Obamas explore 'spectacular' Carlsbad Caverns

CARLSBAD CAVERNS NATIONAL PARK — The first family toured Carlsbad Caverns National Park on Friday and were awed by the cave’s famed Big Room during the first stop on their Fathers’ Day weekend trip out West.

President Barack Obama didn’t give a speech during his brief visit to Southern New Mexico, but the stop commemorates the National Park Service’s centennial and calls attention to the president’s push to conserve American lands and combat climate change.

Climate change is the “single biggest threat” to America’s national parks, exposing majestic sites to increased flooding, longer wildfire seasons and worse droughts, White House officials have said.

“That trip, and this upcoming one, remind us of the urgent need to protect these places and take strong climate action to protect our planet for future generations,” Christy Goldfuss, managing director of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said ahead of the Obamas’ visit.

Additional congressional allocations are urgently needed to safeguard the parks against climate change and tackle an $11.5 billion backlog in maintenance projects, White House officials said.

The backlog was evident in Carlsbad Caverns’ four elevators from the above-ground visitor's center to the park's interior. The two visitor elevators have been broken since November, but the smaller freight elevators were fixed around Memorial Day, in time for the president’s visit and the deluge of summer visitors.

“We've got to invest in America's public lands because they return important economic benefits to the local communities that surround them,” Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell said this week during a conference call.

There were more than 443 million visits to national parks, lands and wildlife refuges in fiscal year 2015, up more than 20 million from the previous year, Jewell said.

Activities on the public lands and waters overseen by the Department of Interior contributed an estimated $300 billion to the U.S. economy and created 2 million jobs in fiscal year 2015, Jewell said.

In New Mexico alone, those activities, including oil and gas development, generated 64,000 jobs and $13.5 billion in state economic benefits, Jewell said. The state has 15 national park sites, attracting 1.7 million visits a year.

'How cool is this?'

Carlsbad Caverns National Park is tucked away along New Mexico’s border with Texas in the Chihuahuan Desert.

On Friday, the first family escaped the 105-degree desert heat to explore the stalactites and stalagmites in the cool cavern below.

They sauntered through the Big Room and King’s Palace, even doing “lights off” to get a sense of the cave’s true pitch-black state, without pedestrian lights guiding the way.

President Obama, the first lady and their teenage daughters quietly chatted with park public affairs specialist Valeria Gohlke as they meandered around the dim chamber.

The Big Room is the fifth largest natural limestone chamber in the world.

“How cool is this?” the president said to the small group of journalists gathered 754 feet below ground. “Spectacular!”

The caverns were closed to visitors while the first family spent more than two hours in the caves, exploring to the sound of stalactites quietly dripping down onto stalagmites.

More security, more fun

The park was open Friday morning – with added metal detectors, canine officers and Secret Service agents stationed at the front entrance.

To the Blundell family, the extra security was all part of the fun in the hours before the Obamas’ arrival. The Blundells snapped a photo with an amicable Secret Service agent and chatted with park rangers ecstatic to receive the president.

"It kind of makes it more fun!" daughter Natalie Blundell, 22, said with a giant grin.

"It's one more neat thing," mom Catherine Blundell agreed.

The Ballard family was less than thrilled with the closure.

"We've come all this way and we'd really like to see what we came to see," mom Stacy Ballard said while her two kids looked on.

They snagged a spot on the 11:10 a.m. cave tour, but couldn't walk into the cave as the entrance was closed all day.

After the first family’s departure at 4:30 p.m., the full park reopened for the evening.

President Calvin Coolidge established the caverns as a national monument in 1923. It contains more than 119 caves, formed 4 million to 6 million years ago.

Obama has also set aside many public lands as protected sites. He designated two new national monuments in New Mexico during his second term: the Rio Grande Del Norte National Monument in 2013 and the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument in 2014.

The Organ Mountains monument alone is estimated to generate more than $7.4 million in additional economic activity a year.

The first family has visited several national parks during Obama’s tenure, including Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon and the Everglades.

They will add another to the list this weekend, arriving Friday evening in Yosemite National Park in California.

Lindsey Anderson may be reached at 546-6345; landerson@elpasotimes.com; @l_m_anderson on Twitter.