August 14, 2019 • 41 mins
If Batman were to live in a national park, he would definitely live at Carlsbad Caverns. The Dark Knight would surely feel right at home in the enormous, pitch black chambers, just him and a couple hundred thousand roommates who fly out to eat bugs each night. This episode, Matt and Brad explore the caves, take in the wildlife, and work up an appetite at Carlsbad.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
If Batman were to live in a national park, he
definitely lived at Carl's Bad Caverns. I'm Brad and I'm Matt,
and we sawed our home in Chicago, bought in r
V and we live on the road full time, just
us and our dog Finn, and we're visiting our national parks.
This is park Landia and we're heading underground the original
bat cave at Carl's Bad. Thanks for listening. Batman would
(00:30):
feel right at home in the enormous pitch black chambers
of Carl's Bad Cavern in New Mexico, just him, a
couple hundred thousand of his roommates who fly out to
eat bugs each night. There are so many bats here
that when they fly out of the caves natural entrance
each evening at sunset, they swirl around in this gigantic
tornado shape and they look like a dark cloud. It's
ominous and overwhelming to behold. And like a park ranger
(00:52):
said that night, it's an iconic National park site to
see right up there with Old Faithful at Yellowstone. Oh yeah,
I would have here with that sentiment. There really is
nothing like the bat migration that caused by Cavern's for
anyone screamish around baths, This probably isn't for you, because
the idea of sitting under a cloud of two baths
probably would give you nightmares. But for anyone else, it's
(01:14):
really stunning, and just seeing them swarm out quietly into
the sky for what seems like hours is really really incredible.
It's essentially one giant feeding frenzy. Though. It's like a
bunch of hungry dinners out of buffet, just feasting for
hours and hours and hours. But instead of eggs, benedict
or prime rib, it's moths mosquitoes on the menu. They
fly around for miles and up into the sky for
(01:36):
several thousand feet even to get their food. That's a
lot of ever for dinner, I'd really just order same.
I can't imagine, like whenever I'm ordering Grabhub and wanting sushi,
like if I were to travel thirty miles and ten
thousand feet in the sky. No things. The coolest part
of the whole batmigration that was just how mysterious these
animals are. I think, like there are so many unanswered
(01:58):
questions and just mysteries about how they act the way
they do, why they act the way they do, the
ranger who's leading the back talk when we were there,
he was talking about how these bats, which are Mexican
freetailed bats, they only live here in Carl's Bad from
mid April through about mid October, so not much is
known about their migration and like where they stay along
(02:20):
the way as they're going back and forth to Mexico. Yeah,
my guess is a motel six or maybe an all nighter. Yeah,
who knows, there's like a bat airbnb or something. I
don't know. You know, they are apparently quite ugly though, Yeah,
so don't get too close. Yeah. You can't see them
up close though, um, since they're so small and they're
flying so fast. But the rangers said, that's the reason
(02:43):
why a lot of people are afraid of bats is
because of their like gnarly faces. I mean it's okay, though,
I know they're beautiful on the inside. Yeah, that's what matters.
Of course, they're these things aren't about to win any
beauty pageants. But in spite of that, they are really
incredible animals and you have to respect that and just
admire it because for one thing, in like a single night,
(03:04):
these bats can eat half their body weight and insect
which is crazy. They're starving. I did name one of them.
That's sweet. She was so cute. Yeah, the whole So,
the whole colony each night can eat up to three
tons of food. That's a dizney amount of food to imagine.
And by night's end, they all kind of returned back
(03:25):
into the cave by dawn, throwing around in that tornado
like shape formation. Um, and then they sleep all day,
hang upside down from the cave ceiling just chilling. Sounds
like me, sounds great. Um. But the the other thing
that the ranger told us that I thought was so
shocking and kind of hard to imagine is these bats
(03:45):
are so small that up to three hundred of them
can be squeezed together in one square foot of ceiling space.
That's crazy and also kind of horrifying to imagine. I
don't want to see that. Yeah, you know, there's another
amazing thing about how these bats helped Carl's Bad Caverns
get discovered in the first place. Even though Native Americans
apparently spend time in the cave more than a thousand
(04:07):
years ago, it wasn't fully explored until the late eighteen hundreds,
when the settlers saw a black cloud of smoke rising
from the earth. Yeah, except surprise, surprise, that black cloud
was not smoke at all. It was actually bats exiting
the cave, and they did so in such a thick,
condensed crowd that from a distance it looked like this
(04:27):
plume of smoke just seemingly rising out of the ground. Caves.
So Jim White is the guy who's credited as the
cave's main explorer. He discovered the cave, he explored, went
in like a brave, curious little man, a pioneer. Yeah, yeah,
(04:48):
that's one. That's another more appropriate term. Um. And he
he's the one who named a bunch of the ravens
informations down in Carl's bad caverns like King's Palace Room,
Green Lake Room, Bottomless Pit, I spurg Rock, and Big Room.
A real creative on that one, Jim. I mean it
definitely earns the name there, since the Big Room is
actually gigantic. Yeah. Yeah, from what we read that you
(05:11):
could fit two US Capitol buildings inside this room, and
that's unbelievable. It's the seventh largest cape chamber in the world,
and it's the one and only chamber that you can
tour on your own it's a long one and a
quarter mile route around the perimeter of this gigantic chamber.
I mean it's filmed with enormous formations and features like
(05:32):
the Lions Main and the Hall of Giants. I mean, oh,
and I can't forget the bottomless pit, which isn't actually bottomless,
but it definitely looks ominous. It definitely does. The Big
Room has lights along the trail, which is pretty nice
because it's well paved the whole way, making it easy
to see where you're going and see all the unique
formations um along the route. Yeah. Fortunately for those lights.
(05:55):
Otherwise we'd be stumbling into the bottomless pit and that
wouldn't end well. I feel like you're gonna die by
falling off a cliff or down a pit. I'm always
I'm always so close to falling to my death. Um.
So let's talk about how we got to the Big Room,
because I thought that was probably my favorite aspect of
Carl's Wide Caverns. Yeah. We got here by way of
(06:19):
the natural Entrance, which starts at the Amphitheater where the
bats migrate, so before the evening, before sunset, where the
when the bats come out. This natural entrance is open
for people to make their way down into the cave
the old fashioned way by zig zagging down This long
paved pathway gets pretty steep. It takes a little while
(06:41):
to complete. Um, it's fairly strenuous, but not as much
when you're going down because it's mostly just gravity doing
most of the work. It's just really cool though, because
you're immersing yourself the way that Jim White and the
initial explorers did, just surrounded by sudden darkness and leaving
the natural light behind. Yeah. I mean, as you make
(07:02):
your way down the cave, you'll enter like two various,
like sprawling rooms. I mean, the whole experience feels more
like a movie, and it seems to be wild to
be just real, it's very wild, it's very surreal, and
I feel like every corner you turn along this Natural
Entrance trail, it just bursts open to these extravagant new
(07:23):
rooms with amazing views and features. It's just breathtaking really. Um.
Speaking of breathtaking features, I want to talk about one
of my favorite formations along the Natural Entrance route, which
is it's called Whale's Mouth, in this giant rock face
that kind of looks like this huge whale rising out
of the water, maybe like a blue whale or something huge.
(07:45):
And I think the thing that I connect with so
much here is that when I was a kid, I
actually made a connection with a whale. And my parents, Yeah,
I know, buckle up because this gets weird. My parents
let me do to those adopt a whale programs, which
I don't know if they still exist. I'm assuming they do.
(08:06):
And I never got to flip through like this catalog
or something and like adopt a whale. And I don't
even know what was involved with said I was like
a little kid. My parents probably handled logistics. But anyway,
I adopted a humpback whale named Midnight and I loved Midnight.
She was like this mostly black humpback whale. I think
she lived probably in the Atlantic somewhere. I don't know um,
(08:29):
But anyway, I would always like tell people like strangers
are like, well, I don't know. People would ask naturally, like, oh,
do you have any pets, and I would say like, yeah,
we have our dog, Nikki, and I have a whale
named Midnight. And people have probably thought I was so crazy,
and they would look at my parents probably like what.
(08:52):
But I loved Midnight. And Midnight. Honestly, it's probably still
alive today. Whales love a route going time, so I
think technically I still have a whale. We have a
whale in our family. Um, I had no clue, and
I love this, but you are literally justifiably insane. I
love whales, and I love whale shaped cave formations. What
(09:13):
can I say? Oh man, we'll put those next to
my cat's mystic and Majestic, Mystic, Majestic and Midnight and Midnight.
I love you. Anyway, back to the natural entrance trail
at the end, once you're done kind of making your
full descend into the cave, you've gone about eight hundred
feet down, which is, as a sign points out, that's
(09:34):
kind of the equivalent of hiking down the Empire State Blelding.
