# The Selkirk Mountains/Chapter 3

CHAPTER III.
THE CAVES OF CHEOPS.
(Nakimu Caves.)
(Condensed from an Official Monograph by A. O. Wheeler, F.R.G.S.)
Discovery and Exploration: The first persons known to have seen the Caves of Glacier Park were two prospectors in the Cougar Valley, D. Woolsey and Walter Scott, who descended to the bottom of the "Gorge" by means of a fallen tree. This was before 1902 and the discovery attracted little attention. In the summer of 1902, while encamped on the summit of Baloo Pass during a topographical survey of the peaks in that region, Mr. A. O. Wheeler passed close to the Caves without waiting then to explore. Nothing more was heard about them until May, 1904, when C. H. Deutschman visited Cougar Valley in the dual capacity of hunter and prospector. Finding a series of caves, he "located" them as a mineral "claim."
The next year in May, a party of twelve visited the place which had meanwhile aroused much interest. Among them were Superintendent Douglas of the Rocky Mountains Park, and Mr. W. S. Ayres, Mining Engineer, who came to report upon the discovery to the Federal Government. In the same year (1905) Mr. wheeler, then in charge of the Government's Topographical Survey, explored and surveyed Cougar Valley and the whole series of the caves, his work being greatly facilitated by Deutschman who had. alone and by the light of a tallow candle, explored caves and pot holes and corridors. Mr. Wheeler pays tribute to his forerunner's pluck and courage: "Added to the thick darkness, there was always the fierce, vibrating roar of subterranean torrents, a sound most nerve-shaking in a position sufficiently uncanny without it. Huge cracks had to be crossed and precipitous descents made in pitch dark ness, where a mis-step meant death or disablement." This is the man retained by the Government as caretaker and exhibitor since tin Caves have been equipped for visitors.
Mr. Wheeler describes his own descent into the Gorge, down a knotted rope, in August, when the stream at high water was pouring into the opening with tremendous velocity. Although by wading waist deep he crossed the icy torrent, it was then impossible to penetrate more than 200 feet of the subterranean way. Later in the month, Deutschman was able to explore the whole series of passageways reached from the Gorge. In October Mr. Wheeler surveyed this series and explored a number of new ones. There was snow two feet deep in the valley and a somewhat arctic temperature, while the dark caverns below were warm. Later in the same month Mr. Ayres also visited the same passage-ways and some additional ones. By this time the snow in the valley above was four feet deep.
Area: The whole system, so far explored, is covered by a surface measuring 2,910 feet extending from the triangulation station near Gopher Bridge entrance to the Wind Crack below Lookout Point; and the total length of the underground passage-ways is 5,550 feet. From the first disappearance of the stream under Gopher Bridge to the lowest point explored below the Bridal Chamber. ​there is a fall of 411 feet; and from the same point to the Wind Crack, 405 feet.
The Valley of the Caves: The Valley of Cougar Brook is divided into two sections with wholly different origins. The Caves are situated where these sections meet on the lower slopes of Mt. Cheops.
The Upper Valley, 2½, miles long, extending from Cougar Pass to Point Lookout, is a pronounced type of the "hanging valley," having, been carved in a shallow, spoon-shaped, cross-section by the glacier once filling it but now shrunken to very small proportions at the valley's extreme head. An old lake-bed half a mile long where some water lies in summer covers part of its floor. It is enclosed by Mt. Bagheera, Catamount Peak and Mount Ursus Major on the north, and by Cougar Mt. on the south, all having small glaciers. At its head, Cougar Pass leads across the shrunken glacier to a steepravine descending to the railway below Ross Peak Station.
Mr. Wheller writes with enthusiasm of this upper valley, none more beautiful among alpine valleys. In every direction silver water falls leap from the snows and glaciers above, uniting in one central stream which falls in foaming cataracts to the little lake-bed whence, continually increased by fresh falls, it rushes through luxuriant meadow-lands in a second series of cascades that have worn down to bed-rock showing the veneer of soil overlaying it. Here the trees are chiefly spruce and balsam attaining at this elevation a freedom and symmetry impossible in the crowded forest at lower altitudes. Singly or in companies they grow high, their lower dark, branches gracefully sweeping above the light green turf.
