Participants:
Dave Gerboth, Jim Pisarowicz, Karen Rosga

Duration of Trip:
2-1/2 hours

New Cave Surveyed:
125 feet

Many people who visit Wind Cave believe that all the passages that they see along the tour trail have been explored and mapped. That is not the case.

While changing light bulbs I noticed a passage that did not appear on the maps of the cave. This trip was an evening, after work, trip to check out this lead.

The first chamber we encountered, though not mapped, had been entered before...it had many names written on the walls, some dating back to the 1930s. We called this area the Vandalism Room because the beautiful walls of the room had been vandalized.

Out of the Vandalism Room was a small crawlway that emptied over a 25 foot pit. Karen accidentally dropped one of her gloves down this pit from which we derived the pit's name-Five Finger Fall. The pit was unclimbable without ropes which we were not carrying.

From Five Finger Fall the cave popcorn looked like a miniature forest of trees so we dubbed this area the Popcorn Forest. Just a little further on the passage ended.

Report by: Jim Pisarowicz