It's quite a track. Yeah, it's a lot easier to
go down, I mean that's what a lot of people do,
you know, the normal people do. Yeah, but it's much
tougher to go up. And we decided we want to
do it both ways. I mean, it was really funny
to watch the people's reaction. Um, as we're coming back
(09:56):
up and like, are you are you really going up?
People can't leave it before reacting like we were crazy,
Like I didn't see any other people going up with
us at the time. There was still a bunch of
people coming down when we were making the truck out,
And this must have been like six or seven different
people who made comments being like, oh, are you picking out.
(10:16):
We're like, yeah, it's not that insane. Yeah, And they're like,
do you know there's an elevator at the bottom, and
we're like, yes, yes, we heard about the elevator. I mean,
like it was tough going up, but like I could
handle it, and I'm a little bit more out of
shape for hiking, um in regards to this time that
I used to be, but it's definitely possible, um, if
you're in decent shape. Yeah. I thought you did great too,
(10:39):
And we made a good time. We like it seemed
to me like we went up the trail faster than
we went down, probably because we were stopping to take
photos a lot on the way down. On the way out,
we're kind of familiar enough that we're like, Okay, we
don't need to stop with the whale's mouth again. Yeah,
but it was definitely amazing to like jump up there
and just like just do it. You know, it's just
like a little fa good. It's only the empire or
(11:01):
state building, you know. Yeah, it's only like going up
and down the first twice a day. Yeah, it was good.
But I want to talk also about kind of the
full body experience involved, because it's more than just like
feeling your muscles. You smell things, you see things off
obviously along this trail, and it's really quite immersive. Yeah,
I mean, everything kind of just shifts as you walk
(11:22):
further into the cave. Pretty much as soon as you
leave the amphitheater, things start to smell weird, mostly from
the bat. Yeah, Dodo, or is you like to sing
that guano? I think the first time I heard the
term back guana was probably in an Aspin Toura movie.
And do you remember Jim Carrey. Yeah, I'm pretty sure
(11:43):
that was from an Aspan tour movie and it stuck
with me and now I'm very familiar. Good job, Good job, Jim,
good job. Hey, there's a lot of Jim. Oh yeah, right.
Things obviously get increasingly dark, and the temperature levels like
drop out around the mid fifties. It's actually quite comfortable
if you're wearing like a light jacket or a sweater
right right, unless you're going up then you take off
(12:05):
those layers. But we're working our way down the cave now. Yeah,
it's actually also really comfortable if you're wearing a batsuit
or whatever that spandex thing that Robin wears, you know, Yes,
this is perfect superhero spandex climate. Yeah, cuts, especially the
ones from that like Batman and Robin movie where Batman
had an explicable nipple marks on a suit. Yes, that's
(12:29):
what you need to be wearing here, oh man, Yes, yeah. Um,
and keeping in this like cinematic weird inadvertent movie theme.
I thought it was so cool to learn that the
portion of the cave that's where they're still kind of
a trickle of natural light as it's mixed in with
(12:49):
the complete darkness. This apparently it's called the twilight zone,
because of course it is, and that this is like
the phase of the cave where things are and get
really really kind of dark and eerie, but in a cool,
like exciting way that really draws you in further. And
then things get really dark and the only light anymore
(13:10):
comes off light bulbs that line the walkway and illuminate
the formations kind of pointing things out for you. Very dim,
very dim the mood, so you do have to keep
a slow pace so you're not stumbling into things. Certain
parts of the trail are darker than others, but for
the most part, it's it's fairly straightforward. UM One thing
(13:31):
to note here. We mentioned photos, but this is kind
of hard to get good photos in the cave, just
f y I unless you have like a special camera
with UM specific equipment designed for taking photos in the dark.
But things don't really turn out on smartphones here. So
it's one of those places where you witness it with
your own eyes and it's beautiful and mesmerizing, but things
(13:54):
really just don't show up nearly as great in iPhone photos.
And that's fine too. Yeah, Well, you're just gonna have
to go and visit and see for yourself. I mean,
you're gonna miss out on a lot of things if
you just look at other people's photos. Yeah, I know,
you have to experience it for yourself, and it's fine
that you don't document it all on Instagram or whatever,
but don't put down your phones because we're gonna be
right back to talk about how many times Matt has
(14:16):
been at this national park. Hi, I'm Brad and I'm Matt.
(14:44):
You're listening to park Landia and today we're talking about
Carl's Bad Caverns National Park, which evidently is one of
my favorite national parks because I've been here three times.
Yeah too, but three times, making it my most visited
national park in the country. So, in other words, I'm
kind of a carls By Caverns pro. Not to brag,
(15:05):
but I'm probably qualified to be a park ranger here
at this point. To be honest, you would love to
be a park ranger at Carl's Bad Caverns. I mean
it's just kind of like your spirit park, you mean,
like dark, ominous and smelling like bad droppings. Yes, um
well definitely. Uh well that's for sure, thank you. I
first visited the park with my brother Brian and my
(15:27):
friends Diana and Elena. This was back in kind of
when I was getting into at this like nature themed
vacation thing with friends and family, and we had this
like week long trip planned out. You can call it
what it is, it's an obsession. It's an obsession. So
we planned to end our trip with a couple of
(15:48):
days and Carl's Bad and we were staying and this
shared cosy little cabin at a nearby k o A campground. Um.
And while we're here, we had this full day our
first day and Carls by the caverns. We booked this
ranger guided tour. We actually had two tours because we
really wanted to maximize their time here. Those cave tours,
(16:10):
they're so great there. Yeah, you have to do some
cave tours while you here, although it just a heads up,
they do fill up pretty quickly. So as far in
advanced as you can make them online, the better, um,
because you don't want to miss out on these. But
I know if you do it to last minute then
you're kind of out of luck. But they're still the
big room. You can tour that in your own um.
(16:31):
But what we did here on our first day was
the left hand Tunnel tour first and the crazy the
awesome thing about that is it's a lantern lit tour.
That is all the visitors holding their own lanterns as
they kind of follow the ranger into the cavern. Did
you get one of those cool hats you know, like
we saw that you could buy their No, No, that's
(16:52):
a bummer, but you could have bought one. I could have,
but I don't. I don't know, I would mess up
my hair look at for the bats, I guess. So
this left hand tunnel tour at last about two hours,
all lit by candle lights, so you're kind of experiencing
this cave, like I said, the old fashioned way, like
(17:13):
this is what the original pioneers were seeing. It was
all like by flickering candle light. And we all gathered
congregated in the visitors center on the surface, and then
all took the elevator down to the tour meeting area
by the there's like this underground cafe. And our arranger
guide was was really great. She was good at getting
everyone to socialize and mingle and do some icebreakers. And
(17:38):
she started things off by having everyone gather in this
circle and introduced themselves. And for some reason I was
like immediately to her left, while my brother and friends
were like the opposite side of the work. I don't
know why. I didn't did my own thing, but awkwardly
by myself corner. Yeah, And so I was the first
one to go and introduce myself, and she asked me
(18:00):
to introduce myself where I'm from, and then as a
nice baker say what your favorite movie is, So I'm like, okay, sure,
So I went, my name is Matt, I'm from Chicago,
and I guess I would probably say Signs of the Lambs.
And then this was immediately met with varied reactions of
shock and laughter from the crowd, like watch out for
(18:21):
that guy. Everyone was like, I don't know if it
was like fake rattled or everyone legitimately thought I would
beat them while we're on the tour or something. But
I guess the theme of this episode is just verifying
Matt's insane This yeah, maybe that's true, especially compared to
like all the other movie answers were so sweet and
faun like Finding Nemo and Star Wars, and I'm like,
(18:42):
sounds to the Lambs, So this wasn't. It was off
to a nice start, and the tour itself was actually
super fun, very informative and I really need to see it,
Like I said, baits in candle light and like nothing
else really primitive and also oh weirdly made me really
hungry because our park ranger kept comparing all the cave
(19:06):
formations to like different foods. She would go, this is
cave popcorn, doesn't it look like popcorn, and like these
are soda straws, and this is cave bacon. She would like,
do all these comparisons, and granted she was accurate. It
actually didn't look like popcorn and bacon and soda straws
and whatnot. And she even made like this obscure comparison
(19:27):
at one point to something one of the cave formations,
she said looked like one of those like marshmallowy chocolate
um snowballs that you would get in like gas stations,
convenience stores or whatever. I loved those. We really shouldn't
have skiped lunch to day. I'm hungry for cave bacon
flavored popcorn now I want, Yeah, I want one of
those snowballs like yesterday. They're so good. And but the
(19:49):
hilarious thing too, she yeah, so she mentioned the snowballs
and she was like, oh, but I wish I could
eat them. I'm just I'm allergic to nuts or something,
and I'm like, what, coconut is not a nut? But anyway,
her heart was in the right place and she was
making me famished. And then my favorite moment of this
tour was when she gathered everybody around it in a
(20:10):
big circle again. This time I was actually in my
appropriate space next to my friends, and we ran around
one by one kind of putting our candles out, so
increasingly the chamber weary and got darker and darker until
the last person put their candle up and it was
complete pitch darkness. And the point of this was to
(20:31):
show to show us what the cave is like in
its natural pure state, and that's just complete nothingness, blackness,
like you can't see your own hand in front of
your face. It's really crazy, like creepy. But also when
you're with people and stuff, you're you're fine, You're not
like a band in there in the dark cave. Um.
