Cave of the Winds (Colorado Springs, Day 11)

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Andrew:

So, this is our visit in the Cave of the Winds. We were pretty excited to be inside the cave, and had we not had to wait so long to get in it would have been a nice way to cool off after our hike. The tour we had decided to take was the "Lantern Tour" where, instead of walking through an electrically lit cave, you walk through a completely un-lit cave guided only by a bucket which held a kerosene lantern. We were warned that the smallest passage in the cave was about 2.5-3 ft tall and about the same in width. That small passageway extended for about 40 feet. However, there was a second passageway about 3.5 feet tall (and just as wide as the first) that was about 140 feet long (that's a really long time to hunch over).

Our tour guides were Ben (the leader) and Joe (the trainee). Ben had a lot of interesting stories to tell about the cave and the people who had discovered it and dug it out. Many of the stories were about the ghosts of these people and how they still wandered the cave (if you believe in that sort of thing). Some of them were said to like to pick on the tourists, while others would just stay shyly off to the side. The one thing that we did take note of is that a particular ghost always made the passageway smell like roses, and Ryan smelled these roses at one point (my nose can't really smell anything, not to mention the allergies I've been dealing with).

Basically the cave was really cool. There were a lot of twists, turns, pits, and chambers which all lead out of our range of site and, unfortunately, out of range of the tour. On the plus side, though, our tour time happened to consist of just Ryan and me, so it was kind of like our own private tour. Ryan had the camera the entire time and was responsible for all the photo-taking. As you can see, he did a good job (there were a lot more than just these).

Ryan:

Most everything interesting is in the captions on the pictures. For what it's worth, the smell of the roses was pretty weak, it still smelled mostly like cave. Ghost stories aside: caves are very cool.

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Photos

Entrance
The door is about 4 feet high, and is already pretty far into the cave. The kerosene lamps that we used are hanging off to the right.

Original Entrance
This is the orginal entrance to the cave. Not much of an entrance anymore.

"Grant's Tomb"
Back in the late 1800s the original owners of the cave used to give tours of the cave. They used to sell rocks as souveniers, and let people carve their names onto a rock and throw it onto one of three piles. They were for Abe Lincoln, Ulysees S Grant, and Robert E Lee. This is a picture of some of the rocks from Grant's pile (the biggest). Robert E Lee's pile was collapsed, and apparently refused to stay standing no matter how many times it was reassembled.

Piles in the Entrance
Lincoln's is in the back, Grant's is the big one, and Lee's is the collapsed one in the foreground.

"Concert Hall" Seating
The room was dubbed the concert hall by the original owners because of the acoustics. This was the to be seating in the hall, with the cheap seats on the first ledge, and the nice ones up at the top. The plan to hold concerts in here never quite panned out.

"Cave Organ"
At the top of the ladder there is a series of rock formations that apparently make different pitches when struck with a rubber mallet. They wouldn't let us climb up to try it out.

Texas Pit
The original owner apparently liked to keep track of who came to visit his cave, and so had states listed across the walls in this chamber and asked his guests to put their business cards on the walls of the state that they were from. Apparently he didn't like Texas and told Texans to go ahead and throw their cards into Texas pit, which is on the right. The picture of the pit itself didn't turn out, so this will have to suffice.

The Keyhole
Apparently the original owners had a game that they liked to play with their tours. They took them to the entrance to this passageway (farther back) and said that they had to go through the keyhole, find a flock of dirty sheep, some butter churns, a giant's running nose, and if they had to duck, they went too far. This is the keyhole.

A Giant's Running Nose
This is said nose looking formation. It was up on the cieling, and quite large.

A flock of dirty sheep and butter churns
The butter churns are to the left, and the flock of dirty sheep is on the right (that one takes a little bit more imagination, it seems).

Cave Mold
Supposedly came from the "Cave Mummy's" hand. Also, it's apparently impossible to get rid of.

Up to several other rooms
Apparently this rope leads up to four other rooms where many of the original owner's personal belongings were found (he lived in the cave, apparently. Also, related to why his first wife divorced him, as it turns out). They wouldn't let us climb up there.

Smallest Passage
That they'd let us go through at any rate. It was about 3 and a half feet high and 140 feet long. That's Andrew in the back.

Yet another passageway
Kind of a narrow one with some uneven stairs.

Glow in the Dark Stalagtites
These ones were almost pure calcium, so they glowed blue briefly after the flash from the camera. I couldn't get a picture of that, unfortunately.

Ribbon Stalagtites
Affectionately referred to as cave bacon.

Flowstone
Sort of like a stalagmite, only it went out instead of up. Stalagfail. Stalagmightnot. No matter what you call it, they didn't want us to step on it, because it's still forming and we might mess it up. As if it needed help with that.

More Stalagtites
The one on the left looks like a crab claw, sort of.

Seashell
The little red thing embedded in the rock is a seashell, presumably millions of years old, since it had to have been deposited back when the area was covered in water.