It is a United States National Park in the Guadalupe Mountains in southeastern New Mexico. The park consist of the show cave, Carlsbad Caverns where people who come to visit the cave can hike in on their own via the natural entrance, or take the elevator (the exit for everyone) directly to the Underground Lunchroom some 750 feet (230 m) below. The park has two entries on the National Register of Historic Places: The Caverns Historic District and the Rattlesnake Springs Historic District. Approximately two thirds of the park has been set aside as a wilderness area, helping to ensure no future changes will be made to the habitat. Carlsbad Caverns consist of a large cave chamber, the Big Room, a natural limestone chamber which is almost 4,000 feet (1,220 m) long, 625 feet (191 m) wide, and 350 feet (110 m) high at the highest point. It is the third largest chamber in North America and the seventh largest in the world. The largest in the world is the Sarawak Chamber in Malaysia.
From a young age, Jim White explored the caverns with his homemade wire ladder. When he grew older, most people did not even believe such caves existed. He gave many of the rooms their names, including the Big Room, New Mexico Room, King's Palace, Queen's Chamber, Papoose Room, and Green Lake Room. He also named many of the cave's more prominent formations, such as the Totem Pole, Witch's Finger, Giant Dome, Bottomless Pit, Fairyland, Iceberg Rock, Temple of the Sun, and Rock of Ages.
The town of Carlsbad, which lends its name to the Caverns and National Park, is in turn named after the Czech town formerly known by the German name Karlsbad and now known by the Czech name Karlovy Vary, both of which mean "Charles' Bath." Until 1932, visitors to the cavern had to walk down a switch back ramp-sidewalk that took them 750 feet below the surface. The walk back up was hard on a lot of visitors. In 1932 the National Park opened up a large visitor center building that contained two elevators that would take visitors to the caverns below. The new center included a cafeteria, waiting room, museum and first aid area.
The caves include a cave named Balloon Ballroom which is located in the ceiling above the main entrance hall, this small room was first accessed by tying a rope to a whole bunch of balloons and floating them up into the passage. Another is the Bat Cave; a large, unadorned rocky passage connected to the main entrance corridor. The majority of the cave's bat population lives in this portion of the cave, which was mined for bat guano in the early 20th century. Bell Cord Room named for a long, narrow stalactite coming through a hole in the ceiling, resembling the rope coming through a church steeple to ring the bell. This room is located at the end of the Left Hand Tunnel. Bifrost Room was discovered in 1982, which is located in the ceiling above Lake of the Clouds. Its name refers to a Norse myth about a world in the sky that was accessed from Earth by a rainbow. The room was given this name because of its location above the Lake of the Clouds and its colorful oxide-stained formations.
Big Room or The Hall of the Giants is the largest chamber in Carlsbad Caverns, with a floor space of 357,469 square feet (33,210 m2). Chocolate High can be seen as a maze of small passages totalling nearly a mile (1500 m) in combined length, discovered in 1993 above a mud-filled pit in the New Mexico Room known as Chocolate Drop. Green Lake Room is the uppermost of the "Scenic Rooms", it is named for a deep, malachite-colored pool in the corner of the room. In the 1940s, when the military was testing the feasibility of Carlsbad Cavern as an emergency fallout shelter, the Green Lake was used to look for ripples caused by a nuclear bomb test many miles away. None appeared.
Guadalupe Room was a discovery by a park ranger in 1966; this is the second largest room in Carlsbad Caverns. It is known for its dense collection of "soda straw" stalactites. Hall of the White Giant; a large chamber containing a large, white stalagmite. Rangers regularly lead special wild-cave tours to this room. King's Palace is the first of four chambers in a wing known as the "scenic rooms", it is named for a large castle-like formation in the center of the room. Lake of the Clouds is the lowest known point in the cave. It is located in a side passage off the Left Hand Tunnel. It is named for its large lake containing globular, cloud-like rock formations that formed under water when the lake level was much higher. Left Hand Tunnel is a long, straight passage marked by deep fissures in the floor. These fissures are not known to lead anywhere. The Left Hand Tunnel leads to the Lake of the Clouds and the Bell Cord Room.
Mabel's Room; another cave found here, which is a moderate-sized room located past the Talcum Passage in Lower Cave. Mystery Room is a large, sloping room located off the Queen's Chamber, named for an unexplained noise heard only here. New Mexico Room is located adjacent to the Green Lake Room and accessed by means of a somewhat narrow corridor. New Section is a section of fissures east of the White Giant formation and paralleling the Bat Cave. New discoveries are still being made in this section. Papoose Room is located between the King's Palace and Queen's Chamber.
Queen's Chamber is widely regarded as the most beautiful and scenic area of the cave. Jim White's lantern went out in this chamber while he was exploring, and he was in the dark for over half an hour. Spirit World is located in the ceiling of the Big Room at its highest point (an area known as the Top of the Cross), this area is filled with white stalagmites that resembled angels to the room's discoverers. Talcum Passage is a room located in Lower Cave where the floor is coated with gypsum dust. The Rookery is one of the larger rooms in Lower Cave. A large number of cave pearls are found in this area. Underground Lunchroom is located in the Big Room at the head of the Left Hand Tunnel. It contains a cafeteria that was built in the 1950s, and is where the elevators from the visitor center exit into the cave.
The park has 116 caves and the only other one open to the public is Slaughter Canyon Cave, which also has striking rock formations. No paving or lighting has been installed, and visitors may enter only on guided tours with a ranger. Lechuguilla Cave, discovered in 1986, is the focus of much current cave exploration at the park. It has been mapped to a depth of 1,600 feet (490 m), making it the deepest limestone cave in the U.S. The entrance is in an old mining pit called Misery Hole in an obscure corner of the park. It is not accessible to the general public, and the exact location of Misery Hole is kept relatively hidden in an attempt to preserve the cave undisturbed.
It is found that there are about seventeen species of bats live in the park, including a large number of Mexican Free-tailed Bats. Estimations reveal that the population of Mexican Free-tailed Bats once numbered in the millions but has declined drastically in modern times. The cause of this decline is unknown but the pesticide DDT is often listed as a primary cause. Populations appear to be on the increase in recent years but are nowhere near the levels that may have been historically present. Many techniques have been used to estimate the bat population in the cave. The most recent and most successful of these attempts involved the use of thermal imaging camera to track and count the bats. A count from 2005 estimated a peak of 793,000.
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