(20:52):
But of course I again um kind of embarrassed myself
because as we're like turning out of the candles. She
also said, I want everyone to be completely quiet and
just you know, appreciate the stillness and darkness of the cave.
But for some reason, my body has like a whistle
reaction to do the opposite thing. And as soon as
(21:12):
the last scandal went out, I started like loudly giggling uncontrollably,
and I was making noise, and I'm sure if everyone
could hear me trying to start fell after and then
my brother started giggling and it was shumulating, and I'm
sure the ranger knew it was. I'm starting to imagine
like when you start giggling when you see hummingbirds, like
(21:34):
you go like insane. Um. And it's also my same
reaction to seeing the bats exit of the caves at night. Yes,
it's just pure giddiness, I guess, and that's all I
can really chalk it up to. Um. But yeah, it's
it's just crazy, and it was. It was so much fun.
And then we she kind of slowly went around and
(21:56):
let all our candles back on, probably hating me at
that point. Um. But all in all, it was a
really fun tour, really enlightening. And like I said, I
was starving, so I think I went to the Underground
Cafe and got like a yogurt parfe or something. No
gave flavored bacon. No, that's actually they should really upgrade
(22:16):
the menu at that cafe and have like bacon and
pop warm, because when you're done to these stories, you're
starving for those things, right. But seriously, that was a
pleasant surprise seeing that Carl's bed Cavern's Cafe up at
the National Park. I mean that the museum, the one
of the visitors. It was amazing, shockingly good, and like
I wasn't expecting that at all. I usually don't. I
(22:38):
this is my third time it calls by Caverns, and
I had never stopped at that cafe before. Yeah, I'm
back at the Earth's surface. I mean, it's a lot
nicer up there because you actually get like this counter
service cafe and it uses real ingredients from local farms.
I mean they had their like pulled pork sandwiches and
the printoly bare barbecue sauce UM, and then they had
the chicken green chili stew and it with the most
(23:00):
delicious sauces. Oh yes, I know, so so good. They
didn't have any snowballs though, which kind of stucked. But
they did have fresh guacamole, which also was really good.
I remember being like, wow, this is just so fresh,
so good stuff. I know, I loved it. Geology, this
is not the guacamole podcast, as you know, so I'm
(23:21):
not going to spend too much time on that. Let's
talk about how these cave chambers came to be um originally,
because contrary to all this popcorn talk, it didn't emerge
from microwave didn't. Yeah, well where did it start though,
Come on, tell me, Yeah, here, it all started some
(23:42):
two million years ago when these caves were actually part
of a tropical See this like southern New Mexico, West
Texas area was all submerged in the shallow sea, and
then as climate steadily changed and land mass shifted, the
water that was once here evaporated it and left behind
these limestone layers that ultimately would form the foundation of
(24:05):
Carl's Bad caverns. As rain would trickle through the limestone
and kind of slowly make its way underground, this rainwater
would mix with other water that was doing the opposite
kind of rising back towards the surface, pressurized by hydrogen sulfide.
And then when these two elements mixed, they created a
sulfuric acid that could actually dissolve limestone, and this would
(24:28):
gradually erode the earth into the cave chambers that are
there today. Very yeah, millions millions of Yeah, it's not
a fast process at all. So the same process is
also what forms the the like cave popcorn and cave bacon,
the splag nites, dog tights, all of that. It's just
(24:50):
the steady long process that takes millions of millions of years,
and then you're left with all these magnificent chambers and
cave formations that looked convenient sore snacks. Rainwater is one
of the most beautiful pieces of our existence. I mean,
it just shaped so much of the cave. It's incredible,
(25:12):
like how some something seemingly so gentle and like ineffective
can slowly do this and these because these formations are gigantic,
They're not dainty or minuscule at all. These rooms are
huge the size of football fields, and these formations are
much some of them are much larger than humans. So
just putting that perspective, imagining this is all like the
(25:34):
process of tiny little droplets that are falling into place
over like we said, like hundreds of millions of years trails.
I actually had to stay back well, Matt was hiking
and we had to stay in their view with Finn,
(25:56):
which was beautiful and I love that time by myself
as well, but I had a lot of work to
get done because it burns me blood farm. We were
getting into the planning stages for sum for months um.
But now that I've gotten into the habit of getting
rental cars with matt Um. It's a good thing because
we're able to take the car and explore on our own. Yeah,
(26:18):
I know. I actually can't believe it took us this
long to actually get with it and understand that, like, oh,
rental cars are a thing we could do, because I
get super restless, annoyingly restless. Otherwise, if I don't have
my own option to do my own thing, I need
to need to get out. And I'm as everybody knows
that this mon probably I'm obsessed with hiking and I
can't stop moving, that is for sure right there. I mean,
(26:40):
that's when you know, when I'm free. I love doing
things together like seeing the bat flight and take hikes
along the natural entrance. Yeah, two the best things here
for sure. Another cool thing about the park in one
aspect that a lot of people don't even realize, is
just the abundance of activities and things to do on
the surface above the cave chambers that carls by. Everything
are multiple times and yes, you still find new things
(27:03):
and discover news every time. Every time it's a new surprise.
And this most recent time was my first exploring the
surface and doing some of these surface trails, of which
there are more than fifty miles of trails here. By
the way, there's a lot of charm. Yeah, I I
didn't do all of all fifty of course, that's that'd
be crazy. But I didn't manage to make a dance
at least and start to get a sense for what
(27:26):
the surface that carls By Caverns is like. And it's amazing,
Like no surprise, it's amazing. You're in the the desert um.
It's it's very air their mountainous. These aren't huge looming mountains.
These are more kind of more like rolling hills, pretty
arid and sand and stone and rocky, very craggy with
cactuses and brush and stuff like that. Very unassuming to
(27:50):
having a huge cave there. Yeah, very good, assuming as
you're doing these trails, you would never know that, like, oh,
there's these massive cave chambers beneath my feet that could
contain to us capitol buildings. Who knew? And all these
bats just crumble and fall, you know. No, yeah, exactly. Now,
to get to most of the trails on the surface here,
you have to drive along this extended loop called the
(28:12):
Walnut Canyon Desert Drive. It's this long dirt road that's
towards the top of these hills where the visitor center is.
And you would tell me that it's like you would
not take there. Have you down there? No? No, I
don't think they're even allowed. I think it's one of
those roads. It's so narrow and inaccessible. You can only
get there via a car and the trail. The trail
heads there like so far out in the loop that
(28:34):
that's really your only option. You can't be walking there
or riding a bike or anything. But as long as
you have a car, like we had this rental vehicle,
then it was totally fine. And I took it out.
And the first trail that I did was called Rattlesnake Canyon,
which sounds kind of scary, but it was really harmless.
It's about six miles round trip into the Chuoman Desert
(28:56):
and pretty strenuous, especially on the way back. It's a
steep ascent um as you're returning to the car. But
I loved it. I really got into it and hoofed
it and brought plenty of water because it's really sunny
and hot, especially when you do it like mid afternoon
like I did, and just the stuff you see here
(29:19):
is really delightful and surprising. Again because this is my
third time I call is bad and this is all
I opening for me, Like, I had no idea this
was up here, and it was fun to explore and
see that and traverse some of this canyon. Um, you
get kind of pretty deep into the terrain. And when
we were there some a lot of the cactuses were
(29:41):
starting to blossom, so you have these bright yellow and
pink flowers. Oh it was so gorgeous. Yeah, just really
tranquil too. I didn't see any other people in the trail. Unfortunately,
I didn't see in your rattlesnakes either either, so yeah,
no harm there. Um. I will say on the way
back um to I should have probably slowed down because
(30:02):
on my way back to the car, I for some reason,
I was like speed walking or speed hiking as I
want to do, and it was quite steep, and I
was so tired and so thirsty, and I had long
since chugged my water, so I was in a cheking
water you yeah, no, no, no, no wildlife. But I
(30:27):
remember when you came back from that, you picked me
up so we can go to the bat Fright program. Yeah, totally.