Throughout spring and summer all the meadows, parks, and mountain slopes are gay with a procession of flowers, profuse and brilliant. In early spring whole acres shine yellow with the lovely exotic-looking lilies, Adder's Tongue (Trollius laxus) growing low and luxuriant; the scarlet crimson Painters Brush (Castilleia) blazing in the open and on the lower slopes; the deep-blue Larkspur (Delphinium bicolor; the pink and purple Asters: the crimson and yellow Monkey-Flower (Mimulus) in the streams' beds and where the turf is wet: the mountain heather, false heaths ('Bryanthus) and Cassiope) high in the valley and on the alps below the rocks: the pink-flowering Moss (Silene acaulis) beautiful in blossom immediately below the ice; all these and many species as beautiful but more rare, bloom in this hanging valley. Truly the immense old mountains have their own charming spring and summer in their wildest ravines.
The fauna of the Upper Valley appeals to both hunter and naturalist. The mountain goat (Haplocerus montanus) is often seen and his tracks are everywhere on the heights; the grizzly bear (Ursus americana) is a frequent visitor. Of the smaller mammals, are notable the hoary marmot or whistler (Arctomys Columbianus) occurring in great numbers and unusual size, their whistles louder and shriller here; Say's squirrel (Spermophilus lateralis) and Parry's marmot ('Spermophilus Parryi): and the "Little Chief hare (Lagomys princeps). There are a few birds, among them the ptarmigan (Lagopus leucurus)—a flock may often be seen; the water ousel (Cinclus icanus) a funny little bird with a very sweet note who flits from stone to stone along the streams, continually dipping ​the black-headed jay (Cyanocitta stelleri annectens) and the Whiskey Jack (Perisoreus canadensis capitalis).
The hanging valley of the Cougar has still another magnet. From its upper end, a mere scramble will bring the student to the ice of these small glaciers where he may study at ease their structure and action, looking into miniature crevasses and learning how moraines of rock-detritus are made by the downward flow of the ice.
At the site of the Caves, Cougar Valley turns from a northeasterly direction and falls sharply 2,000 feet from Lookout Point to the railway tank at its mouth, a distance of about two miles. This Lower Valley which is V-shaped has been carved out by water erosion. Except its lower part adjacent to the railway, its sides are timbered in patches only, a rank growth of alders, bracken and coarse grass replacing the ancient forest swept away by avalanches. Where the railway joins the Illecillewaet, the typical Selkirk forest grows—Douglas fir. hemlock, cedar, and white pine. Through the lower half of the Lower Valley, the stream flows in a narrow canyon.
The Approach to the Caves. (Going from Glacier House via the Illecillewaet-Cougar Trail.)—About 1⅓ miles from the mouth of Cougar Valley there is a place in the main stream where water is welling up from the ground greatly increasing its volume. This is supposed to be the exit of the underground flow from the Caves. A third of a mile further on, there issues from two lateral cracks in the rock across the brook from the trail, a chill sharp current of air. The place is named the Wind Crack. It is the first intimation on the trail, of the Caves.
As we continue upward, the picturesque Goat Falls break over a cliff and disappear in the ground 60 feet below. (On the map it is marked Entrance No. 4. ) Here the trail swings to the left and climbs some 200 feet up a narrow gully where the hillsides come close together. It is the junction of the Lower and Upper Valleys. Directly above on the right is Point Lookout commanding a view of the whole Lower Valley, of the Illecillewaet Glacier, and the peaks and névés to the south. Immediately beyond Point Lookout is "Entrance No. 3," the first opening reached by trail from Glacier House and leading in pitch darkness with a sheer drop of 120 feet to the "Pit." The little draw which the trail follows is now cut off by the "Gorge," a deep open gash in the valley through which Cougar Brook flows. Therefore the trail turns to the left and soon readies the visitors' camp ground where are the cabins. Across a small ravine is the cabin occupied by Deutschman, caretaker and guide.
Formation and structure: Subterranean waterways other than medicinal mineral springs are rarely found either in the Rockies or Selkirks. During fifteen years of topographical surveying in both Ranges, Mr. Wheeler met but three: the stream forming the source of the Amiskwi Falls near the head of Araiskwi Valley west of Emerald Lake, Crows Nest River near the summit of Crows Nest Pass, and the underground river of these Caves of Cheops.
