RG 1976 thanks for the hike. Thanks alot. Enjoyed the sights and sites. Not having watched the show I don't know all the details of contrasts but do get the gist of it.
My body had to wait at the fence but the rest of me made it.
Bat Guano was very important to the Confederates .
From it was obtained, likely from leaching it out by using water from the river rather than transporting bulk guano (?), NITRATE.
Brehmer’s Cave in Texas(another cave area up in the hill country Rebs acquired guano from) yielded an average of four pounds nitrate from a hundred pounds of guano.
Why bat guano? Well, it has a normally high level nitrate,(saltpeter) but also is often located in a dry location. Very important to get best yield from a manure source that even has a high nitrate content; it needs to be kept dry or nitrates get leached out easily. Add the dryness in the desert and length of time of accumulation for greater volume and it's even better. (Hard to do in volume with chicken poop.)

I won't go into gunpowder making but suffice it to say the bat cave was a very important resource.
Well worth building a ladder and all the other challenges.
Later guano was fertilizer again but for the South at a time when powder was in demand bat guano from many locales was a type of treasure.
Maybe it proves the natives correct and bats did go to battle; in a way.
Some of the lightning and thunder generations of bats saw and felt; transferred to lightning and thunder of another kind.
Stay safe in your beautiful but not always forgiving environment.