October 3, 2014
Standing in front of the "natural entrance"/"bat cave"
A close up of the natural entrance
You have the option of taking the elevator down into the big room or entering here in the Natural Entrance and descending on your own down toward the Bat Cave (200 feet below the surface), past Devils Spring and Devils Den (500 feet below the surface) and all the way down to the Big Room. And that's what we did!
The Natural Entrance Route is self-guided (you can rent audio guides for $5/piece which I did), but it's a lot of walking, so you should be in decent physical shape. It's about a mile long, but takes about an hour due to all the switchbacks and assuming you are stopping to take in the glory surrounding you.
The Natural Entrance Route follows the traditional explorers' route. It descends over 750 feet.
These "draperies" were my favorite. The flowing rock that looked like fabric blowing in the wind.
Witches Finger
Seen along the Big Room route
At night (we were told to gather at 6:15; actual bat flight started ~6:45, but changes from night to night), you can experience the "Night Flight." This is the only picture I have because they do not allow any cameras/video to be on during this experience. The Mexican free-tailed bats live about 200 feet into the Natural Entrance of the cave. It is estimated that somewhere between 200,000 - 1,000,000 bats live here. While sitting there, listening to the ranger tell you about it, answering questions, etc, all of a sudden, you see a few bats fluttering out of the cave. And the next thing you know, THOUSANDS are streaming out all at once. And they keep coming and coming and coming! It is absolutely AMAZING!!! Our ranger said this typically lasts anywhere from 30 min - 3 hours. We were there for almost 40 minutes and they were still going out strong! The only reason we left was because it got too dark to see anything. It was absolutely remarkable and a major highlight of our trip!
Verdict: Yes! This absolutely exceeded my expectations. I thought I'd be in the caverns for 30 min. Instead, I was down there for several hours. I thought the "Night Flight" would last 5 min and be "kinda cool." Instead it lasted beyond when it got dark and was "totally amazing." But because the "Night Flight" was one of the major highlights of being here, I would recommend coming in the summer/early fall months. The bats leave to go back to Mexico the end of Oct/beg of Nov for the Winter and fly back the following year.
No comments:
Post a Comment