That was really fun. I'm glad that we made it
for that conveniently named it is located at the Bat
Flight Amphitheater. This is really delightful because I get to
bring up baths again. And I remember the park Ranger
having the driest sense of humor. I mean, he was
(30:50):
so entertaining to listen to, because it was like listening
to Ron Swanson from Parks and Wreck. Yeah, like Ron
Burgundy or something. I love the snark. Yeah, maybe just
like a high bred like the best of both Ron's. Yes,
Randy run. He was great. And I didn't even know
that there would be a park Ranger or one of
their bat flight programs because I know we're kind of
(31:11):
early in the season. The bats were freshly back from
their migration, so I didn't know when they would start
back up again. And even the website said like they
weren't going to start until the end of the month,
and We're like, we're gonna moves. Shoot yeah, and then
narrowly we we would have only missed up like a week,
which would be in such a bummer. I think the
only reason why we actually went because one night we
saw all these cars coming out at the same time,
so we figured, oh that they must be doing it. Yes,
(31:33):
and much to our delight, it all worked out and
we have to learn all about these amazing creatures. And
also one important aspect that he reminded us several times
is several Yeah, it's important. Um, no electronic devices whatsoever
are allowed during the bat flight program. And in fact,
he insists that you not only turn on phones on
(31:56):
airplane mode, but like completely off in a way. And
this goes for not just funds, but like any other
thing you might have, like cameras and I don't know
what other pocket sized electronics people might have these No,
oh gosh, no, that's all right. Yeah, they'd be especially
awful because the thing is the bats are really sensitive
(32:19):
to light and stuff like that. So if things potentially
flash and harm their eyes or scare them or whatnot,
it could have serious repercussions, meaning like they might not
come back to the cave. They might go somewhere else
where they're not being harassed by camera flash. Yeah, I
know that can ruin their whole entire natural existence in
(32:41):
that cave. Um, you know, because their warm up flights
where they circle the cave entrance by the thousands quickly,
um and quietly. We got to watch as we do
not distrupt them, but loud noises, talking, flashes on the
cameras anything like that can just ruin it for a
few two generations. Absolutely, and there's no fixing it once.
(33:03):
If the bats just to hear, they're not coming back,
so don't ruin it. Yeah, like this is for the
next eight years of people. Yeah, and they should be
protecting it for the eight hundred years after them. Yeah, totally. Also,
the really cool thing about the bat, or a real
benefit of that of everyone putting their devices away and
being quiet is re able to experience this amazing phenomenon
(33:25):
in utter silence, and that just adds to the awe
of the whole thing. The bats. All you really hear
is this delicate light fluttering because their wings are so
small and there's such lightweight animals that they're not like
making big flapping noises like birds or anything. So you're
just in this really silent, mesmerized state with these clouds
(33:46):
of bats swarming above your head. It's really incredible, really,
it really is. I Mean we sat there for a
good forty five minutes to an hour just watching them.
After they started flying out like there was just hundreds
of thousands of them and it was so so beautiful. Yeah,
I know, it really was. We were there for well
(34:08):
into darkness they go for a while. We left before
the migration was even over. They were still coming out
like hey, we're like, okay, we should probably call it
a night. This is park Landia. Thank you for listening.
We'll have more after a short break. I'm Brad, I'm Matt.
(34:37):
Welcome back to park Landia, my favorite. Now it's a
time to go into one of our favorite segments of
the podcast. What was our favorite part of this National park?
But this time I want to say it together on
a kund of three or after the kind of three,
so it goes one to three, then answer alrighty one
(35:03):
two three. WHOA. I really thought I really thought we
were going to be in sync on that, and um,
the fact that we aren't, it just shows you that
I really really missed out by not going on a tour. Unfortunately,
we'll have to do that next time. And then so
I want to do that lantern tour again. I would
(35:24):
do that in a heartbeat. It was so much fun. Yeah,
we're gonna have to plan that better next time. That
was my phone. Well, I you know, because of that tour.
One of the three things that I would definitely bring
would be layers because it gets cold as you go
down into the cave and I would love to do
that tour, so I need to bring layers from my
next trip. UM definitely like one leader of water. It's
(35:45):
surprisingly crazy how much water you drink from the hiking
trails above, as you've noted, and then going down into
the cave and back, there's just a lot of water consumption.
But this is something that has them up in almost
every three things to bring, so bring a lot of water. Um.
And then for me, UM, we had to do laundry
(36:08):
the last day and which was really frustrating because they
closed it like seven and we just got it done
in time. But I would definitely bring some quarters for
the r Very Park, laundry, exciting stuff. UM. The things
that I would bring first and foremost, make sure that
you have a supply of snacks like popcorn and bacon
and stuff, because you're gonna want it after you do
(36:29):
one of the tours, I assure you. The other thing,
I would also really agree with the layers thing because
the temperature differential is big, especially if you visit um
during their prime, like summer months when it's really hot
on the surface, and then the temperature plummets to like
the mid fifties, so you almost need to have like
an outfit change. I recommend bringing like a light jacket
(36:50):
or something, and I had like leggings on underneath my shorts,
so there's a little flexibility there. Mats like Beyonce performance
style of Later. He just strips them off throughout the
day and fabulously perfect. I always appreciate that comparison. Thank you. Um.
And then I would say the third thing to bring
(37:11):
would be, um, maybe a copy of Snce Little Lambs,
because it's gonna put you in the mood. Don't be
a creep come on, come on. I do love that movie.
We watch it probably. I stand by that game. It's
my favorite movie. I don't care how many people in
a cave laugh at me. Yeah, it's really creepy. Um.
(37:31):
But you know, now, in regard to our dream vacation
at Carl's Bad Caverns, I think we both have our
heart set on doing hands on cave tour. Yes, I
would love to do that so much. Yeah, I mean,
the park has a couple of tours that they call
wild caving, and these are not for the faint of heart,
but they are from my heart because I want to
do it. I want to squeeze through them. I want
(37:51):
to go through them. But then there's the Spider Cave tour,
which I'm not Yeah, I'm like not all about that
spider life. I mean it's fine. Um. And then there's
a hall of gray white giants. Yeah, someone sounds us intimidating. Yeah,
the white giant. I mean it just sounds like it's
a big space, so it shouldn't be that hard, right, Yeah,
(38:15):
although I mean from what it sounds like, both these
are basically super lunking, Like you're squeezing and crawling and
you're in narrow spaces for a while. There are long
tourists too, Compared to like the other ones, these are
like four hours. So don't be fooled by the name.
Is that what you're saying? Yeah, kind because it requires
crawling through, you know, squeezing into tight spaces. I mean
you'll probably get dirty, right, you'll yeah, you'll get dirty.
(38:36):
I love it. Yes, let's go back. You'll probably get scared,
but it'll be good. It'll be a memory, that's for sure,
and they'll stick with you. And as honestly as frightening
as these situations sound, it also sounds primarily amazing. And
for me it just seems like a real bucket list
type experience right up there with like the bat migration
(38:56):
and like all that I think is important to do.
I would love to do it and make sure that
we make reservations. There's definitely a lot of wonders about
this National park, and I think it's probably one of
the more underrated National parks in the system. Yeah, there's
especially there's a lot of elements here that are underrated
and unknown, like like the surface trails, and so much
(39:19):
to do beyond just watching the bats and stuff like that.
Um and then continuing with the dream vacation stuff if
we survive that these narrow, terrifying cave tours, I think
would be really nice to stay at the Trinity Hotel
in downtown carl is Bad. Yes, they were so nice, beautiful,
Although keep in mind that when we say downtown we
(39:40):
mean that loosely, and the word downtown air quotes. There's
really not much of a city nearby, and Carl's Bad
caverns is technically not in Carl's Bad New Mexico. It's
kind of like twenty minutes down the road. But the
Trinity Hotel is such a gem. It's along the main
street and it's located in the old bank building. Yeah,
(40:00):
the building used to be an old bank, so it
has this classic motif, very vintage looking, and it's not
a big hotel. There's only a few boutique rooms upstairs,
with this restaurant on the ground floor. Very popular restaurant. Yeah,
I was so glad they could like squeeze us in
because they were like the last table of the night
on like a Tuesday night or something. Yeah, like they
were like, what Tuesday. Yeah, they're killing it. But I'm
(40:23):
obsessed with the green chili chicken Alfredo we had when
we were there was wonderful good and they had some
really good New Mexico wine, Yes they did. It was
like an all New Mexico wine list, very impressive. And
this is right before we were going to the New
Mexico Wine Festival in Albuquerque. Yeah, so really what our appetites,
it was, it was great, So it'd be it'd be
cool to like spend some time there in between Cave tours,
(40:46):
and then yeah, that that'd be just comfortable and not
so comfortable, and when the bats come out to eat
all the mosquitoes will just be gorge and green chili.
Oh yeah, I love green chilies as much as bats
love mosquitoes. You've been listening to park Landia. The show
is created by Matt Carrouac, Brad Carouac, and Christopher hasiotis
(41:09):
produced and edited by Mike Johns, and our executive producer
is Christopher hasiotis special thanks to Gabrielle Collins, Crystal Waters,
and the rest of the park Landia crew. You can
keep up with our travels on our Instagram at Parklandia
pot and join the conversation in our Parklandia Rangers Facebook group.
