There I was, driving down a long, lonely stretch of Idaho highway somewhere between Twin Falls and Ketchum, listening to an audiobook and eating red licorice when I saw a sign that read “CAVE.”
There weren’t any cars behind me, so I slammed on the breaks and pulled off the road. I had a little bit of time to kill, so I made a split-second decision to check it out.
Let me back up. It wasn’t so much as a “sign,” but more just the word “CAVE” painted across the roof of a large decrepit red barn. This was my first clue.
This is how horror stories start
The second thing I noticed were several massive boulder heads. I should explain. They were faces of maniacs and skulls carved out of boulders the size of dinosaur eggs. Completely normal.
I pulled a little further into the area around the barn but didn’t see anyone around. It looked abandoned, as did an old aluminum trailer out back. Just as I was about to give up and leave, I noticed a smaller, handwritten sign with an arrow that read CAVE 2 miles >
The rattlesnakes hissed and a tumbleweed rolled by.
The sign pointed toward what looked like an ocean of dirt. To be fair, I hadn’t seen anything but dirt for the last hour, so I threw caution to the wind and headed down the dirt road.
Welcome to Idaho bird hell
Sure enough, two miles into the nothingness, I spied a massive circular … yurt? I knew it was the right place because more demonic boulder heads lined the entryway and the parking lot and the walkway. All told, there were about 50 of them.
The heads were offset by about 50 live peacocks and roughly 1,000 pieces of antique Idaho farm equipment. By this point, I was having second thoughts. No, I was having at least sixth thoughts about turning around.
The sign near the yurt had more detail. It read: Idaho Mammoth Cave Shoshone Bird Museum. WTF did the bird museum come from?
I sat in my car longer than strictly necessary, watching the peacocks mill about outside and wondering if I was going to be murdered.
A more sensible person would have left, but well, I’m a sucker for adventure. I decided to risk it, and, as I walked, the peacocks cleared a path leading to the “bird museum.”
Is this love?
Inside I was greeted by a 20-foot-long taxidermied crocodile and a man who was equally as welcoming. He was tall and wide with brown hair and brown eyes and blue jean overalls. He wore the blankest stared I’ve ever seen. I’m talking about the man … the crocodile didn’t wear overalls. Obviously.
“Hi,” I said. … “I saw a sign,” I pointed in the direction from whence I’d come. “It said cave?” I lifted my eyebrows in a confused and maybe crazy looking way.
“Yep, cave and animal zoo is $10 for both.” I was confused about the “animal zoo” as I thought it was a bird museum, but perhaps there was a petting farm I’d overlooked?
“Great. Is the cave near here?” I hadn’t seen any indication of one.
“Yep.”
…
“So, do I need to drive, or can I just walk to it?” I raised my eyebrows again.
“You can walk. It’s real close.”
…
“How long would take me to walk? Five minutes … fifteen …”
“Less than five I’d say.”
I gave him my money and in turn he handed me a lantern.
“Oh didya want to do the animal zoo er the cave first?”
I wasn’t planning on doing the animal zoo, whatever that was, at all. “Let’s start with the cave.”
“Ya go out that door,” he said, pointing to a side door behind the crocodile, “and ya take the trail down into the cave. Uh, I should say watch for rattlesnakes.”
Suddenly I felt like I needed a lot more information.
“So I just go by myself?”
“Yep.”
…
“Are there other people down there?”
“Nope, just you.”
…
“How deep is it? How long?” I asked, both hands raised to my shoulders in the universal symbol for WTF.
“Pretty deep and goes about half a mile, I’d say.”
Descent into oh Hell no
I clearly wasn’t going to get anything useful out of whateverhisnamewas, so I took the lantern and headed to investigate.
“Don’t point it in your eyes,” he called helpfully after me.
I wasn’t surprised to find more boulder heads and peacocks out back. Dozens of each stared at me like I was a teenage girl hiking through Crystal Lake.
I immediately saw the trail to the cave. It was right there, just steps away (why didn’t he just say that?), so I waded my way through the brush watching for snakes and dodging the peacocks until I saw the cave entrance. It did not inspire confidence.
For the record, it did take me five minutes, but only because the peacocks refused to move out of my way and I didn’t want to step in the bushes and get bit by anything worse than an angry bird.
Fallout Shelter
It looked like an entrance to an 1800s Idaho mine held up by a few wood timbers. A sign over the door read: “Fallout Shelter.”
