As for the spilled Cheetos, Ward told The Associated Press that could have been avoided because the park doesn't allow food beyond the confines of the historic underground lunchroom. After the bag was discovered in July, cave specialists at the park ...

The New Mexico park says that a discarded snack bag may seem trivial but the impact to the ecosystem can be huge, urging visitors to leave the world better than they found it.

Rangers recently found a bag of Cheetos (still full of food) dropped off the trail in the Big Room, which is the largest single cave chamber by volume in North America. “At the scale of human perspective, a spilled snack bag may seem trivial, but to the life of the cave it can be world changing,” the post said.

It’s pretty simple — leave no trace. But at least one person didn’t get the message and left behind a bag of Cheetos at Carlsbad Caverns National Park during a visit earlier this summer.

Park Service employee Erich B. Koenig discovered spilled junk food inside New Mexico’s Carlsbad Caverns in 2023. His post about human impact on delicate ecosystems sparked a glut of media coverage.

A simple bag of Cheetos is responsible for causing a major issue at a national park in New Mexico that has park officials calling out those who break the rules.

After a visitor dropped the snack in Carlsbad Caverns, the “foreign detritus” sparked mold and microbial growth that disturbed the delicate ecosystem, the park said.

Plain water is the only thing visitors are allowed to consume inside the huge cavern at Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico. Cheetos are a no-go, and the recent park visitor who dropped a bag full of them created a “huge impact” on the cave’s ecosystem, park rangers said Friday in a Facebook post.

Carlsbad Caverns National Park officials in New Mexico recently condemned the leaving of a Cheetos snack bag in one of the caves, noting how it disrupted the underground ecosystem.

Staff at Carlsbad shared that a visitor left behind a bag of Cheetos in the Big Room- the largest single cave chamber by volume in North America- and warned that it could be "world changing"! I thought that food was absolutely forbidden within the Big Room? I know they even make you throw out your gum- maybe someone forgot that memo.