Cave of the Winds (Colorado)

[citation needed] Other lesser known attractions include a "bottomless pit", often the scene of practical jokes by the guides.

The boys noticed that their candles flickered in a small shelter cave they had found and wind was seen to be blowing from a nearby crevice.

Within a few days, Cross wrote about the discovery of the cave in his church newsletter and his story was immediately reprinted in the Colorado Springs Gazette of July 2, 1880.

The Colorado Encyclopedia relates: "Although Cross exaggerated the heights and depths of vertical elements, as do most inexperienced cavers, his account is remarkably free of the florid Victorian hyperbole typical of most cave descriptions of that time.

Unfortunately Snider spoke of his discovery in town and the next day the cave was mobbed by townspeople who stripped the cavern of many of the stalactites.

Electrical lights were added in 1907, and visitors began traveling to the cave in even greater numbers – first by carriage and railroad, and later by car.

About 500 million years ago during the Ordovician period warm shallow seas covered the Pikes Peak region of Colorado.

[6] About 70 million years ago the shallow seas receded and the area was lifted forming the Rocky Mountain region.

Stalactites formed on the cave's ceilings as calcium carbonate-rich water dripped leaving thin calcite rings that grew into icicle-like shapes over thousands of years.

Sometimes called draperies or curtains, they are formed over thousands of years as the mineral-rich water flows over surfaces leaving calcite behind.

As helictites grow, they change their axis from the vertical at one or more stages of growth, hence the "clumps of worms" description for one type.