CHAPTER ONE DESERT DISCOVERY The Chihuahuan Desert covers nearly 200,000 square miles 518,000 square kilometers of area in New Mexico Texas Arizona and Mexico The largest desert in North America it contains or is next to several mountain ranges including the Guadalupe Mountains Chihuahuan Desert Guadalupe Mountains Desert Valley in Big Bend area
American Indians were the original explorers and settlers in the area that later became Carlsbad Caverns National Park The Mescalero Apache Zuni Pueblo and other tribes that lived along the desert's northern edge knew about the incredible limestone world that existed hundreds of feet below The Mescalero Apache people were nomadic hunters and gatherers living in the southwestern United States Caves are like time capsules offering clues from the formation of the planet to the beginning of human civilization Rod Horrocks Cave Specialist at Carlsbad Caverns National Park
URU But some of the largest longest deepest and most beautiful caverns on Earth went unnoticed by European settlers until a young cowboy witnessed a spectacle unlike any he'd ever seen Carlsbad Canyon
As the story goes in 1898 16 year old James Larkin White was looking for stray cattle Off in the distance he saw a huge funnel of bats swirling out of the desert hills There were so many bats it looked like a volcano billowing smoke into the sky James Larkin White July 11 1882 April 26 1946 AVA When they emerge from Carlsbad Cave the Brazilian free tailed bats usually head to a water source
