The Chihuahuan Desert Nature Trail is a half-mile loop starting at the Carlsbad Caverns Visitors Center.  It’s an interpretive trail that provides a great introduction to the desert flora and how native cultures used these plants in everyday life.

After spending the morning in the dark walking through the vast Carlsbad Caverns, we enjoyed a nice lunch aboveground in the bright sun.

This fuzzy bee wanted our lunch more than we did and wouldn’t take no for an answer.

In the center of the photo you can see the concrete bleachers of the Bat Flight Amphitheater.  What you cannot see is the giant opening of the Natural Entrance where the bats exit every evening in the summer and fall.  Behind are camps built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s (I believe).

The air was filled with a buzzing sound from the flight of thousands of crickets like this one.

The Chihuahuan Desert Nature Trail ends in the Carlsbad Caverns Visitors Center parking lot, which has an impressive view of the vast New Mexico plain.

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