You can find links to all this stuff in the
show's notes at Parklandia podcast dot com. Parkland is a
(41:31):
production of I Heart Media. Thanks for listening.
If Batman were to live in a national park, he
definitely lived at Carl's Bad Caverns. I'm Brad and I'm Matt,
and we sawed our home in Chicago, bought in r
V and we live on the road full time, just
us and our dog Finn, and we're visiting our national parks.
This is park Landia and we're heading underground the original
bat cave at Carl's Bad. Thanks for listening. Batman would
(00:30):
feel right at home in the enormous pitch black chambers
of Carl's Bad Cavern in New Mexico, just him, a
couple hundred thousand of his roommates who fly out to
eat bugs each night. There are so many bats here
that when they fly out of the caves natural entrance
each evening at sunset, they swirl around in this gigantic
tornado shape and they look like a dark cloud. It's
ominous and overwhelming to behold. And like a park ranger
(00:52):
said that night, it's an iconic National park site to
see right up there with Old Faithful at Yellowstone. Oh yeah,
I would have here with that sentiment. There really is
nothing like the bat migration that caused by Cavern's for
anyone screamish around baths, This probably isn't for you, because
the idea of sitting under a cloud of two baths
probably would give you nightmares. But for anyone else, it's
(01:14):
really stunning, and just seeing them swarm out quietly into
the sky for what seems like hours is really really incredible.
It's essentially one giant feeding frenzy. Though. It's like a
bunch of hungry dinners out of buffet, just feasting for
hours and hours and hours. But instead of eggs, benedict
or prime rib, it's moths mosquitoes on the menu. They
fly around for miles and up into the sky for
(01:36):
several thousand feet even to get their food. That's a
lot of ever for dinner, I'd really just order same.
I can't imagine, like whenever I'm ordering Grabhub and wanting sushi,
like if I were to travel thirty miles and ten
thousand feet in the sky. No things. The coolest part
of the whole batmigration that was just how mysterious these
animals are. I think, like there are so many unanswered
(01:58):
questions and just mysteries about how they act the way
they do, why they act the way they do, the
ranger who's leading the back talk when we were there,
he was talking about how these bats, which are Mexican
freetailed bats, they only live here in Carl's Bad from
mid April through about mid October, so not much is
known about their migration and like where they stay along
(02:20):
the way as they're going back and forth to Mexico. Yeah,
my guess is a motel six or maybe an all nighter. Yeah,
who knows, there's like a bat airbnb or something. I
don't know. You know, they are apparently quite ugly though, Yeah,
so don't get too close. Yeah. You can't see them
up close though, um, since they're so small and they're
flying so fast. But the rangers said, that's the reason
(02:43):
why a lot of people are afraid of bats is
because of their like gnarly faces. I mean it's okay, though,
I know they're beautiful on the inside. Yeah, that's what matters.
Of course, they're these things aren't about to win any
beauty pageants. But in spite of that, they are really
incredible animals and you have to respect that and just
admire it because for one thing, in like a single night,
(03:04):
these bats can eat half their body weight and insect
which is crazy. They're starving. I did name one of them.
That's sweet. She was so cute. Yeah, the whole So,
the whole colony each night can eat up to three
tons of food. That's a dizney amount of food to imagine.
And by night's end, they all kind of returned back
(03:25):
into the cave by dawn, throwing around in that tornado
like shape formation. Um, and then they sleep all day,
hang upside down from the cave ceiling just chilling. Sounds
like me, sounds great. Um. But the the other thing
that the ranger told us that I thought was so
shocking and kind of hard to imagine is these bats
(03:45):
are so small that up to three hundred of them
can be squeezed together in one square foot of ceiling space.
That's crazy and also kind of horrifying to imagine. I
don't want to see that. Yeah, you know, there's another
amazing thing about how these bats helped Carl's Bad Caverns
get discovered in the first place. Even though Native Americans
apparently spend time in the cave more than a thousand
(04:07):
years ago, it wasn't fully explored until the late eighteen hundreds,
when the settlers saw a black cloud of smoke rising
from the earth. Yeah, except surprise, surprise, that black cloud
was not smoke at all. It was actually bats exiting
the cave, and they did so in such a thick,
condensed crowd that from a distance it looked like this
(04:27):
plume of smoke just seemingly rising out of the ground. Caves.
So Jim White is the guy who's credited as the
cave's main explorer. He discovered the cave, he explored, went
in like a brave, curious little man, a pioneer. Yeah, yeah,
(04:48):
that's one. That's another more appropriate term. Um. And he
he's the one who named a bunch of the ravens
informations down in Carl's bad caverns like King's Palace Room,
Green Lake Room, Bottomless Pit, I spurg Rock, and Big Room.
A real creative on that one, Jim. I mean it
definitely earns the name there, since the Big Room is
actually gigantic. Yeah. Yeah, from what we read that you
(05:11):
could fit two US Capitol buildings inside this room, and
that's unbelievable. It's the seventh largest cape chamber in the world,
and it's the one and only chamber that you can
tour on your own it's a long one and a
quarter mile route around the perimeter of this gigantic chamber.
I mean it's filmed with enormous formations and features like
(05:32):
the Lions Main and the Hall of Giants. I mean, oh,
and I can't forget the bottomless pit, which isn't actually bottomless,
but it definitely looks ominous. It definitely does. The Big
Room has lights along the trail, which is pretty nice
because it's well paved the whole way, making it easy
to see where you're going and see all the unique
formations um along the route. Yeah. Fortunately for those lights.
(05:55):
Otherwise we'd be stumbling into the bottomless pit and that
wouldn't end well. I feel like you're gonna die by
falling off a cliff or down a pit. I'm always
I'm always so close to falling to my death. Um.
So let's talk about how we got to the Big Room,
because I thought that was probably my favorite aspect of
Carl's Wide Caverns. Yeah. We got here by way of
(06:19):
the natural Entrance, which starts at the Amphitheater where the
bats migrate, so before the evening, before sunset, where the
when the bats come out. This natural entrance is open
for people to make their way down into the cave
the old fashioned way by zig zagging down This long
paved pathway gets pretty steep. It takes a little while
(06:41):
to complete. Um, it's fairly strenuous, but not as much
when you're going down because it's mostly just gravity doing
most of the work. It's just really cool though, because
you're immersing yourself the way that Jim White and the
initial explorers did, just surrounded by sudden darkness and leaving
the natural light behind. Yeah. I mean, as you make
(07:02):
your way down the cave, you'll enter like two various,
like sprawling rooms. I mean, the whole experience feels more
like a movie, and it seems to be wild to
be just real, it's very wild, it's very surreal, and
I feel like every corner you turn along this Natural
Entrance trail, it just bursts open to these extravagant new
(07:23):
rooms with amazing views and features. It's just breathtaking really. Um.
Speaking of breathtaking features, I want to talk about one
of my favorite formations along the Natural Entrance route, which
is it's called Whale's Mouth, in this giant rock face
that kind of looks like this huge whale rising out
of the water, maybe like a blue whale or something huge.
(07:45):
And I think the thing that I connect with so
much here is that when I was a kid, I
actually made a connection with a whale. And my parents, Yeah,
I know, buckle up because this gets weird. My parents
let me do to those adopt a whale programs, which
I don't know if they still exist. I'm assuming they do.
(08:06):
And I never got to flip through like this catalog
or something and like adopt a whale. And I don't
even know what was involved with said I was like
a little kid. My parents probably handled logistics. But anyway,
I adopted a humpback whale named Midnight and I loved Midnight.
She was like this mostly black humpback whale. I think
she lived probably in the Atlantic somewhere. I don't know um,
(08:29):
But anyway, I would always like tell people like strangers
are like, well, I don't know. People would ask naturally, like, oh,
do you have any pets, and I would say like, yeah,
we have our dog, Nikki, and I have a whale
named Midnight. And people have probably thought I was so crazy,
and they would look at my parents probably like what.
(08:52):
But I loved Midnight. And Midnight. Honestly, it's probably still
alive today. Whales love a route going time, so I
think technically I still have a whale. We have a
whale in our family. Um, I had no clue, and
I love this, but you are literally justifiably insane. I
love whales, and I love whale shaped cave formations. What
(09:13):
can I say? Oh man, we'll put those next to
my cat's mystic and Majestic, Mystic, Majestic and Midnight and Midnight.
I love you. Anyway, back to the natural entrance trail
at the end, once you're done kind of making your
full descend into the cave, you've gone about eight hundred
feet down, which is, as a sign points out, that's
(09:34):
kind of the equivalent of hiking down the Empire State Blelding.
It's quite a track. Yeah, it's a lot easier to
go down, I mean that's what a lot of people do,
you know, the normal people do. Yeah, but it's much
tougher to go up. And we decided we want to
do it both ways. I mean, it was really funny
to watch the people's reaction. Um, as we're coming back
(09:56):
up and like, are you are you really going up?
