 ft down into the Caverns and followed the trail through the cave and then into the Big Room, which is enormous. The big room’s area would hold 14 football fields although it is not just one room but many. This is the largest cave we have ever been in. Beautiful formations, mostly dead, but a few that are still actively growing. They do not allow people in the area of where the bats sleep during the day. They are also the Mexican free tailed bats like under the Congress bridge and will most likely leave for Mexico any time now. Took the elevator up 75 floors which takes 1 minute. We got our passport stamp and headed toward the town of Carlsbad to find a room. Not willing to freeze again. Had another BBQ dinner at Danny’s place. Jack got to watch some football. Definitely a more comfortable and warmer night than last night!
 |
| Natural opening to Carlsbad Caverns with amphitheatre to watch the bats |
 |
| 750 feet down to the cave |
No comments:
Post a Comment