I looked behind me and side to side to ensure I was in the right place. There wasn’t any place else to go, so I walked forward into the gaping black hole.
I quickly realized I couldn’t see past the first few feet, and I fumbled to turn on the lantern. The cave looked to be about 50-feet wide and continued well past what I could see in the lantern light.
Inside the deep, dark, low ceiling hole, there were metal walkways lined with chicken wire to keep you on a certain path.
“NOPE,” I said aloud to the darkness. “Not into this.” I walked right back out the way I came and stood under the Fallout Shelter sign, alert for rattlesnakes in the nearby bush.
What are you chicken?
I sighed. I hated when I was cowardly. Then the internal debate started.
Are you really being a coward, or are you sensible? Does it seem smart to go in that cave alone with only a lantern? What if the lantern goes out? Or that guy comes down here and kills you? What if there are more peacocks in there? Bats? Snakes? Spiders? Dead bodies?!?!
I turned around and went into the cave again. This time I walked down about 50 feet of metal rail and stood there shining the light into the darkness. It all looked the same for as far as I could see.
It was a huge, grey stone hole in the ground. Very dark and dry. The walls were fairly flat, the ground rocky. Well, then I’ve seen it all. I walked out.
A few minutes later, after coaxing several peacocks off the trail so I could get back inside, I found the guy again. He was sitting on a couch that looked like its best years were long ago and a dozen animals in the past.
“Hi!” I said, handing him the lantern. “I didn’t go far. It turns out it’s not for me. Ha.”
He stared at me, nonresponsive, for an uncomfortable amount of time before saying: “Ya ready for the animal zoo?”
The animal zoo
My eyes slid to the right, where I could see several taxidermied bears and other animals.
Can one, I wondered, ever really be ready?
“Is that …” I said tilting my head toward the dead things “the zoo?”
“Yep.”
For the record, I usually do not support zoos nor the glorification of dead animals, but this seemed … different.
“Ok, yeah sure, I’ll check it out.”
“He lifted his arm and pointed toward the dead animals. “It’s there. First, ya go around the circle, then you go around the next circle, and in the middle, there’s another circle. Ya, come back out right here.”
I stared at him. “OK.”
Three circles of hell
Inside the room, I realized it was the yurt. It was massive too. The tall wooden ceiling made from tree logs was tall enough to hold a giraffe with plenty of room. Yes, a giraffe. A stuffed dead one.
As I made my way through the circles, my horror multiplied. I was mortified and entranced by the oddities around me. Every animal I’d ever imagined had been killed, stuffed, and displayed in this room.
There were elephant tusks, and alligator teeth, two-headed rabbits, and every species of bird that’s ever existed. There were skeletons – several labeled as dinosaur bones, and I didn’t doubt it.
Every inch of the bizarre space was covered with fur, feathers, bones, skin, and teeth. The macabre items were hung from the ceiling, mounted on stands and displayed in cases. All of it was coated in 20 years of dust.
I involuntarily jumped half a dozen times as I made my way through the circles within circles with just enough space to squeeze by. The raccoon faces, in particular, seemed to follow me.
The animals weren’t all posed “naturally” lest you think any normalcy was found in this place. Some were posed in the moment of death, the arrow still in their chest, others as if they were laying on the ground dead, blood oozing. Some, though, were as expected, looking like they might be about to take a stroll through the forest or whatever their habitat had been before this hellscape.
So long farewell Idaho animal zoo
I rushed through the circles and found my way back out to the lobby and the massive crocodile. The guy stared at me silently. Maybe this is when he kills me?
“Well, that was interesting,” I said. “So much stuff!” while backing up toward the door.
“Yeah, he hunted pretty much his whole life. Didn’t die till ’37, so there’s a lot.”
I didn’t know who “he” was and I wasn’t inclined to ask. I’d already made it further than expected without being murdered, so I needed to hightail it out of there.
“OK, well, thanks for … everything.” I beelined it to my car as he stood there watching me race down the path shooing the peacocks off as I went.
On my way back down the long dirt road, I passed another car headed for the cave. In it was a middle-aged couple. I smiled and waved gleefully, and they smiled and waved back.
I hoped they were fond of peacocks and dead things.
Visit Idaho Mammoth Cave and Shoshone Bird Museum 8 miles north of Shoshone, Idaho, on state highway 75.
Find more stories about Idaho here.
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