People can't leave it before reacting like we were crazy,
Like I didn't see any other people going up with
us at the time. There was still a bunch of
people coming down when we were making the truck out,
And this must have been like six or seven different
people who made comments being like, oh, are you picking out.
(10:16):
We're like, yeah, it's not that insane. Yeah, And they're like,
do you know there's an elevator at the bottom, and
we're like, yes, yes, we heard about the elevator. I mean,
like it was tough going up, but like I could
handle it, and I'm a little bit more out of
shape for hiking, um in regards to this time that
I used to be, but it's definitely possible, um, if
you're in decent shape. Yeah. I thought you did great too,
(10:39):
And we made a good time. We like it seemed
to me like we went up the trail faster than
we went down, probably because we were stopping to take
photos a lot on the way down. On the way out,
we're kind of familiar enough that we're like, Okay, we
don't need to stop with the whale's mouth again. Yeah,
but it was definitely amazing to like jump up there
and just like just do it. You know, it's just
like a little fa good. It's only the empire or
(11:01):
state building, you know. Yeah, it's only like going up
and down the first twice a day. Yeah, it was good.
But I want to talk also about kind of the
full body experience involved, because it's more than just like
feeling your muscles. You smell things, you see things off
obviously along this trail, and it's really quite immersive. Yeah,
I mean, everything kind of just shifts as you walk
(11:22):
further into the cave. Pretty much as soon as you
leave the amphitheater, things start to smell weird, mostly from
the bat. Yeah, Dodo, or is you like to sing
that guano? I think the first time I heard the
term back guana was probably in an Aspin Toura movie.
And do you remember Jim Carrey. Yeah, I'm pretty sure
(11:43):
that was from an Aspan tour movie and it stuck
with me and now I'm very familiar. Good job, Good job, Jim,
good job. Hey, there's a lot of Jim. Oh yeah, right.
Things obviously get increasingly dark, and the temperature levels like
drop out around the mid fifties. It's actually quite comfortable
if you're wearing like a light jacket or a sweater
right right, unless you're going up then you take off
(12:05):
those layers. But we're working our way down the cave now. Yeah,
it's actually also really comfortable if you're wearing a batsuit
or whatever that spandex thing that Robin wears, you know, Yes,
this is perfect superhero spandex climate. Yeah, cuts, especially the
ones from that like Batman and Robin movie where Batman
had an explicable nipple marks on a suit. Yes, that's
(12:29):
what you need to be wearing here, oh man, Yes, yeah. Um,
and keeping in this like cinematic weird inadvertent movie theme.
I thought it was so cool to learn that the
portion of the cave that's where they're still kind of
a trickle of natural light as it's mixed in with
(12:49):
the complete darkness. This apparently it's called the twilight zone,
because of course it is, and that this is like
the phase of the cave where things are and get
really really kind of dark and eerie, but in a cool,
like exciting way that really draws you in further. And
then things get really dark and the only light anymore
(13:10):
comes off light bulbs that line the walkway and illuminate
the formations kind of pointing things out for you. Very dim,
very dim the mood, so you do have to keep
a slow pace so you're not stumbling into things. Certain
parts of the trail are darker than others, but for
the most part, it's it's fairly straightforward. UM One thing
(13:31):
to note here. We mentioned photos, but this is kind
of hard to get good photos in the cave, just
f y I unless you have like a special camera
with UM specific equipment designed for taking photos in the dark.
But things don't really turn out on smartphones here. So
it's one of those places where you witness it with
your own eyes and it's beautiful and mesmerizing, but things
(13:54):
really just don't show up nearly as great in iPhone photos.
And that's fine too. Yeah, Well, you're just gonna have
to go and visit and see for yourself. I mean,
you're gonna miss out on a lot of things if
you just look at other people's photos. Yeah, I know,
you have to experience it for yourself, and it's fine
that you don't document it all on Instagram or whatever,
but don't put down your phones because we're gonna be
right back to talk about how many times Matt has
(14:16):
been at this national park. Hi, I'm Brad and I'm Matt.
(14:44):
You're listening to park Landia and today we're talking about
Carl's Bad Caverns National Park, which evidently is one of
my favorite national parks because I've been here three times.
Yeah too, but three times, making it my most visited
national park in the country. So, in other words, I'm
kind of a carls By Caverns pro. Not to brag,
(15:05):
but I'm probably qualified to be a park ranger here
at this point. To be honest, you would love to
be a park ranger at Carl's Bad Caverns. I mean
it's just kind of like your spirit park, you mean,
like dark, ominous and smelling like bad droppings. Yes, um
well definitely. Uh well that's for sure, thank you. I
first visited the park with my brother Brian and my
(15:27):
friends Diana and Elena. This was back in kind of
when I was getting into at this like nature themed
vacation thing with friends and family, and we had this
like week long trip planned out. You can call it
what it is, it's an obsession. It's an obsession. So
we planned to end our trip with a couple of
(15:48):
days and Carl's Bad and we were staying and this
shared cosy little cabin at a nearby k o A campground. Um.
And while we're here, we had this full day our
first day and Carls by the caverns. We booked this
ranger guided tour. We actually had two tours because we
really wanted to maximize their time here. Those cave tours,
(16:10):
they're so great there. Yeah, you have to do some
cave tours while you here, although it just a heads up,
they do fill up pretty quickly. So as far in
advanced as you can make them online, the better, um,
because you don't want to miss out on these. But
I know if you do it to last minute then
you're kind of out of luck. But they're still the
big room. You can tour that in your own um.
(16:31):
But what we did here on our first day was
the left hand Tunnel tour first and the crazy the
awesome thing about that is it's a lantern lit tour.
That is all the visitors holding their own lanterns as
they kind of follow the ranger into the cavern. Did
you get one of those cool hats you know, like
we saw that you could buy their No, No, that's
(16:52):
a bummer, but you could have bought one. I could have,
but I don't. I don't know, I would mess up
my hair look at for the bats, I guess. So
this left hand tunnel tour at last about two hours,
all lit by candle lights, so you're kind of experiencing
this cave, like I said, the old fashioned way, like
(17:13):
this is what the original pioneers were seeing. It was
all like by flickering candle light. And we all gathered
congregated in the visitors center on the surface, and then
all took the elevator down to the tour meeting area
by the there's like this underground cafe. And our arranger
guide was was really great. She was good at getting
everyone to socialize and mingle and do some icebreakers. And
(17:38):
she started things off by having everyone gather in this
circle and introduced themselves. And for some reason I was
like immediately to her left, while my brother and friends
were like the opposite side of the work. I don't
know why. I didn't did my own thing, but awkwardly
by myself corner. Yeah, And so I was the first
one to go and introduce myself, and she asked me
(18:00):
to introduce myself where I'm from, and then as a
nice baker say what your favorite movie is, So I'm like, okay, sure,
So I went, my name is Matt, I'm from Chicago,
and I guess I would probably say Signs of the Lambs.
And then this was immediately met with varied reactions of
shock and laughter from the crowd, like watch out for
(18:21):
that guy. Everyone was like, I don't know if it
was like fake rattled or everyone legitimately thought I would
beat them while we're on the tour or something. But
I guess the theme of this episode is just verifying
Matt's insane This yeah, maybe that's true, especially compared to
like all the other movie answers were so sweet and
faun like Finding Nemo and Star Wars, and I'm like,
(18:42):
sounds to the Lambs, So this wasn't. It was off
to a nice start, and the tour itself was actually
super fun, very informative and I really need to see it,
Like I said, baits in candle light and like nothing
else really primitive and also oh weirdly made me really
hungry because our park ranger kept comparing all the cave
(19:06):
formations to like different foods. She would go, this is
cave popcorn, doesn't it look like popcorn, and like these
are soda straws, and this is cave bacon. She would like,
do all these comparisons, and granted she was accurate. It
actually didn't look like popcorn and bacon and soda straws
and whatnot. And she even made like this obscure comparison
(19:27):
at one point to something one of the cave formations,
she said looked like one of those like marshmallowy chocolate
um snowballs that you would get in like gas stations,
convenience stores or whatever. I loved those. We really shouldn't
have skiped lunch to day. I'm hungry for cave bacon
flavored popcorn now I want, Yeah, I want one of
those snowballs like yesterday. They're so good. And but the
(19:49):
hilarious thing too, she yeah, so she mentioned the snowballs
and she was like, oh, but I wish I could
eat them. I'm just I'm allergic to nuts or something,
and I'm like, what, coconut is not a nut? But anyway,
her heart was in the right place and she was
making me famished. And then my favorite moment of this
tour was when she gathered everybody around it in a
(20:10):
big circle again. This time I was actually in my
appropriate space next to my friends, and we ran around
one by one kind of putting our candles out, so
increasingly the chamber weary and got darker and darker until
the last person put their candle up and it was
complete pitch darkness. And the point of this was to
(20:31):
show to show us what the cave is like in
its natural pure state, and that's just complete nothingness, blackness,
like you can't see your own hand in front of
your face. It's really crazy, like creepy. But also when
you're with people and stuff, you're you're fine, You're not
like a band in there in the dark cave. Um.
