Capturing the Moment

My intrepid group of spelunkers Jackie crawling to the underground otter den At the opening to El Cap Cave Sign of loggings past   Everyone knows about the whales, bears, glaciers, and beautiful kayaking of Alaska's Inside Passage. But a little known secret connects its way underground all through Prince of Wales Island. It is a karst cave system that spans across 13,000ft. El Capitan is the longest mapped cave and a National Forest Interpretive Site. This is a great place to see a relatively young cave system with an interesting history. My favorite tree Tackling 370 steps to the cave In the early 1990's a cave explorer found perfectly preserved bones inside a hard to get to room in El Cap Cave. He named the room the Hibernaculum and the scientist that followed were amazed at the condition of a large black bear skeleton, as well as a couple of unusual finds. Brown bear, wolverine, and red fox bones were also found in the Hibernaculum which puzzled t...

  El Capitan Cave is the largest known cave in Alaska, and is also the first cave in Southeast Alaska where fossil bones were discovered. A wooden stairway has been constructed up the long hillside to the cave (see photo below), and tours are provided for visitors by Tongass National Forest . A gate has been installed in the cave to prevent visitors from falling into pits or being trapped behind a portion of the cave that floods during storms. It is located on Prince of Wales Island.   We stopped here this week after a nail-biting transit of the narrow, shallow Dry Pass. Not many people will take the big boat through this narrow channel leading up to El Cap, but Capt. Dano navigated the pass with expert precision. We could almost reach out and grab leaves off the trees, and to add to the early morning excitement we were getting our first glimpses of playful sea otters swimming along the shorelines. I even had passengers tell me they were seeing sea stars out of...