04/30/2021
When you think of visiting Carlsbad, the first destination you likely consider is the world-famous caverns. But if that’s the only place you explore, you’re missing out on many other adventures! Let’s visit Carlsbad, starting with the caverns and then going above and beyond, finding more great outdoor opportunities where it is easy to be socially distant.
Carlsbad Caverns National Park
Perched high on a Permian bluff is the visitor center for Carlsbad Caverns National Park. Thanks to a unique geologic history, travelers today can explore the huge caverns that are decorated with breathtaking stalactites and stalagmites, draperies, ribbons, and popcorn. Water dripping into the limestone caverns across the millennia has slowly built these formations, a process that continues today.
Oil drilling on sensitive New Mexico public lands puts drinking water, rare caves at risk
A National Geographic investigation has found that Permian Basin energy exploration could taint residential aquifers with pollutants as well as Carlsbad Caverns and other cave systems.
The Chihuahuan Desert in the Guadalupe Mountains of southern New Mexico is one place where sensitive public lands are being drilled for oil.Photograph by Robbie Shone, Nat Geo Image Collection
ByJennifer Oldham
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At 4.3 miles long, Parks Ranch Cave in southeastern New Mexico is the second longest gypsum cave in the Western Hemisphere. The cave and its multiple branches are among 550 that crisscross a fragile, sinkhole-prone geologic region renowned for Carlsbad Caverns.