The occurrence of limestone is rare in the Selkirks which consist almost entirely of archaean rock concerning whose origin there is considerable difference of opinion. The phenomenon of these caverns is due to a deposit of crystalline limestone. Specimens of the stone ​from which the Caves have been carved were exainined by Dr. Hoffman, Government Mineralogist, with the following pronouncement:
"A (from the Auditorium) is a light, bluish-grey, fine-crystalline, massive, non-magnesian, slightly ferruginous limestone. B (from near Entrance No. 3) is a light and dark bluish-grey, banded, fine crystalline, massive, non-magnesian, slightly ferruginous limestone. C (from the Pit) is a dark bluish-grey, fine-crystalline, massive, slightly magnesian and slightly ferruginous limestone, traversed by tortuous veinings of white (crystalline) calcite. D and E (from the white Grotto and the Judgment Hall) being samples of lime-formation on walls and ceilings, consist of a very light buff-coloured coating, having a botryuidal surface of from half an inch and less to a little over two inches in thickness, of a non-magnesia, very slightly ferruginous carbonate of lime." To ascertain their value as marbles, one surface of each crystalline sample was polished, the result showing nothing exceptional, being coarse-grained and not yielding to a very superior polish. That from the bottom of the Pit presenting a rich grey-black polished surface, shot with zig-zag streaks of crystallized calcite, was the handsomest. Thus, with a difference in colouring, the general composition of the rock is the same throughout the system.
Most of the rocks forming this portion of the Selkirks are dull white and grey quartzites and grey to greenish-grey schists. Mr. Ayres reports finding in the old channel where the Terror is situated, gravel of dark brown or red quartzite. As dark-coloured quartzites occur very rarely in this region, the brown and red tints have been the results of weathering. Pebbles and small water-worn pieces of the same material were seen within Entrance No .3, probably carried from a common source. Quartzite boulders were found in the interior of the Gorge series, doubtless brought from a distance by the subterranean flood. Outcropping from the glacier overlaying the summit of Cougar Pass may be seen a mass of almost pure white quartzite, the fragments lying about in huge rectangular blocks.
Concerning the origin of the Caves, Mr. Ayres holds that the passageways are due entirely to water-erosion owing to a small stream of Cougar Creek having found its way ages ago through a bed of limestone; and that the caverns gradually enlarged in irregular forms, through the long process of disintegration.
While holding to this theory in part, Mr. Wheeler thinks that a more potent and far-reaching agency has been at work than Nature's ordinary methods of erosion and disintegration. There is no doubt that these particular beds of limestone are badly shattered in the mass as the tributary streams bear witness: Gopher Falls, Goat Falls and a periodical stream flowing into Entrance No. 3, all join the main stream by underground ways. The rift of the Gorge lies directly across the dip of the strata, the dip being a little south of east at an angle of between 40 and 50 degrees; and the same is true of the subterranean bed of the creek from the east end of the Witches' Ball-room. When the temperature is well below zero in the valley above, there is no frost found in the caverns a short distance from the entrance. Thus, two important factors of disintegration, frost and sun, have been wanting. Moreover, the boulders already referred to are of very large size, the ​
| Marble Markings in interior of caves of Cheops | Goat falls disappearing into Caves of Cheops |
​indications being that they were displaced a very long time ago. This would point to some severe shock or series of shocks caused by earthquakes. That such disturbances have occurred in this locality, Professor W. H. Sherzer proves in his monograph on the Glaciers of the Rockies and Selkirks (1904). Professor Sherzer found at some distance from the present ice-tongue of the Illecillewaet Glacier which is but seven miles or so from the Caves, two moraines composed of large blocks of quartzite. one at least being estimated at some 2,000 tons weight, retaining the original shape in which they were cast from the peaks above. To distinguish such moraines from ordinary moraines composed of ice-worn boulders. Professor Ralph Tarr, an authority on glaciers, has named them Bear-den moraines from the resemblance of the openings between the great blocks to bears' dens.
Mr. Wheeler asks how and when these moraines were formed, seeing that no glaicers of this age are capable of transporting such a load, and no like quantities of material necessary to form that kind of moraine, are ever now found on the névé below the peaks. And he directs us to Prof. Sherzer's empirical answer to the question, who cut down trees between the two moraines mentioned and counted their rings. The oldest was found to be 580 years old. Allowing for the time required to collect sufficient soil to permit growth at all, the age of the oldest moraine would be more than <300 years. Allowing again for the time necessary to carry the material forming the inner moraine, the earthquake would have occurred during the thirteenth century. That a seismic disturbance occurred in old Canada as late is the seventeenth century is recorded in the "Jesuit Relations" translated by Prof. Thwaites. A bit of the record is quoted: "On the 5th of February, 1663, towards half-past five in the evening, a loud roaring was heard at the same time throughout the length and breadth of Canada On level ground, hills have arisen: mountains on the other hand have been depressed and flattened. Chasms of wonderful depth, exhaling a foul stench, have been hollowed out in many places, plains lie open far and wide where there were formerly very dense and lofty forests. Cliffs, although not quite levelled with the soil, have been shattered and overturned."
