Curious that they're going to consult with First Nations about whether there's an existing name. "Yeah we knew about that giant hole, just never thought to mention it before".
https://www.google.com/maps/place/52%C2%B030'59.9%22N+120%C2...
I can see how it escaped discovery.
[EDIT]: also mentioned in another cover - explorers believe cave was snow covered year-round up until 20-50 ago.
From the article: "Pollack wouldn’t reveal the exact location of the cave, saying only that it was in the northern section of the park. Asked whether he was concerned about protecting the site, he said, “We are, but also the thing is that this cave is truly in the middle of nowhere."
If you look at where the population is concentrated in BC, the 10 largest cities, take a look at the total population of the province, and then look at how many square km it is...
This is not some remote arctic outpost.
Open a new browser window and open these two links into separate tabs and cycle through them fast until you get oriented. Not sure what conclusions you might draw from it. It's only 34 years' worth, but hmm.
1: https://earthengine.google.com/timelapse/#v=52.52697,-120.06...
2: https://www.google.com/maps/place/52%C2%B031'00.8%22N+120%C2...
Perhaps there are several other caves of similar size to be found?
Canada: https://www.google.com/maps/@60.1004328,-75.3335854,34459m/d...
Russia: https://www.google.com/maps/@72.0373772,97.0176475,62191m/da...
Especially easily, publicly available imagery.
Following the pattern for caves in the Canadian Rockies, the lowest cave levels will be highly technical (wrt exploration techniques) with a cold and fast-moving river. The typical passage in such a cave often is somewhat like a slot canyon, but with more angular walls. The distance to the resurgence appears to be a couple of kilometers with an elevation difference of 450 meters. The geometry of flow from this swallet entrance to the resurgence looks joint or fault controlled directing the flow northward from the 'dry' valley's outlet. That is, the cave flow's exit is north of the dry valley's confluence with the north-south surface stream. Thus, a large amount of the cave is likely to occur deep under the mountain. With respect to exploration, this increases the chances that higher, drier alternate passageways and alternate infeeder streams exist aside from the main stream course. It is unclear from aerial imagery, but there is also some chance that the mountainside to the north and west of the entrance is karstified. If so, higher entrances are possible -- which could increase the total system depth. The deepest cave in Canada is ~650m from highest to lowest point. While most satellite imagery of the resurgent stream run show a whitewater cascade, there is some variation in flow. The cave at the resurgent spring would be one of the first places to investigate at low flow.
Congratulations to the team for a wonderful discovery!
(Just a quick impression. I have discovered quite a few sizable caves--not this one, of course)
Edit: typo.
It could have been much more productive. Instead of downvoting, the response could have been a polite note. Downvoting without comment is a disease I'll have no part of. There's already enough rancour aboard this fractious and constantly-derailing ship.
