Roswell & Carlsbad, NM

Hiking in Carlsbad Caverns. Wow I wouldn't go so far as to say Carlsbad Caverns are better than Yellowstone Park but there is nothing at Yellowstone that is better than the experience of hiking through the narrow passage ways and huge caverns decorated with soda flutes, stlactites and column formations.

There are two entrance to the caverns, first the elevator that takes you 70 stories down into the big cavern and a natural entrance that you walk down tight switch backs to the bottom. The bats exit out the natural entrance nightly at dusk. When we first entered the natural entrance it smelled a little like a urinal.

Guatto, bat poop, can pile up to 40 feet deep in the bat cave. You only notice the smell when you first enter the cave. As we turned the last corner where the opening of the cave was still visible I could see clouds of steaming mist leaving the cave as the light was shining into the cave. You can only see it from the inside of the cave looking out and I though that's where you smell it the most. I wasn't sure if it was musty cave smell or fermenting bat poop.