Mr. Wheeler concludes his thesis concerning the making of these underground chambers in these terms: "If bear-den moraines can be so accounted for, it is not unreasonabie to assume that a seismic disturbance once shattered this bed of crystalline limstone and precipitated Cougar Creek into subterranean channels which the water and time have enlarged to their present size; moreover, that subsequent shocks are responsible for the large quantities of debris that litter their floors. This hypothesis would explain the crack of the Gorge and similar chasms beneath the surface."
Viewed in the light of an earthquake, the subterranean waterways (for the most part now in disuse) comprising the Caves are of comparatively simple origin. They are of exceeding interest on account of the unexpected forms of the various chambers, corridors, and potholes; but more for the opportunities offered to study crystalline limestone structure and the erosive action of the prehistoric stream in conjunction with the sediments carried by it at flood-stages in the past.
DESCRIPTION OF THE CAVES.
Gopher Bridge Series: The Caves are divided into three sections: the Gopher Bridge Series, the Mill Bridge Series, the Gorge Series. Let us now approach them from the Upper Valley. As we have seen. Cougar Brook, leaving the little lake-bed, flows in a succession of small cataracts through the open alplands. At the end of half a mile or so, without warning it drops into a cavity and 450 feet further down quietly re-issues from the underground, having dropped 30 feet on the way. The overground between this entry and exit is named Gopher Bridge from being a special habitat of the little Parry marmots abounding in the vallej Directly opposite the first place where the brook disappears, two cataracts tumble down the mountain side and uniting flow parallel to it when they also disappear to join the main stream underground. On the map they are named Gopher Falls and Gopher Hole.
The group under Gopher Bridge was at first entered through the opening marked "Old Entrance" on the map, at one time the entrance of the stream itself, but a natural dam gradually forming there, it forced its present entrance. (See map). The "Old Entrance" involving much squeezing through narrow cracks and wriggling over dirty rocks, a more commodious vestibule was made by enlarging a small natural opening half-way between it and the stream's present entrance.
Mr. Wheeler's first visit was by the "Old Entrance" and he took observations by the light of gas lamps and magnesium wire. Coming to the place directly over the torrent he describes what he saw:
"Standing on a ledge that overhangs a black abyss, the eye is first drawn by a subterranean waterfall heard roaring immediately on the left. It appears to pour from a dark opening above it. Below, between black walls of rock, may be seen the foam-flecked torrent hurtling down the incline until lost in dense shadows. Overhead, fantastic spurs and shapes reach out into the blackness, and the entire surroundings are so weird and uncanny that it is easy to imagine Dante seated upon one of these spurs deriving impressions for his Inferno. As the brilliant light gives out. the thick darkness makes itself felt and instinctively you feel to see if Charon is not standing beside you. This subterranean stream with its unearthly surroundings is suggestive of the Styx and incidentally supplied the name Avernus for the cavern of the waterfall."
From the new entrance, called on the map "Gopher Bridge Entrance," a small passage joins the underground way of the brook and by following along its edge the Cavern of Avernus is reached. On the way several small chambers are passed, originally potholes carved out of the rock by the Avaters, but since much distorted in shape owiiiir to disintegration of the cleavage planes.
The Mill Bridge Series: Emerging from under Gopher Bridge. Cougar Brook pours down a rock-cut for 350 feet when it again disappears in a spectacular whirl of spray. It re-appears 300 feel further on after having dropped 85 feet. The overground here is called Mill Bridge from the noise of underground waters resembling a mill in operation. The rock-cut is but 8 or 10 feet wide and is named the Flume from its likeness to a mill-race. Its upper half presents a succession of cascades, and the sides show curious small
​potholes in the making. Other small openings occur where the stream descends in the cloud of spray. Seventy feet further east is a larger opening, which was once its entrance; but as the stream cut deeper in the rock-channel, it utilized a handy crack and gradually carved out sufficient ingress for its full volume.
