This one is for the older generation here, as the TV western was in black and white. So that would make it before the summer of 1967 when we got our first color TV. Originally I thought it was on Wagon Train, but I reviewed the episodes and did not find one that resembled the show that I remembered from my early youth.
In the show, a father with one or two sons and one or more of the stars find this mysterious mountain with a cave-like enterence into the heart of the mountain. As they explore farther into the cave it opens up into a cavern, compleat with some bottomless pits in the floor. And ungodly howls issue from the tunnels running off from the cavern and from the pits. The villainus father shoots a creature and then breaks his leg and has to be left behind as the rest go for help. So the father is laying there hearing the howls of the creatures all alone. When the rescue party with the rest of the shows stars arive the next day, the find the father laying on the ground. When the son yells Father, he raises up on his forearm and turns to the rescuers and his hair and beard has turned white with horror. As the people approch him he crawls backwords in absolute fright and falls backwords into one of the bottomless pits.
My problem was I can not remember the creatures except that I believe the hair on them was white. Were they humonoids or something like sabre-tooth tigers. Did someone write up a TV script featuring bigfoots even before the P/G film?
Anyone remember this episode and the western it came from?

Could this be it?


http://www.fiftiesweb.com/wt/wagon-train-ep1.htm

Steve Campden Story
(ep. #2.32)
5/13/1959 A man and his son try to help Flint find a trail through the snow blocked mountain pass. During the storm they are forced to seek refuge in a cave. Ben Cooper as Steve Campden Torin Thatcher as Steve A good Robert Horton episode
This is the story with the saber-toothed tiger!

Red, You hit it. I must have skimmed over that synopsis and missed it. Well it was Wagon train after all :doh:

Red, you must have looked it up because I know your not old enough to have watched it first run

Thanks, case closed (by the "younger" generation)

lol, yes I looked it up and I am probably a bit older than you think!


Redwolf