Alt Text

Map of Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico. The park is represented as an oblong green shape, stretching across in the west-to-east direction that tapers toward the top, with staircase-like staggered boundaries. A chunk of land shaded yellow that runs down most of the left edge from the top corner is labeled Lincoln National Forest. The Guadalupe Mountains run down the western edge of the map through both the national park and national forest.

Extended Description

A narrow strip of yellow land running across the bottom of the map represents Texas. A red line representing US Highway 180/62 runs from the bottom left edge from Texas, into New Mexico, diagonally up the map toward Whites City, near the upper right corner. Text where the road enters the map reads “To Guadalupe Mountains National Park and El Paso, Texas.” Text where the road heads off the map reads “To Carlsbad.”

This description will first cover the southern entrance to the park and then go to the north.

Halfway to Whites City, Local Road 418 branches from the highway and heads west toward Rattlesnake Springs, a small sliver of parkland outside of the main park area. This stop has a picnic area. The road continues in a southward arc, becoming unpaved halfway along its course, into a lower point of Carlsbad Caverns National Park, continuing up to Slaughter Canyon Cave. From there, the North Slaughter Canyon Trail leads up toward the park’s northern boundary. Closer to the park boundary off the unpaved road, the Yucca Canyon Trail heads west toward the Guadalupe Mountains.

Back on US Routes 62/180, another road zigzags west from Whites City and through the tapered easternmost end of Carlsbad Caverns National Park to reach the Visitor Center and cavern entrance, which has a picnic area. From here, the unpaved Walnut Canyon Desert Drive makes a narrow one-way loop west toward the Rattlesnake Canyon Trail, then curves around back to the entrance road. Rattlesnake Canyon Trail curves down to the bottom tapered border of the park.

Legend

A scale in the bottom left corner of the map shows distances of 10 kilometers and 2 and 10 miles.

In the lower right corner is a symbol for Picnic area and a gray line in a box signifying an Unpaved road.