April 20 - by Madison
Today we went to Carlsbad Cavern National Park. This was another cave, however this one is different from most of the other caves because of the way it formed. It didn't form by water, but it was formed by sulfuric acid, which ate away at the rocks leaving huge rooms of darkness and air. In the 1800’s Jim White was the first American to explore the cave. He knew the cave better than anyone else back then.
He led tours and wondered into the cave over 100 times. In 1930 Carlsbad Cavern became a National Park, and it became a World Heritage Site in 1955. When we got there we went got a self-guided audio tour because the ranger tours were all sold out. We walked on a ½ mile trail to get into the cave. When we went into the cave we saw birds flying into the cave! I thought that this was interesting because birds usually live in the trees, not in a cave.
These birds are called Chirping Swallows and they live here in this cave. When we started walking the path we could really smell their droppings, and it smelled very bad. Luckily this smell didn’t last long, and it ended in about 2 minutes. When we got deep into the cave I was seeing a lot of cave popcorn. It was the most cave popcorn I have ever seen in a cave.
I was also seeing a lot of cool formations. One of my favorite ones was lion’s tail, which was a stalactite that had a lot of cave popcorn at the end of it. The popcorn at the end of it really gave the tail the bushy feeling of the lion’s tail. Another formation that I thought stood out was the mushroom shapes near the cave pools.
They looked really neat because it looked like someone cut the top of it so it looked really flat. When we were done touring the cave we went to the RV Park and Katelyn and Emma wouldn’t stop talking about how sisters are like bras because they said that sisters are supportive, make you look good, are close to your heart, and never leave you hanging. I really liked Carlsbad Caverns because I liked all of the formations that it had in it.
I think that this would be my second favorite cave that I have been to because I still like Jewel Cave the best. I liked Jewel Cave the best because of the cave bacon and of all of the jewels. I had a lot of fun in the caves today.