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Prince of Wales Island Expedition Leads to New Discoveries on the Tongass National Forest


Two people wearing safety gear connect to a rope setup at the entrance of the Razorblade Rodeo cave.
Jess Coffey Navigates the Entrance to Jessica’s Razorblade Rodeo Cave.  (Photo by John Dunham)

By Christian DeCelle, GeoCorps Intern, Tongass National Forest.
Edited by Daniel White.
August 22, 2022

During the week of the of July 4, 2022, 10 cavers from the Glacier Grotto arrived on Prince of Wales Island, Alaska for the Prince of Wales Island Expedition. The Glacier Grotto was supported financially by the National Speleological Society’s Sara Corrie Memorial Grant and the Cave Exploration Society. The expedition resulted in the exploration and survey of 10 caves, many of which were previously unknown. The cavers arrived in Hollis via ferry from Ketchikan on Sunday, July 2 and stayed at the El Capitan Campground for the duration of the expedition.

The beginning of the week was dry, and teams primarily focused on lowland karst. The most significant lowland explorations occurred around the Staney Lowlands Karst System. Water enters the system at a large sinking stream in a limestone canyon, continues through several caves downstream, and emerges at springs a half-mile away.

Jess Coffey wearing a hard hat and other safety gear hangs from a rope as she descends into the dark and rocky opening of Booby Trap Cave.
Jess Coffey Rappelling into Booby Trap Cave. (Photo by Michael Ketzner)

The first group surveyed this sink, Sophia’s Sinking Stream Cave, to nearly 400 feet long and 81 feet deep where it ended in a large, deep pit. The second group explored Meow Cave and surveyed over 850 feet of passage, documenting large, nautiloid fossils and cave-adapted springtails before climbing up a wall, emerging into sunlight, and realizing they had come out of a previously known cave downstream, Gazorpazorp Cave! Finally, the last group explored a cave by one of the overflow springs, finding wolf tracks around the pools in the cave and naming it Wolves’ Oasis Cave.

Later in the week, as the groups got more comfortable with the terrain and the weather got worse, cavers pushed up El Capitan Peak towards El Capitan Pit, the deepest pit in the United States. Their most significant find of the week was Fast and Heavy Cave, named after the hiking strategy of the cavers who found it. They surveyed Fast and Heavy Cave to 300 feet deep and were only prevented from exploring further by a lack of bolts. The cave continues down another pit, and the cavers intend to return next year to survey the rest of the cave.

On Friday, July 8, the expedition wound down and some of the group explored the section of El Capitan Cave that is open to guided tours before breaking down camp. Then, the group drove south to Sandy Beach to camp closer to the ferry terminal. The expeditioners had to wake up at 4 a.m. the next morning to catch the ferry, but it didn’t stop them from celebrating a successful week, long past the late Alaskan sunset. They had survived a gorgeous, wet, successful week of caving in Southeast Alaska and came out with 10 newly mapped caves. After years of inactivity, the 2022 expedition was an overwhelming success and the talk around the fire at camp was filled with eager plans for the next one.
 

https://www.fs.usda.gov/managing-land/natural-resources/geology/caveskarst/beneath-the-forest/20220822