walnut canyon desert drive

This drive winds through the hills slowly climbing to the upper rimnear the entrance to Carlsbad Caverns Visitors Center. There is an impressive variety of desert flora visible from the road. And, if you stay to see the Bat Flight, you may get to see some desertanimals as they go in search of a bite to eat! Hey, I'm talking about deer and small animals like that! The bats just eat flyinginsects!

The Scenic Loop Drive is just that - a very scenic drive. the Drive begins just as the visitor center comes into view. Be sure to pick up a road guide which explains a lot that you will see a and more importantly what you might not notice.The road follows the ridge for 4 miles and then drops into the canyon for the way out. Warning, this road become impassible to even 4wd during rains. A thunderstorm will cause you to stay overnight in a very unfavorable place. Often the road is rutted and not good for a low clearance vehicle. And the plants hang over the road and will give your vehicle desert pin stripes.Be sure to take plenty of water with you.

This is a very good example of a road through the desert. There were fascinating plants and wonderful geology. Great for the lover of nature in all of its forms. Not for the 'convenience' or the 'just the pretty things' focused visitor.

This was a rutted, poorly maintained road that would never end. You truly could not go more than 15 mi. per hour and in places even less. Feared bottoming out my car. There was nothing of interest along it or that you hadn't seen driving through the deserts of N.M. It said it was 9 miles I believe but it took us at least 45 min. to drive through it and we were laughing so hard about how ridiculous it was that that was the only thing that made us be able to tolerate the hour or so it took.

We drove in a mini van. This is not something I would want to do everyday. But I am glad we did it once. If you looking for Macy's, Dillards, Chili's or Applebees, you might be disappointed (some people think I have a good sense of humor). This is kind of a bumpy ride in a desert, that makes you forget about the luxury, but makes you see & appreciate the little things, that you don't get to see on the everyday basis.

Took this 9.5 mile drive to finish off our visit to Carlsbad Caverns. It was a very pleasant introduction to the Chihuahuan desert with lovely vistas and a number of turnouts. Despite no picnic tables there were a number of places to have a picnic. The road was nearly deserted so was a wonderful way to get away from the crowds. If you have a "regular" car, it is fine to drive this road very slowly as long as there has not been any recent rain which can cause washouts lower down in the canyon.

We took the 9.5 mile Walnut Canyon Desert Drive, which is very enjoyable on a cool fall October day. An information flier is available at the Visitor Center, and it featured a variety of plant, geology, and historic points of interest. In the glossy Carlsbad Cavern brochure, it says there are picnic tables in Walnut Canyon, but in fact there are not. Perhaps they burned up in the 2011 fire. We ate our picnic lunch in the car, which was a little inconvenient, but no big deal.

We drove the 9.5 mile loop after visiting the Caverns. We thought the scenery was breathtaking. It would probably be boring for families with kids, but for us (a couple of middle-aged folks) it was a very pleasant drive with beautiful scenery. There were only two other cars on the road, but there were places to pull over and allow them to pass. It is a bumpy, gravel, one-lane road but we had no problems navigating it. It took us almost an hour to drive it as we stopped several times for photos. We paused to think what the early settlers must have thought when they first arrived here as it is quite isolated. We would highly recommend it if you have the time.

We drove on it in a rental mid-size sedan (Toyota Corolla) and we did well.... there were some scary downhill turns though...the view is so so, but we had fun..

My mom & I were hoping to take some photos while enjoying the scenic drive. Our spouses and grand/great grand son were enjoying the Natural Entrance tour at the caverns. The Guide brochure box was empty at the start of the one way drive loop. That should have been our first clue. After starting the drive, we noticed previous fire damage on this route. We had seen the fire damage on the ride up to the Visitor Center but had not realized that it had been so large as to make it's way up to this area. Once you get near the 'Rattlesnake Canyon' area. (There is a sign on the left side of the road). Vegetation is greener and photos of the plants turned out quite picturesque. Also shots of the canyon with the distant mountains...The drive seems LONGER than 9.5 miles. We drove this in a Ford Taurus and had no problems with the gravel road.

We looked forward to the drive to "fill out" our experience in the caves. But is was a drive around the country side without explanation. No guide brochures were available, which made the drive pointless.

This was ~10 mile scenic drive right near visitor center. Gravel road which was easy drive in our rented Impala although if was my personal car I may not want to have 10 miles of gravel beating on it. Beautiful views and worth it for the amazing photo opps. If you come all the way to caverns to visit take the extra time to do this drive.

We drove this drive after spending the morning in the cavern. The road is gravel, but decent. We drove it in our mini-van with no problems. It started out not very interesting; we drove past where they store the water (?) and the pipes that go to the visitor's center. Plus the land was mostly flat at the begining. The scenery got much better as we drove further, with small hills and desert plants and cliffs. We saw a large herd of mule deer near the empty creek bed. According to the drive brochure we picked up at the visitor's center beforehand, there's a small spring along the drive. We stopped to look at it but it was too dry to see much of anything. The drive has pull-outs along the way where you can get out and walk around. We also just stopped several times on the road to get out of the vehicle and take pictures. Only once did we see another vehicle; they passed us while we were stopped at a pull-out. The sense of isolation and listening to just the wind is a nice experience. This is good drive to take if you have the time to slow down and get out of the car for a bit.

We drove the Loop and enjoyed the desert and the cactus in bloom. No one seems to take the Loop road so we were able to take our time and stop and take some photos. Very different cliffs around as well.

This was a nice side adventure after spending the morning exploring the caves. Our 7 year old daughter loved the bumpy ride through the park. There are breathtaking views on this scenic drive. We stopped and did some hiking and mini rock climbing too!