Memories offer glimpse of cave in Garden of the Gods

A Gazette story in late December exploring the history of a little-known and long-barricaded cave in Garden of the Gods suggested that all living memory of the cave is lost.

It didn't take into account the sturdy mind of 88-year-old Bill Eason or the middle- school high jinks of 59-year-old Mike Trapp.

Both men called The Gazette to say not only that they remembered the cave under the Kissing Camels, which local history buffs now want to unseal, but that they had been inside.

"It's huge, shaped sort of like a sailboat - long and tapering on both ends, with a high point in the middle" said Trapp, who sneaked into the cavern with friends in 1963.

"It's a big, hollow old deal filled with old initials," said Eason, who used the hole as a childhood hideout.

Based on old Gazette Telegraph articles, it seemed safe to assume all memory of the cave was dead. An article from 1935 said the cave had been lost and forgotten for decades before it was rediscovered by CCC crews and quickly sealed. Another articled from 1963 said erosion briefly opened the cave and three city employees crept inside. All three are now dead. But both reports were wrong.

It is not often that The Gazette corrects a story written over 70 years ago; that 1935 article saying a long-lost cave had been rediscovered was incorrect.

"That cave wasn't lost. Everybody knew about it, at least everybody in Manitou," Eason said. "When I was a boy we used to ride our horses up there and use it as a hideout. It was kinda fun."

He remembered crawling in with a flashlight and gazing up at the sandstone walls scrawled with the names of "some of the old-timers."

The 1963 article also got the facts wrong, according to longtime west-side resident Mike Trapp.

The headline proclaimed: "The strange and mysterious cave in the North Gateway Rocks of the Garden of the Gods was opened to the light of day recently by erosion."

Actually, erosion didn't open that cave. Trapp and his schoolyard buddies did.

"When we were kids, we were all into caves," Trapp said. "We explored all the caves near Cave of the Winds."

Then an old west-sider told the boys of a cave in Garden of the Gods - sealed for almost 30 years - that connected to the caverns near Cave of the Winds. (The caves don't actually connect, but the boys had no way of knowing until they were inside.)

"We went up at night after school and chopped and chopped and chiseled for a couple days until we busted through," he said.

Then they crawled in, shining their lights up at the high ceiling. He described a shape much like Eason's big sailboat.

"Drips were falling down on the muddy floor. It was long and kind of narrow. That's all that's there. There's no big secrets. Since it didn't lead anywhere, we lost interest."

He never told anyone, because he didn't want to get in trouble. A few days later, city workers noticed the breach and sealed it.

It has gone unvisited since, but recently, the old-timers' signatures that Eason remembers have piqued the interest of west-side history booster David Hughes. He says some of them date to the first pioneers and should be properly documented.

He wants to unseal the cave and do an archaeological survey. The city is open to the idea, but in a cash-strapped budget year, says it is not a priority.

Undeterred, Hughes plans to apply for a $10,000 State Historical Fund grant and has enlisted a local archaeologist and geologist to do much of the work for free.

He hopes to reopen the cave briefly this fall.