Welcome to Carlsbad Caverns National Park!

As you pass through the Chihuahuan Desert and Guadalupe Mountains of southeastern New Mexico and west Texas - filled with prickly pear, chollas, sotols and agaves - you might never guess there are more than 300 known caves beneath the surface. The park contains 113 of these caves, formed when sulfuric acid dissolved the surrounding limestone, creating some of the largest caves in North America.

SOURCE: National Park Service

The Pearlsian Gulf in Lechuguilla Cave.

Lechuguilla Cave was known until 1986 as a small, fairly insignificant historic site in the park’s back country. Small amounts of bat guano were mined from the entrance passages for a year under a mining claim filed in 1914. The historic cave contained a 90-foot entrance pit which led to 400 feet of dry dead-end passages.

The cave was visited infrequently after mining activities ceased. However, in the 1950s cavers heard wind roaring up from the rubble-choked floor of the cave. Although there was no obvious route, different people concluded that cave passages lay below the rubble. A group of Colorado cavers gained permission from the National Park Service and began digging in 1984. The breakthrough, into large walking passages, occurred on May 26, 1986.

What followed has become some of the world’s most exciting cave exploration in one of the finest known caves on the planet. Since 1984, explorers have mapped 120+ miles of passages and had pushed the depth of the cave to 1,604 feet, ranking Lechuguilla as the 5th longest cave in the world (3rd longest in the United States) and the deepest limestone cave in the country. Cavers, drawn by unexplored passage and never-before-seen beauty, come from around the world to explore and map the cave.

SOURCE: National Parks Service Lechuguilla Cave