By Carl Bern
Although I have quite a few Wind Cave trips under my belt I had never had the pleasure of using the cave’s second natural entrance, the Snake Pit. Going in through the Snake Pit is also the best way to do a “through trip” in Wind Cave. You know, one-way entrance to entrance. Dave Lambert was nice enough to lead me and his friend Matt on this trip. It started off pretty leisurely, we did not roll out of our cots in the “Visitor In the Park” building until almost 8am! Soon enough though, Cave Dave was leading the way into this unobtrusive little culvert entrance, the Snake Pit!
The Snake Pit has an entrance series that is famous for being unpleasant. You crawl and crawl and then crawl some more. Everyone talks about the little cactus spines scattered through the first few hundred feet of crawlway. I did not give them much thought and laid down a couple times. My stomach felt ‘prickly’ for the rest of the day and it was not until several days later that I tweezed out the last of the little spines. Lovely!
There is on particularly tight spot in the Snake Pit entrance series, Here you can see Matt’s foot as he heads through it. Then he takes a bit of a rest in the ‘bigger’ passage beyond.
Phew, a place to sit up. Matt looks ready to be done with the Snake Pit entrance series.
Of course the cave does eventually get bigger, and prettier too. Here Dave admires some logomites in part of a room called Santa’s Frosted Forest. Dave also pauses for a view down this nicely decorated passage.