Lower Level

This is a sizable cave, with some high tunnels, and has two levels that I know of, upper and lower. It is on private property, and I don't know the owner. A person who lives out there told me the owner lives out of state, and that people go in this cave, and that as far as she knew it is ok. I found out about it from a newspaper article a few years ago. It told about some guys who used to go in there when young, and then made a reunion visit to Wind Cave. It told about large rooms. The article also told about bus loads of school kids being taken in there. I was hooked, and had to go see for myself. I drove out there one day to find the place, and ask about going in there. A resident out there said she thought it was ok. So I went and found the entrance, and later my caving partner David and I went back. The entrance is shown above. Below is a view from near the entrance looking toward Strawberry Road, a gravel road. The barn and silo can be seen in the background, and they are near the road.

To get there, you go several miles out 192, from Somerset. Go a little past the 192 Market and turn right on Clay Hill Church Road. This road follows alongside Pitman Creek for a little distance. It turns left, and then right and goes up a grade alongside a rock wall on the left. There is a cave opening at the bottom of that wall, but I've not been in there. Alongside the wall, the road curves left, and there Strawberry road angles down on the right. It goes back close to the creek, bearing left, and follows alongside it, past houses. The road turns to gravel soon, near a brick house up on the left. A little past the house you can see the barn and silo on the left. On the right is little area where people park, next to the creek. You cross the road, go in the field, pass the barn and silo, and follow a farm lane back to where two ridges sort of meet. The lane goes between the ridges back into a hollow. Right about there is a culvert under the road, and a streambed on the left of the road leads to the cave entrance, which is not very big. You have to stoop a little to get in there.

Once inside, you continue stooping a short way, and then you have to get down and crawl on a sand floor for several yards. Soon you can stand up and walk the rest of the way through that short entrance tunnel, and then you will come out into a high front room, part of which is shown below. It could be risky in rainy weather. That entrance tunnel probably floods. At the left end of the front room, there is a narrow passage going up. I could see daylight up there, but didn't try to get out that way. It might be possible. At lower right in that picture at left, there is wide opening which opens up to another good size room beyond. The next room slopes down to a stream channel, which comes from another tunnel and runs by this next room, shown at right, and then the stream bed goes way back into another tunnel, which tapers down to very low. There was very little water that time, and any time I've been in there. That stream tunnel goes to the right, behind where David is standing. We went back there to where it got too low to do much, and found a dead young raccoon. I guess it got lost. Back in the second room, we went on around to the left, following the natural route. We went down some to the upper part of the stream channel and passed it and went under the wall a little above out heads and came out into a very high serpintine room, shown below left.

The picture at the top of this page, on the right, shows what we walked under coming into this high room. There is a high drapery down that wall, and this picture shows me looking at it. I think that is what is called a drapery, or something close to it. It is pretty neat, I think, and the highlight of that cave, with respect to formations, as far as I know. Below is a closer look.

Click here for a larger view of the one at left. It's hard to tell in this small picture, but David is standing on the rock slope at lower left. You can see him better in the large version. His right arm is extend upward, toward the rock mass in the center. This shows the scale of the tunnel; pretty big, and high.

I'm not sure now, but I think that rock mass is near the drapery, which was behind the camera. The tunnel goes past where David is, and around to the right and up to where it dead ends. The picture below left shows what it looks like from up at the end, looking down. At bottom center is a big rock. On that rock was a flash mounted to a little tripod. Above the rock, where the darker area peaks, is David. He is only about 1/2 inch tall in this picture. That shows the scale of this place, like the one above. At lower right is another picture made from up there, before David walked down the slope. That rock next to him is the same one, I bleieve, with the flash on top, shown below left.

The picture just above left, shows the tunnel as it curves around left of the drapery, I believe. From the drapery, this high tunnel goes back and then curves one way and then another, finally curving right, and ascending. There is a rocky slope going up to a dead end. On the way back through there, we found this place where David got up on some high rock. It's fairly easy to get up there, from around the bend.