(20:52):
But of course I again um kind of embarrassed myself
because as we're like turning out of the candles. She
also said, I want everyone to be completely quiet and
just you know, appreciate the stillness and darkness of the cave.
But for some reason, my body has like a whistle
reaction to do the opposite thing. And as soon as
(21:12):
the last scandal went out, I started like loudly giggling uncontrollably,
and I was making noise, and I'm sure if everyone
could hear me trying to start fell after and then
my brother started giggling and it was shumulating, and I'm
sure the ranger knew it was. I'm starting to imagine
like when you start giggling when you see hummingbirds, like
(21:34):
you go like insane. Um. And it's also my same
reaction to seeing the bats exit of the caves at night. Yes,
it's just pure giddiness, I guess, and that's all I
can really chalk it up to. Um. But yeah, it's
it's just crazy, and it was. It was so much fun.
And then we she kind of slowly went around and
(21:56):
let all our candles back on, probably hating me at
that point. Um. But all in all, it was a
really fun tour, really enlightening. And like I said, I
was starving, so I think I went to the Underground
Cafe and got like a yogurt parfe or something. No
gave flavored bacon. No, that's actually they should really upgrade
(22:16):
the menu at that cafe and have like bacon and
pop warm, because when you're done to these stories, you're
starving for those things, right. But seriously, that was a
pleasant surprise seeing that Carl's bed Cavern's Cafe up at
the National Park. I mean that the museum, the one
of the visitors. It was amazing, shockingly good, and like
I wasn't expecting that at all. I usually don't. I
(22:38):
this is my third time it calls by Caverns, and
I had never stopped at that cafe before. Yeah, I'm
back at the Earth's surface. I mean, it's a lot
nicer up there because you actually get like this counter
service cafe and it uses real ingredients from local farms.
I mean they had their like pulled pork sandwiches and
the printoly bare barbecue sauce UM, and then they had
the chicken green chili stew and it with the most
(23:00):
delicious sauces. Oh yes, I know, so so good. They
didn't have any snowballs though, which kind of stucked. But
they did have fresh guacamole, which also was really good.
I remember being like, wow, this is just so fresh,
so good stuff. I know, I loved it. Geology, this
is not the guacamole podcast, as you know, so I'm
(23:21):
not going to spend too much time on that. Let's
talk about how these cave chambers came to be um originally,
because contrary to all this popcorn talk, it didn't emerge
from microwave didn't. Yeah, well where did it start though,
Come on, tell me, Yeah, here, it all started some
(23:42):
two million years ago when these caves were actually part
of a tropical See this like southern New Mexico, West
Texas area was all submerged in the shallow sea, and
then as climate steadily changed and land mass shifted, the
water that was once here evaporated it and left behind
these limestone layers that ultimately would form the foundation of
(24:05):
Carl's Bad caverns. As rain would trickle through the limestone
and kind of slowly make its way underground, this rainwater
would mix with other water that was doing the opposite
kind of rising back towards the surface, pressurized by hydrogen sulfide.
And then when these two elements mixed, they created a
sulfuric acid that could actually dissolve limestone, and this would
(24:28):
gradually erode the earth into the cave chambers that are
there today. Very yeah, millions millions of Yeah, it's not
a fast process at all. So the same process is
also what forms the the like cave popcorn and cave bacon,
the splag nites, dog tights, all of that. It's just
(24:50):
the steady long process that takes millions of millions of years,
and then you're left with all these magnificent chambers and
cave formations that looked convenient sore snacks. Rainwater is one
of the most beautiful pieces of our existence. I mean,
it just shaped so much of the cave. It's incredible,
(25:12):
like how some something seemingly so gentle and like ineffective
can slowly do this and these because these formations are gigantic,
They're not dainty or minuscule at all. These rooms are
huge the size of football fields, and these formations are
much some of them are much larger than humans. So
just putting that perspective, imagining this is all like the
(25:34):
process of tiny little droplets that are falling into place
over like we said, like hundreds of millions of years trails.
I actually had to stay back well, Matt was hiking
and we had to stay in their view with Finn,
(25:56):
which was beautiful and I love that time by myself
as well, but I had a lot of work to
get done because it burns me blood farm. We were
getting into the planning stages for sum for months um.
But now that I've gotten into the habit of getting
rental cars with matt Um. It's a good thing because
we're able to take the car and explore on our own. Yeah,
(26:18):
I know. I actually can't believe it took us this
long to actually get with it and understand that, like, oh,
rental cars are a thing we could do, because I
get super restless, annoyingly restless. Otherwise, if I don't have
my own option to do my own thing, I need
to need to get out. And I'm as everybody knows
that this mon probably I'm obsessed with hiking and I
can't stop moving, that is for sure right there. I mean,
(26:40):
that's when you know, when I'm free. I love doing
things together like seeing the bat flight and take hikes
along the natural entrance. Yeah, two the best things here
for sure. Another cool thing about the park in one
aspect that a lot of people don't even realize, is
just the abundance of activities and things to do on
the surface above the cave chambers that carls by. Everything
are multiple times and yes, you still find new things
(27:03):
and discover news every time. Every time it's a new surprise.
And this most recent time was my first exploring the
surface and doing some of these surface trails, of which
there are more than fifty miles of trails here. By
the way, there's a lot of charm. Yeah, I I
didn't do all of all fifty of course, that's that'd
be crazy. But I didn't manage to make a dance
at least and start to get a sense for what
(27:26):
the surface that carls By Caverns is like. And it's amazing,
Like no surprise, it's amazing. You're in the the desert um.
It's it's very air their mountainous. These aren't huge looming mountains.
These are more kind of more like rolling hills, pretty
arid and sand and stone and rocky, very craggy with
cactuses and brush and stuff like that. Very unassuming to
(27:50):
having a huge cave there. Yeah, very good, assuming as
you're doing these trails, you would never know that, like, oh,
there's these massive cave chambers beneath my feet that could
contain to us capitol buildings. Who knew? And all these
bats just crumble and fall, you know. No, yeah, exactly. Now,
to get to most of the trails on the surface here,
you have to drive along this extended loop called the
(28:12):
Walnut Canyon Desert Drive. It's this long dirt road that's
towards the top of these hills where the visitor center is.
And you would tell me that it's like you would
not take there. Have you down there? No? No, I
don't think they're even allowed. I think it's one of
those roads. It's so narrow and inaccessible. You can only
get there via a car and the trail. The trail
heads there like so far out in the loop that
(28:34):
that's really your only option. You can't be walking there
or riding a bike or anything. But as long as
you have a car, like we had this rental vehicle,
then it was totally fine. And I took it out.
And the first trail that I did was called Rattlesnake Canyon,
which sounds kind of scary, but it was really harmless.
It's about six miles round trip into the Chuoman Desert
(28:56):
and pretty strenuous, especially on the way back. It's a
steep ascent um as you're returning to the car. But
I loved it. I really got into it and hoofed
it and brought plenty of water because it's really sunny
and hot, especially when you do it like mid afternoon
like I did, and just the stuff you see here
(29:19):
is really delightful and surprising. Again because this is my
third time I call is bad and this is all
I opening for me, Like, I had no idea this
was up here, and it was fun to explore and
see that and traverse some of this canyon. Um, you
get kind of pretty deep into the terrain. And when
we were there some a lot of the cactuses were
(29:41):
starting to blossom, so you have these bright yellow and
pink flowers. Oh it was so gorgeous. Yeah, just really
tranquil too. I didn't see any other people in the trail. Unfortunately,
I didn't see in your rattlesnakes either either, so yeah,
no harm there. Um. I will say on the way
back um to I should have probably slowed down because
(30:02):
on my way back to the car, I for some reason,
I was like speed walking or speed hiking as I
want to do, and it was quite steep, and I
was so tired and so thirsty, and I had long
since chugged my water, so I was in a cheking
water you yeah, no, no, no, no wildlife. But I
(30:27):
remember when you came back from that, you picked me
up so we can go to the bat Fright program. Yeah, totally.
