Carlsbad Caverns National Park, New Mexico

Nature Trail
Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
11/04/2024	1 miles	27 minutes	90'	2.4 mph	697.6 miles
Old Guano Trail
Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
11/04/2024	6.5 miles	2 hours 46 minutes	384'	2.4 mph	704.1 miles

Parking: 

• n/a

Map:

• Gaia GPS app

Directions:

• n/a

In the morning, we drove from Alamogordo to Carlsbad Caverns National Park. We walked around the exhibits at the visitor center and asked them for a hiking trail map, but they didn't have any. I guess most people just visit the actual caverns. You can actually buy a National Geographic map for the park, but the park doesn't have a lot of trails, and some of the trails were closed. The ranger told us about a nature trail, so we started there and did a loop. We stopped at a cave opening that was fenced off. It smelled like bat guano, which used to be removed for fertilizer. At the visitor center, I bought a cute bat sticker that says, "Guano Happens".

We returned to our car and prepped for the Old Guano Trail to White City. Yeah, for Gaia showing us trails! Wow - the wind! The forecast was for 25 mph winds with 37 mph gusts. November is the start of wind season. The trail was mostly flat. We skipped the descent down to White City and stopped to have a snack before turning around. We did feel like we were being blown around on the trail. We talked to a ranger, and it doesn't sound like too many people hike this trail.

Back at the visitor center, we saw there was a ranger led bat program at 4:45pm. How exciting! We thought it was past bat season. Well, technically it is but they still have 10's of thousands of bats instead of 100's of thousands of bats. I brought my sleeping bag with me for the bat viewing because it gets very cold at night in the desert. The ranger talked about bats for around 30 minutes until the bats started flying out of the cave. It started out as a few, then thousands. It was very cool - a bucket list item for sure. No photos of the bats. as they ask that you power down all electronic devices (bats don't like them).

Uh oh...on the drive to Carlsbad Caverns we started seeing snow.
None of us packed winter boots or microspikes.

View from the car starting to look drier.

Cold and windy, but at least no snow.

We started out with the nature trail, a short loop.

Visitor center and admin buildings.

Cave opening. It smells like bat guano.

We returned to our car, and then decided to do the Old Guano Trail.
It starts off at the nature trail loop trailhead too.

Cholla

Lunch in the middle of the trail.

Fossils (I asked about them when we visited Guadalupe National Park).

NM has great sunrises and sunsets.
View from the visitor center parking lot.

White Sands National Park, New Mexico

Backcountry Camping Area Trail
Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
11/03/2024	1.7 miles	50 minutes	15'	2.0 mph	695.3 miles
Dune Life Nature Trail
Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
11/03/2024	0.9 miles	23 minutes	94'	2.3 mph	696.2 miles
Playa Trail
Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
11/03/2024	0.4 miles	13 minutes	9'	1.7 mph	696.6 miles

Parking: 

• n/a

Map:

• n/a

Directions:

• n/a

We woke up early and drove from Albuquerque to White Sands National Park. We had to pass through border patrol on the way there. Our first stop was the visitor center. Then we drove to the end of the 8-mile road through the park and stopped to eat lunch at a picnic table somewhat protected from the wind. From what we've read, November is the start of "wind season". 

White Sands has the largest gypsum dunes in the world. They almost look like snow. On part of the 8-mile road, we weren't allowed to get out of our car due to an air force 'mishap' in the park. We did 3 hikes on the dunes. The sand was pretty firm, so walking on them was easier than expected (way easier than the dunes hiking we did earlier this year in Colorado). Some people sled down the dunes. There is also a 5-mile trail that we didn't do, as well as a short trail in the restricted area. I was hoping to see lizards or other wildlife, but no such luck. One day is really all you need for this park.

We decided to get a room in Alamogordo for the night. We saw signs for Pistachioland and the world's largest pistachio, so we had to stop by. It started raining, so we missed out on going on a pistachio farm tour. But we enjoyed free tastings of flavored pistachios with flavors like dill pickle, lemon lime, and chocolate. We also took photos with the giant pistachio :) We stopped by a grocery store to pick up food for dinner. It had a couple of unusual things. They were selling huge bags of chilis - the bags look like the size of a large dog food bag. And the grocery store made fresh tortillas. People stood in line to order massive amounts of tortillas, fresh from the oven. 

Visitor Center

Picnic area at the end of the park road

You could camp on the first trail we took. 
I don't think you'd sleep much because of the wind though.

The only way to find the trail is to look for these markers in the sand.
The wind blows away any sign of a formal trail.

Cottonwood

How do you eat this many chiles?

Tortilla making