#07: Carlsbad Caverns National Park

Dear Bob and Sue: A National Parks Podcast

Matt and Karen Smith

Society & Culture, Nature, Personal Journals, Places & Travel, Science

5.0 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 2 April 2020

⏱️ 68 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Join Matt and Karen as they descend 750 feet underground to explore what Karen thinks is one of the most magical places in the entire U.S. national park system: Carlsbad Caverns. Matt’s not a huge fan of dark, scary holes, but he puts on a brave face during the couple’s multiple visits to this enchanted part of the Chihuahuan Desert in southern New Mexico. You might want to have a flashlight or two close by when you listen to this episode, just in case the lights go out and you need to self-rescue your way back to daylight. That’s one of the lasting effect these cave visits had on Matt: he never goes anywhere now without at least a couple light sources with him. In this episode we discuss: The variety of cave tours offered at Carlsbad Caverns Which caves Matt and Karen visited Why Matt’s not a fan of caves What to know if you’re planning to attend the bat flight program The ranger speech that made Karen tear up Why Karen is thinking about becoming a scientist Links: To see photos from our travels, visit our Instagram account, or TikTok account Carlsbad Caverns NPS website Join the conversation on Facebook Our books Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	And he said, well, let me just put it this way.
0:02.6	If I put my hands on you, you're going to jail. This is the Dear Bob and Sioux Podcast, Our Stories of Adventures and Misadventures
0:25.6	as we travel to all the U.S. National Parks and other public lands.
0:29.4	I'm Matt Smith.
0:30.4	And I'm Karen Smith.
0:31.9	We're the authors of the Dear Bob and Sioux series of books.
0:35.0	Today we're going spelunking in Carlsbad Caverns National Park.
0:40.0	Ah, Carls Bad Caverns, home to a series of at least 120 caves in the Chihuahuan Desert in New Mexico.
0:47.0	Some of the areas inside the caverns are easy to walk around in.
0:51.0	Some of them are, but other parts require a bit more gear and effort to get into,
0:56.6	like repelling down walls and climbing slippery ladders. But I thought it was all worth
1:01.6	it to see these amazing caverns.
1:04.0	Well, yeah, if you like to go into dark scary holes.
1:07.0	But before we get to our stories about Carl's Bad Caverns,
1:10.0	we talk about an exciting surprise we got last week and why it's going to require a little extra training this summer.
1:16.0	And at the end of the episode, we'll answer a question from a listener in our mail bag segment. Well, we got some surprising news last week.
1:30.8	We did, rather shocking news actually. It was shocking after trying for like 10 years
1:36.7	in a row we got we won permits to hike the Enchantments in Central Washington in the
1:42.3	Cascade Mountains.
1:43.6	This beautiful area with Alpine Lakes
1:46.2	that is hard to get a permit because the
1:48.8	National Forest System limits the number of people
	...

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