Thirty feet easterly from the centre of the Flume is another opening to the Mill Bridge Series, called on the map "Entrance No. 1," a mere cleft in the rock wide enough to admit a man's body. The total length of its passageway, at one time accommodating a considerable volume of water, is 400 feet. Its height is from 10 to 25 feet, and its width from 3 to 15 feet. It leads to an irregularly shaped chamber. named the Auditorium, of approximately 60 to 70 teet with 20 feet of greatest height. Cougar Brook passes through it and, as it falls 75 feet in the distance of 200 feet from its ingress at Mill Bridge to the Auditorium, the chamber is full of sound and fury. Faint daylight enters through the passageway of the waters, making the place look dim and mysterious. Here the frosts penetrate and in spring stalactites and stalagmites of icicles in columnar groups surround the torrent and extend some distance into the chamber itself. Disintegration has made such havoc that the walls no longer show marks of water-erosion, and the floor is heaped with rock-debris fallen from the ceiling. The connecting passageway, still intact and a good example of erosion, is composed of a series of potholes connected by short corriders. From the entrance, each succeeding pothole is lower, sometimes by 10 or 15 feet. There are rough ladders placed from floor to floor. Most of the potholes here hold water, one to a depth of 4 or 5 feet and so wide that a floating bridge is necessary. When the Caves were first open to the public, all the timber used for construction had to be hewn from the trees and carried on the shoulders over places scarcely accessible to a mountain goat.
A loop in the passageway is called the Corkscrew, from the curiously spiral form of the potholes within it. Across this bend about 12 feet above the main floor, a gallery of pothole formation on a smaller scale extends for 120 feet. Directly under it? lower end is a peculiar sharp spike of rock evidently chiselled by water pouring from the gallery. Component rocks show similar erosion.
With the exception of the Auditorium. the floors and ceilings of the Mill Bridge Series are of water-worn rock; and practically no debris has fallen, showing this channel to be of more recent origin. Some of the potholes are incrusted with carbonate of lime in florescent patterns. In places overhead are projecting spurs that have either withstood the erosive power of the waters or else escaped them by some deflection of the current. It is to be remembered that Cougar Brook, deriving its waters from the glaciers and deposits of snows on the peaks enclosing the valley, carries a strong erosive factor in the rock-particles which compose the glacial sediment.
The Gorge Series: From under Mill Bridge, Cougar Brook reissues to flow through an open gorge 80 feet below the floor of the valley and running at right angles to it. The forge is 300 feet long, about fifty feet wide, and is spanned by two natural rock-bridges. Its sides are composed of badly shattered limestone. At the lower ​
| Where Cougar Brook first disappears below surface | Upper Cougar Valley |
​or north end is the opening that leads to the largest and most interesting series of the Caves of Cheops. The Gorge itself is a striking feature of the landscape, and several places are accessible where the visitor may see straight into its depths. The opening is a dome-shaped break in the wall, 30 feet by 30 feet, through which the stream pours furiously down over a confusion of heaped rock, its scattered crystal-spray appearing from below like luminous mist. At this point is the visitors' ingress called "Entrance No. 3."
At the foot of the falls, the channel resumes its normal direction a little south of east. Here it is necessary to cross the stream which Hows north descending into lower depths; and from this on the passages are, though moist from the atmosphere, free from water. This first passage from the turn of the channel is a dimly illuminated chamber, 150 feet long, 25 feet wide and grading from 10 to 30 feet high. It is in a bad state of ruin, its floor heaped with debris from ceiling and sides. Its roof is one immense slab of rock sloping with the strata. Through its north-east Avail the stream breaks, descending into the blackness with a dull reverberating roar; and fifty feet beyond this the passage turns north again where you must descend a rock-face of some twelve feet. On it are natural footholds as if cut with a chisel, but persons unaccustomed to climbing are advised to use a rope to steady the descent. Here the brook is heard far down rushing through some rock-cut with a dull intermittent pounding like the blows of a giant sledge-hammer. Forty feet to the right through a passage about 2 feet high, you creep into the Dropping Cave, so named from the water dropping everywhere from the roof. The floor is composed of rock-fragments and the walls and ceilings of dark blue limestone streaked with white calcite.
At the eastern end of the Dropping Cave is a narrow passage between fallen rock affording squeezing room, 20 feet long, 1½ to 2 feet wide and 3 to 4 feet high. It leads to the Witch's Ball Room, a cavern roughly triangular in shape with sides of about 60 feet and an estimated height of 50 feet. On the floor is an enormous fallen rock with a generally level surface. On all sides except that of the passage are deep cracks choked with rocks but exposing pitchblack holes leading down to where the underground stream roars threateningly. The place is weird and uncanny in the extreme. Goethe had some such vision for the scene of his Witch's Kitchen in "Faust," and it might so have been appropriately named. For Shakespeare's immortal witches danced upon a desolate heath.
