Master plan Carlsbad Caverns

National Park Service

The essence of the Carlsbad Caverns National Park experience has always been a view into the intriguing and unfamiliar subterranean world—an environment as foreign to man as the ocean depths. Although values can be found within the park boundaries that do not directly relate to caves, the park is, above all else, a treasure house of speleological resources. Carlsbad Caverns is one of the world's largest, most spectacular and beautiful cave systems. In the opinion of the National Speleological Society, the Capitan Reef, which extends from Carlsbad Caverns into Guadalupe Mountains National Park, "is one of the outstanding karst features of the world." The curiosity and scientific interest generated in the visitor by this huge, Swiss cheese-like slab of limestone provide the usual dichotomous challenge to the planner: preservation vs. use. The bleak history of vandalism in caves outside the park, motivated both by misguided pleasure and profit, illustrates the compelling need to protect as much of this significant and relatively scarce resource as possible. The public will be provided with an unparalleled emotional and educational experience, and scientists with a laboratory impossible to duplicate. Carlsbad Caverns is by no means virgin. The almost constant presence of man in great numbers for a period of almost fifty years has altered her chambers to the extent that she can never be the same. But these changes are not necessarily devastating to her most essential values. It is true that man is now altering the temperature, humidity, and gaseous composition of the cave atmosphere. It is also possible that surface development is changing underground drainage patterns with negative results. But most important, man's development of this hardly believable spectacle is accomplishing a major job of educating, entertaining, and satisfying the curiosity of millions of people who are eager to see a cave—all with minimal damage to the resource that attracted them. Scientifically and philosophically, Carlsbad Caverns may be less than pure, but that little which is sacrificed for visitor use is well worth the price. In contrast to this attitude, the majority of the other known caves in the park will be carefully, and in some cases totally preserved for the purposes of qualified exploration and research, both now and in the future. The following plan is based on the philosophy just described. But planning is a dynamic, continuing process; there is no "final" plan. With the new knowledge and changing conditions that will undoubtedly emerge with the passage of time, this master plan will be revised again and again. Experience gained during the implementation of this plan will be the basis for the next. By then, it may be possible to propose other entrances to Carlsbad Caverns in order to accommodate more people. It is even conceivable that another cave to equal the size and beauty of Carlsbad Caverns might be discovered in the park. Results of future research studies and technological advances could have a profound effect on the use and management of Carlsbad Caverns National Park.