Recently Discovered Cave Could Be Largest Ever, Has Been in Canada for Centuries Without Being Found
One of humanity’s greatest joys since our creation has been exploring our remarkable, beautiful planet.
With a spirit of adventure, explorers have sought to turn over every stone, sketch every canyon and dive into the deepest recesses of our seas.
It’s particularly rare nowadays to discover places that are truly wild and unexplored.
But in the breathtaking mountains of British Columbia, Canada, adventurers have happened upon a massive cave that they believe nobody has ever explored before.
The cave was first spotted from the air during a government-run routine caribou survey in the spring, located somewhere in British Columbia’s Wells Gray Provincial Park.
Archeological surveyor John Pollack is one of the handfuls of humans to begin investigating what he believes is a very significant find for Canada and for the world.
“I’ve been in some of the biggest caves in the world, and this thing has an entrance that is truly immense, and not just by Canadian standards,” Pollack told Canadian Geographic.
“It goes down quite precipitously, it had a large amount of water flowing into it and is wide open for as far down it that we’ve gone,” he said.
“The scale of this thing is just huge and about as big as they come in Canada.”
In September, Pollack was joined by geologist Catherine Hickson and caver Lee Hollis, who has been caving for more than 30 years in Europe, North America and Asia.
“It was a privilege to make the first known descent and my focus was purely on rigging, rockfall hazards and avoiding the powerful whitewater that could have dragged me into the abyss,” Hollis said.
“This is by far the largest and most impressive entrance pit I’ve ever encountered, and during my brief descent, it showed no signs of closing down. There’s a lot of water thundering down there, so it will make for a sporting trip.”
Researchers are hoping that in 2020, an organized team will do an official field study of the unnamed cave.
While Pollack declined to reveal the exact location of the cave, he said it’s not likely that many people could reach its entrance. Even if someone did, the way down is treacherous.
“You might be able to reach it, but you couldn’t bring in enough equipment to do anything about it,” Pollack said.
“It’s out there in mountainous terrain, surrounded by glaciers and at the bottom of a 45-degree avalanche slope that rises 2,000 to 2,500 feet above it, meaning you can’t go to it in winter.”
Summer is also not an ideal time for exploring the cave since the raging waters underneath are at their highest levels.
“The only time you can really do anything there is in September when the water flow is at its lowest,” Pollack said.
“This is a wild place.”
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