On the ninth day we hiked over 750 feet underground into Carlsbad Caverns. This was the first of several national parks on our agenda.

As we descended into the cavern, Liv and I debated whether or not this would be a good place to wait out the eventual Zombie Apocalypse. I was obviously on the pro side, but Liv won the debate by pointing out that if we were being chased by zombies the last place she would want to go is some scary-ass dark hole in the ground. I had no counter-argument.

That being said, we loved Carlsbad Caverns. I've seen caves and caverns before, but what makes Carlsbad in itself worthy of the drive from Indiana is its immensity. The end of our hike down took us into the limestone chamber they call the "Big Room". Aptly named since it is the largest room in the cavern at 8.2 acres (or nearly 4,000 feet long, 625 feet wide, and 255 feet high at the highest point.)

  

A Backpacker's Life List by Ryan Grayson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.