10/12/16, Wednesday: Carlsbad Cavern National Park, NM

Today we did the self-guided tour of the Cavern. After checking-out the Visitor Center (which had a nice scale-model of the cavern), we walked in the ‘Natural Entrance,’ which is a series of switchbacks that transition from sunlit at the cave entrance to darker and darker as you descend deeper and further into the cave entrance. We were totally surprised by how dark some sections of the trail were, and wished we had brought a flashlight for the stretches where no lighting was provided. It was a little spooky, as we were the all alone for quite awhile. I finally resorted to putting on a glove (brought for the cool temperature inside the cave, 56 degrees) to appease the germaphobe in me, and used the hand rail as a guide as we slowly shuffled our feet along the pathway.