That was really fun. I'm glad that we made it
for that conveniently named it is located at the Bat
Flight Amphitheater. This is really delightful because I get to
bring up baths again. And I remember the park Ranger
having the driest sense of humor. I mean, he was
(30:50):
so entertaining to listen to, because it was like listening
to Ron Swanson from Parks and Wreck. Yeah, like Ron
Burgundy or something. I love the snark. Yeah, maybe just
like a high bred like the best of both Ron's. Yes,
Randy run. He was great. And I didn't even know
that there would be a park Ranger or one of
their bat flight programs because I know we're kind of
(31:11):
early in the season. The bats were freshly back from
their migration, so I didn't know when they would start
back up again. And even the website said like they
weren't going to start until the end of the month,
and We're like, we're gonna moves. Shoot yeah, and then
narrowly we we would have only missed up like a week,
which would be in such a bummer. I think the
only reason why we actually went because one night we
saw all these cars coming out at the same time,
so we figured, oh that they must be doing it. Yes,
(31:33):
and much to our delight, it all worked out and
we have to learn all about these amazing creatures. And
also one important aspect that he reminded us several times
is several Yeah, it's important. Um, no electronic devices whatsoever
are allowed during the bat flight program. And in fact,
he insists that you not only turn on phones on
(31:56):
airplane mode, but like completely off in a way. And
this goes for not just funds, but like any other
thing you might have, like cameras and I don't know
what other pocket sized electronics people might have these No,
oh gosh, no, that's all right. Yeah, they'd be especially
awful because the thing is the bats are really sensitive
(32:19):
to light and stuff like that. So if things potentially
flash and harm their eyes or scare them or whatnot,
it could have serious repercussions, meaning like they might not
come back to the cave. They might go somewhere else
where they're not being harassed by camera flash. Yeah, I
know that can ruin their whole entire natural existence in
(32:41):
that cave. Um, you know, because their warm up flights
where they circle the cave entrance by the thousands quickly,
um and quietly. We got to watch as we do
not distrupt them, but loud noises, talking, flashes on the
cameras anything like that can just ruin it for a
few two generations. Absolutely, and there's no fixing it once.
(33:03):
If the bats just to hear, they're not coming back,
so don't ruin it. Yeah, like this is for the
next eight years of people. Yeah, and they should be
protecting it for the eight hundred years after them. Yeah, totally. Also,
the really cool thing about the bat, or a real
benefit of that of everyone putting their devices away and
being quiet is re able to experience this amazing phenomenon
(33:25):
in utter silence, and that just adds to the awe
of the whole thing. The bats. All you really hear
is this delicate light fluttering because their wings are so
small and there's such lightweight animals that they're not like
making big flapping noises like birds or anything. So you're
just in this really silent, mesmerized state with these clouds
(33:46):
of bats swarming above your head. It's really incredible, really,
it really is. I Mean we sat there for a
good forty five minutes to an hour just watching them.
After they started flying out like there was just hundreds
of thousands of them and it was so so beautiful. Yeah,
I know, it really was. We were there for well
(34:08):
into darkness they go for a while. We left before
the migration was even over. They were still coming out
like hey, we're like, okay, we should probably call it
a night. This is park Landia. Thank you for listening.
We'll have more after a short break. I'm Brad, I'm Matt.
(34:37):
Welcome back to park Landia, my favorite. Now it's a
time to go into one of our favorite segments of
the podcast. What was our favorite part of this National park?
But this time I want to say it together on
a kund of three or after the kind of three,
so it goes one to three, then answer alrighty one
(35:03):
two three. WHOA. I really thought I really thought we
were going to be in sync on that, and um,
the fact that we aren't, it just shows you that
I really really missed out by not going on a tour. Unfortunately,
we'll have to do that next time. And then so
I want to do that lantern tour again. I would
(35:24):
do that in a heartbeat. It was so much fun. Yeah,
we're gonna have to plan that better next time. That
was my phone. Well, I you know, because of that tour.
One of the three things that I would definitely bring
would be layers because it gets cold as you go
down into the cave and I would love to do
that tour, so I need to bring layers from my
next trip. UM definitely like one leader of water. It's
(35:45):
surprisingly crazy how much water you drink from the hiking
trails above, as you've noted, and then going down into
the cave and back, there's just a lot of water consumption.
But this is something that has them up in almost
every three things to bring, so bring a lot of water. Um.
And then for me, UM, we had to do laundry
(36:08):
the last day and which was really frustrating because they
closed it like seven and we just got it done
in time. But I would definitely bring some quarters for
the r Very Park, laundry, exciting stuff. UM. The things
that I would bring first and foremost, make sure that
you have a supply of snacks like popcorn and bacon
and stuff, because you're gonna want it after you do
(36:29):
one of the tours, I assure you. The other thing,
I would also really agree with the layers thing because
the temperature differential is big, especially if you visit um
during their prime, like summer months when it's really hot
on the surface, and then the temperature plummets to like
the mid fifties, so you almost need to have like
an outfit change. I recommend bringing like a light jacket
(36:50):
or something, and I had like leggings on underneath my shorts,
so there's a little flexibility there. Mats like Beyonce performance
style of Later. He just strips them off throughout the
day and fabulously perfect. I always appreciate that comparison. Thank you. Um.
And then I would say the third thing to bring
(37:11):
would be, um, maybe a copy of Snce Little Lambs,
because it's gonna put you in the mood. Don't be
a creep come on, come on. I do love that movie.
We watch it probably. I stand by that game. It's
my favorite movie. I don't care how many people in
a cave laugh at me. Yeah, it's really creepy. Um.
(37:31):
But you know, now, in regard to our dream vacation
at Carl's Bad Caverns, I think we both have our
heart set on doing hands on cave tour. Yes, I
would love to do that so much. Yeah, I mean,
the park has a couple of tours that they call
wild caving, and these are not for the faint of heart,
but they are from my heart because I want to
do it. I want to squeeze through them. I want
(37:51):
to go through them. But then there's the Spider Cave tour,
which I'm not Yeah, I'm like not all about that
spider life. I mean it's fine. Um. And then there's
a hall of gray white giants. Yeah, someone sounds us intimidating. Yeah,
the white giant. I mean it just sounds like it's
a big space, so it shouldn't be that hard, right, Yeah,
(38:15):
although I mean from what it sounds like, both these
are basically super lunking, Like you're squeezing and crawling and
you're in narrow spaces for a while. There are long
tourists too, Compared to like the other ones, these are
like four hours. So don't be fooled by the name.
Is that what you're saying? Yeah, kind because it requires
crawling through, you know, squeezing into tight spaces. I mean
you'll probably get dirty, right, you'll yeah, you'll get dirty.
(38:36):
I love it. Yes, let's go back. You'll probably get scared,
but it'll be good. It'll be a memory, that's for sure,
and they'll stick with you. And as honestly as frightening
as these situations sound, it also sounds primarily amazing. And
for me it just seems like a real bucket list
type experience right up there with like the bat migration
(38:56):
and like all that I think is important to do.
I would love to do it and make sure that
we make reservations. There's definitely a lot of wonders about
this National park, and I think it's probably one of
the more underrated National parks in the system. Yeah, there's
especially there's a lot of elements here that are underrated
and unknown, like like the surface trails, and so much
(39:19):
to do beyond just watching the bats and stuff like that.
Um and then continuing with the dream vacation stuff if
we survive that these narrow, terrifying cave tours, I think
would be really nice to stay at the Trinity Hotel
in downtown carl is Bad. Yes, they were so nice, beautiful,
Although keep in mind that when we say downtown we
(39:40):
mean that loosely, and the word downtown air quotes. There's
really not much of a city nearby, and Carl's Bad
caverns is technically not in Carl's Bad New Mexico. It's
kind of like twenty minutes down the road. But the
Trinity Hotel is such a gem. It's along the main
street and it's located in the old bank building. Yeah,
(40:00):
the building used to be an old bank, so it
has this classic motif, very vintage looking, and it's not
a big hotel. There's only a few boutique rooms upstairs,
with this restaurant on the ground floor. Very popular restaurant. Yeah,
I was so glad they could like squeeze us in
because they were like the last table of the night
on like a Tuesday night or something. Yeah, like they
were like, what Tuesday. Yeah, they're killing it. But I'm
(40:23):
obsessed with the green chili chicken Alfredo we had when
we were there was wonderful good and they had some
really good New Mexico wine, Yes they did. It was
like an all New Mexico wine list, very impressive. And
this is right before we were going to the New
Mexico Wine Festival in Albuquerque. Yeah, so really what our appetites,
it was, it was great, So it'd be it'd be
cool to like spend some time there in between Cave tours,
(40:46):
and then yeah, that that'd be just comfortable and not
so comfortable, and when the bats come out to eat
all the mosquitoes will just be gorge and green chili.
Oh yeah, I love green chilies as much as bats
love mosquitoes. You've been listening to park Landia. The show
is created by Matt Carrouac, Brad Carouac, and Christopher hasiotis
(41:09):
produced and edited by Mike Johns, and our executive producer
is Christopher hasiotis special thanks to Gabrielle Collins, Crystal Waters,
and the rest of the park Landia crew. You can
keep up with our travels on our Instagram at Parklandia
pot and join the conversation in our Parklandia Rangers Facebook group.
You can find links to all this stuff in the
show's notes at Parklandia podcast dot com. Parkland is a
(41:31):
production of I Heart Media. Thanks for listening.
Parklandia News
Hosts And Creators
Brad Kirouac
Matt Kirouac
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