Goat Cave

Today we hiked to Goat Cave, one of over 100 caves in Carlsbad Caverns National Park. It's a two and a half mile hike each way to get there through Arroyos, or rocky trails where water flows after a storm. Tough on the feet, ankles, knees and both John and I are sore tonight.

It's not an extremely scenic cave with many formations. It was mined for guano in the 30's, and damaged extensively. Here are a few pics John took at the entrance with our fellow hikers/rangers and inside the cave.



The cave itself isn't that long, maybe 1000 ft deep or so. Dark enugh to need a flashlight, helmut or something, but you can't really get lost in it.

One of the little nooks that we investigated. Some graffitti on the formations here back as far as 1920's????

One of the prettier areas in the cave...

Still some activity in the cave - meaning growth for water dripping. New calcite deposits forming a stalagmite.

Appeared to be some fresh bat guano in the cave, but the bats have already migrated south for the winter. Also lots of bird poop, and they too have migrated south for the winter. As the bats and birds have, John and I will migrate back to FL next month some time. I'll keep you posted.

Love,

VAL & JOHN