A huge, gaping cave has been discovered hidden in the remote Canadian wilderness, and despite the overwhelming scale of this stunning natural void, researchers suggest it may never have been seen by human eyes before.
A huge, gaping cave has been discovered hidden in the remote Canadian wilderness, and despite the overwhelming scale of this stunning natural void, researchers suggest it may never have been seen by human eyes before.
Nicknamed the 'Sarlacc Pit' after the monstrous pit-dwelling beast in Star Wars, the giant cave – concealed amidst the rugged terrain of British Columbia's Wells Gray Provincial Park – is so vast its effectively unbelievable, explorers say.
"My immediate reaction was that there can't be a cave there, it's impossible," geoscientist Catherine Hickson, who conducted an expedition to the site in September, told Global News.
"It is huge. It is enormous. When you first see it, you just gasp because it's just this huge hole in the ground."
The giant cave, which has not yet formally been named, was first spied from helicopter in April during a caribou counting flight – a chance discovery of what researchers now describe as "a cave of national significance … a major new find in Western Canada."
While the accidental spotting was lucky, what's more remarkable is that this massive void had somehow managed to escape detection before this – a seemingly unlikely result for a cavernous mouth that measures some 100 metres (328 ft) long by 60 metres (197 ft) wide.
And that's just the size of the hole at the opening.
If you're daring enough to approach the perimeter of the cave and gaze into the abyss – like surveyor and speleologist John Pollack did during the September expedition – the cave's true enormity becomes apparent.
"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.
"When you're standing on the edge looking down into it, your line of sight is nearly 600 feet [183 metres]. You don't get lines of sight of 600 feet in Canadian caves – it just doesn't happen… The scale of this thing is just huge, and about as big as they come in Canada."
But if the discovery ranks among the largest caves in Canada, how come researchers weren't aware of its existence before now?
According to Hickson – whose company, Tuya Terra Geo Corp., funded the initial survey expedition – the site in Wells Gray Provincial Park where the cave is located would have been historically buried in snow cover year-round, until perhaps 20 to 50 years ago.
Because of that – and its extremely remote, difficult-to-access valley position – she hypothesises the chance finding earlier this year could well have been the first time humans ever laid eyes on the giant cave.
Not that they're claiming it as a fact. To find out more about the cave and its history, the team is appealing to the public to come forward if anyone has knowledge of the void, and are consulting with local First Nations communities to see if the cave exists within indigenous records.
Outside the possible scope of traditional knowledge, there seems to be no mention of it anywhere that the researchers have looked – something that makes the snow cover hypothesis look more of a certain bet, they think.
"The entrance is sufficiently notable that descent attempt would have been written up by mountaineers, cavers, or park staff if it had been encountered in the past 40 or 50 years," Pollack said.
"No such account exists in caving or mountaineering literature."
Nicknamed the 'Sarlacc Pit' after the monstrous pit-dwelling beast in Star Wars, the giant cave – concealed amidst the rugged terrain of British Columbia's Wells Gray Provincial Park – is so vast its effectively unbelievable, explorers say.
"My immediate reaction was that there can't be a cave there, it's impossible," geoscientist Catherine Hickson, who conducted an expedition to the site in September, told Global News.
"It is huge. It is enormous. When you first see it, you just gasp because it's just this huge hole in the ground."
The giant cave, which has not yet formally been named, was first spied from helicopter in April during a caribou counting flight – a chance discovery of what researchers now describe as "a cave of national significance … a major new find in Western Canada."
While the accidental spotting was lucky, what's more remarkable is that this massive void had somehow managed to escape detection before this – a seemingly unlikely result for a cavernous mouth that measures some 100 metres (328 ft) long by 60 metres (197 ft) wide.
And that's just the size of the hole at the opening.
If you're daring enough to approach the perimeter of the cave and gaze into the abyss – like surveyor and speleologist John Pollack did during the September expedition – the cave's true enormity becomes apparent.
"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.
"When you're standing on the edge looking down into it, your line of sight is nearly 600 feet [183 metres]. You don't get lines of sight of 600 feet in Canadian caves – it just doesn't happen… The scale of this thing is just huge, and about as big as they come in Canada."
But if the discovery ranks among the largest caves in Canada, how come researchers weren't aware of its existence before now?
According to Hickson – whose company, Tuya Terra Geo Corp., funded the initial survey expedition – the site in Wells Gray Provincial Park where the cave is located would have been historically buried in snow cover year-round, until perhaps 20 to 50 years ago.
Because of that – and its extremely remote, difficult-to-access valley position – she hypothesises the chance finding earlier this year could well have been the first time humans ever laid eyes on the giant cave.
Not that they're claiming it as a fact. To find out more about the cave and its history, the team is appealing to the public to come forward if anyone has knowledge of the void, and are consulting with local First Nations communities to see if the cave exists within indigenous records.
Outside the possible scope of traditional knowledge, there seems to be no mention of it anywhere that the researchers have looked – something that makes the snow cover hypothesis look more of a certain bet, they think.
"The entrance is sufficiently notable that descent attempt would have been written up by mountaineers, cavers, or park staff if it had been encountered in the past 40 or 50 years," Pollack said.
"No such account exists in caving or mountaineering literature."