We found a couple of white crawfish in that stream, near the drapery. I made pictures of one, that was about 3 inches long. I've seen them in Sloan's Valley Cave too, from the Green House entrance. There is a sign about crawfish on the wall down there, by a pool, and I saw a bunch of little ones in there.

Wind Cave -- Upper Level

xxxDavid and I went in the lower part of this cave a couple times, and then somebody told us about the upper section. We didn't know there was one. He described how to get to it, from inside the lower section, and so later we went back to try to find the way to it. We had passed the small tunnel with a little stream that came from the upper section but had no idea what it led to.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxx

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The photo at right shows the beginning of the tunnel that leads to the upper section. It is the little tunnel on the left , near the beginning of the bigger water channel that goes through this room.

To get to this point, you go through the entrance tunnel to the first room, then go right toward the water channel, which goes along a far wall. You then bear left, following the water to this side room.

If you go past it, you come out underneath the tall curtain, and into the high serpentine room.

I had to stoop to get through that passage, wading a little, mostly walking on gravel. I very near had to get on my knees a couple of times, but managed not to. At right is a picture of that tunnel, somewhat back in there. It has higher places here and there where you can stand up, and then the ceiling gets much higher and you can stand up the rest of the way.

Shortly after I got in there, I noticed a breeze, and it got stronger. That is a good sign. It means more cave beyond. I also noticed that the shallow water on the floor had a brisk current. I kept going and came to an area with room to stand up. What a relief. It had a little dome, with graffiti of course. Art (a friend who had given directions) had said we would come to 2 or 3 places where we could stand up. The bigger passage has those too, hence the confusion. I called to David that I thought I was in the right tunnel. He answered, but I couldn't understand. It's like that in caves; get a little distance between people, especially if one is in a different passage, and language becomes unintelligible. I went further and the passage got bigger. I knew then that I was on the right track, and I called to David and said," This is it!" I stopped and waited and soon heard David slogging through the tunnel. Eventually he joined me, and with renewed enthusiasm, we continued on.

The ceiling got higher and we saw side slots and holes, and a chimney on the left. A chimney is a vertical shaft formed by dripping or running water. It has vertical flutes. I've seen several chimneys, in different caves. They are pretty neat. We didn't have to go far untill we came out into a high ceilinged room, and stood in front of the massive breakdown that Art had mentioned. We had arrived. From that point, or near it, we checked out a side passage and found a little room with a dome ceiling. The dome is covered with graffiti. A big rock sits in the middle of the floor and we found beer cans scattered. It's hard to believe some people take beer into caves. People need their heads straight when going in caves.Our plan was to get to the upper level and follow a pasage from there, and try to find the slplit column Art told about, and do whatever exploring we could, without getting lost.

On the left you can see the high pile of breakdown that we found in that room at the end of the tunnel, which is more like a pit, and we were at the bottom of it. On the right is a view from the top. David is standing by the mouth of the access tunnel. Facing the breakdown, we found a fairly steep rocky slope on the left going up to the top, and we made our way up that way. At the top, there is a narrow walkway beside the rim of the pit. Care is needed there especially. We found beer cans up there too. Hard to believe. It is a dangerous place for people under the influence. After getting up there, we walked by the pit and around to the left and came out into a room up there. I don't remember a lot about it now, but there are two or three ways to go from there I think. The picture below left shows that upper room. Seems like there is
a passage going off to the right, not shown.

Below is another picture of the pit.

Seems like we went more than one way up there. I think we checked out a tunnel until it got to smaller choices, and then went back and into another big tunnel. We wanted to find the broken column Art mentioned, and check out the bigger tunnels.

That's the column below, and at right. I don't remember
just where it is, but it is in one of the main walking tunnels.

This is the biggest tunnel we found. In this view, David is heading further in. Click here for a bigger view.

That was the only time I went back in there, in the upper section. We checked out the big tunnels and left it at that. We thought we might go back and try more, but never did. I went back once with a different person, but he wasn't comfortable going by that pit, so we went back down.

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