Description
One of the neatest places to explore is El Capitan Cave! El Capitan Cave is located on the northwest part of Prince of Wales Island and is the largest known cave in Alaska. It was the first cave in Southeast Alaska where fossil bones were discovered (see article below). Wooden stairs (over 300) lead to the entrance and guided tours are provided by the US Forest Service. Call 907-826-3004 (Thorne Bay Ranger District) for reservations (summer only). Beaver Falls is located a short distance south of the caves on the road system and has a boardwalk with interpretive trail that provides a scenic view of the falls and other smaller caves. This karst terrain, characterized by caves, massive sinkholes and underground streams, covers an area of about 700 miles on the Island. The ecosystem, formed from limestone and marble bedrock dissolved from the abundant rainfall, is most productive for animals and plants. Prince of Wales Island includes the main island and hundreds of adjacent islands with more than 2,600 square miles and 990 miles of coastline with countless bays, coves, inlets and points just waiting to be explored. (On your knees) Southeast Cave Reveals Clues to Ancient Alaska by Ned Rozell This article is provided as a public service by the Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska Fairbanks , in cooperation with the UAF research community. Ned Rozell is a science writer at the institute. While exploring a cave in Southeast Alaska a few years ago, Tim Heaton found the leg bones of a large brown bear and a black bear. He expected the bones to be like others in the area-fossils from animals that lived about 10,000 years ago-but these bears were different. Radiocarbon dating showed they lived about 40,000 years ago. Heaton's discovery, made with his caving buddy Kevin Allred, has changed a few people's views of Alaska's character during the last ice age. Did glaciers and sea ice bury the coast of ancient Alaska, or did Southeast feature areas with enough land exposed to support bears, caribou and foxes? The discovery of ice-age bear, seal, fox, and caribou bones suggests the latter. Heaton, a paleontologist at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion, has explored caves since he was a teenager. As an adult, his spelunking skills have allowed him to wriggle into dark passages where the clues of ancient history rest. Such a place is On Your Knees Cave, on Prince of Wales Island. Surrounded by walls of limestone, On Your Knees Cave consists of two tunnels small enough to make crawling the only way to advance or retreat. Heaton's friend Kevin Allred, who lives in Haines, found animal bones when first exploring the cave and later guided Heaton to its entrance. Inside the cave, the pair found a wealth of bones buried in layers of sediment, including the bones of brown and black bear, arctic and red fox, caribou, ringed seals, marmots, lemmings, voles, and countless birds and fish. Heaton and his crew have made the cave a bit less of a crawl since the early 1990s by removing 5,000 bags of sediment. After sifting through that sediment, they have collected 25,000 bone fragments.