Ellie Gohn

27 September 2022

GEOG 2080 - Dr. Cook

Module Assignment #2

Two summers ago, I had the opportunity to visit Carlsbad Caverns National Park while

on a family road trip across the southwest United States. This national

park is located in the Guadalupe Mountains within the state of New

Mexico. While visiting Carlsbad Cavern, I was absolutely fascinated

by the natural occurring formations that filled the cave from top to

bottom. I was equally fascinated with the intricate ways that humans

had transformed this intense environment into an attraction accessible

to people that do not possess the skills that are traditionally necessary

to explore caves.

The Carlsbad Caverns are limestone caves that began formation over 250 million years

ago in a fossil reef created by an inland sea. The area around the caverns was inhabited for many

years by Native American tribes and explored by Spanish explorers as well as industrial and

commercial exploits (U.S. Department of the Interior, 2017). In 1898, Jim White, who was a

teenager at the time, was possibly the first person to discover the entrance to the Carlsbad

Caverns. His expedition into the caves that ensued following this discovery is rumored to have

been the first. The legacy that he left through his curiosity and bravery established him as “Mr.

Carlsbad Caverns” to the local public that now honors his memory (U.S. Department of the

Interior, 2017).
 Whenever I visited the national park, I was

surprised to observe how many modern amenities the park

contained. Some of these features included elevators that

take visitors down 79 stories to the Big Room, a sprawling

visitor center that offers the opportunity to watch an

educational film and view exhibits, a restaurant, a

bookstore, a gift shop, a snack bar in the Big Room,

handrails along the entirety of the trails, lighting to

accentuate the formations, and even restrooms within the cavern. Being that Carlsbad Caverns

National Park sees an average of 410,000 visitors per year, it’s no surprise that so many modern

amenities have been added in order to keep visitors comfortable and ensure they leave with

positive memories of their time underground (Veni, 2022).

Managing the experience of visitors within a cavern hundreds of feet underground is no

small feat. The management has become especially challenging with the modernization of old

amenities and addition of new ones. Recently, the elevators within the cavern began experiencing

technical difficulties, as the motors have not

been replaced since 1976. An incident in

November of 2015 is what ultimately led to

the launch of a $17 million project to

modernize and rebuild the elevator system

(U.S. Department of the Interior, 2018).

Upon completion of the project, park staff

will be able to quickly and efficiently rescue visitors who become stranded in the elevator by
remotely operating the car and speaking to its occupants in real time. The upgrade will also add

the helpful resource of rescue cages that have the ability to be lowered to the stranded car to

rescue visitors. The national park will now invite an outside company inside the cavern on a

monthly and annual basis to perform maintenance on the elevator system to ensure it is running

in optimal condition (U.S. Department of the Interior, 2018).

Another factor that plays a huge part in complicating Carlsbad Caverns’ management is

the intricate and delicate biodiversity that exists throughout the park. The current analysis of

fauna within the caverns identified that there are over 1,000 species present within Carlsbad

Cavern National Park’s land. This includes species of mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians,

fish, and insects (U.S. Department of the Interior, 2022). There are many types of flora and

fauna that, due to their isolated

environment within caverns or

springs throughout the park, are

defined as endemic species. Due to

the nature of these species, it is

important for them to remain isolated

in order to preserve the unique

function that the organisms play in

its environment (Moseley, 2014). The preservation of these species has put many otherwise

nonexistent barriers in the way of developers in their quest to establish Carlsbad Caverns as a

tourist destination. Although human impact is inevitable, it has remained clear that the National

Parks System has never ignored the importance of sharing these natural phenomena to visitors in

the most organic form possible.

 Work Cited

Moseley, W. G. (2014). Interactions: Competition, Predation, Mutualism. In An

introduction to human-environment geography: Local Dynamics and Global

Processes. essay, Wiley-Blackwell.

U.S. Department of the Interior. (2017). History & culture. National Parks Service.

Retrieved September 27, 2022, from

https://www.nps.gov/cave/learn/historyculture/index.htm

U.S. Department of the Interior. (2018). Elevators modernization at Carlsbad Caverns

nears completion. National Parks Service. Retrieved September 27, 2022, from

https://www.nps.gov/cave/learn/news/elevators-modernization-at-carlsbad-cavern

s-nears-completion.htm

U.S. Department of the Interior. (2022). Animals. National Parks Service. Retrieved

September 27, 2022, from https://www.nps.gov/cave/learn/nature/animals.htm

Veni, G. (2022). The Show Caves of West Texas and Southwest New Mexico. National

Cave and Karst Research Institute. Retrieved September 28, 2022, from

https://www.nckri.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/NCKRI-FG-2.pdf
 Photos

1. Personal Photo

2. Personal Photo

3. An elevator car descends down a 750-foot elevator shaft, Oct. 11, 2019 at Carlsbad

Caverns National Park. Adrian Hedden, Current-Argus.

4. Thousands of Mexican free-tailed bats emerge from the Carlsbad Caverns to hunt. Walter

Meayers Edwards / National Geographic - Getty Images