Leaving the Witch's Ballroom, the passage leads south-easterly for 125 feet where the ways part. Its upper end is a vaulted chamber from 15 to 20 feet wide and about 20 feet high, whose floor is composed of broken blocks of crystallized limestone, dark-blue veined with white calcite. Its lower end is between limestone strata from 3 to 7 feet apart with irregular floor of broken boulders and slabs. Both roof and floor are water-worn. They descend until they meet some 20 feet below. The muffled roar of the stream is heard on the left. On the right side of the long passage we have been describing, three separate smaller passages lead to a common goal, two funnel-shaped chambers the farthest one known as the Pit.
It is now necessary to return to the surface and seek ingress through Entrance No. 3, just east of the Gorge and close by Lookout ​Point. This is the first accessible entrance on the trail coming up the valley. The descent is by ladder for 10 or 12 feet to a small cavern with room only for three crouching persons. Off this, a crack barely wide enough to admit the body leads to a narrow chute which, in turn, descending some 20 feet to the "brink of space," can be negotiated by means of a rope. From the final ledge a stone will drop 60 feet and strike the brink of the Pit.
In addition to the three small passages leading to the Pit as described above, is another called the Marbleway from the likeness of its walls to glistening marble. It is a short corridor connecting two larger passages. The Pit is almost 20 feet in diameter and over 20 feet high. Its walls, like those of the Marbleway, are of dark bluish-grey limestone streaked with white calcite, with an effect as of forked lightning on a dead-black background. At the Bottom of the Pit is a slab of rock shaped like a tombstone with a distinctly marked cross (x) in its centre. The walls of the Pit-funnel are water-worn, showing how a stream once flowed into it from En trance No. 3 and carved out the whole chamber.
On our return to where the ways part, the lower and eastern passage is through separated limestone strata from 5 to 10 feet apart and called the Slanting Way, owing to the strata's dip: the upper one called the Subway, from 10 to 15 feet wide and from 2 to 7 feet high, has an arched roof. Both are strewn with fallen rock and difficult to traverse, especially the Subway on account of its low roof. On the east or left side (as you advance) of the Slanting Way are deep cracks in the strata from whose depths comes a loud noise of the subterranean waters. At a place about the middle, the crack expands allowing a descent to the stream's bed below a cavern called the Turbine which itself is reached by a rather difficult passage involving skill in climbing. The Turbine is so called owing to noise from waterspouts resembling sounds made by water falling into the pit of a turbine. Near the south end of the Slanting Way on its left hand side is the interesting pothole named on the map "Curious Pothole." Directly beyond it is the Art Gallery, so called from the florescent designs of overlying carbonate of lime, in color from cream to delicate salmon. Here the incrustation varies in thickness from 2 to 6 inches and the flowering is more beautiful than in other places of similar natural decoration.
Beyond the Art Gallery, the passage continues south-easterly, ever increasing in interest. Within the next 200 feet, it varies in width from 15 to 30 feet and in height from 10 to 15 feet. On the right is a narrow twisted opening named the Gimlet. On the left are two concave sections of ancient potholes leading to unknown depths, one named the Dome from its perfect form. Both are pro fusely ornamented with florescent incrustation. Among minor pas sages here, is one leading from the unnamed and southerly pothole to the Judgment Hall.
The Judgment Hall: In this section the subterranean river crosses the corrider some depth below, and its muflled roar is now heard from the right side, A narrow opening. 1½ feet wide, leads for some 15 feet to the Carbonate Grotto which has some fine floral designs. The cavern containing the grotto is about 30 by 60 feet in area and from 10 to 15 high. For the next 130 feet, the passage ​varies from 8 feet wide and 5 feet high at the upper end, to 20 feet wide and 20 feet high at the lower end. The sides are hung with rock shelves spotted with the calcium, and the floor is covered with fallen rock. It ends in a cul-de-sac. But through a crack on the right, scarcely noticeable in the dark and barely wide enough to admit a human body, you may descend 57 feet and enter the largest cave of all, 200 feet wide and from 40 to 50 feet high. It is called the Judgment Hall, and some conspicuous pillars within, the Pillars of Justice. Blocks broken from roof and sides litter the floor and lie heaped at the north end. The roughly arched roof and the sides rising in parallel ledges, and the heaped rocks are covered with the white calcite and in places beautifully ornamental. From its north end the Judgment Hall connects with the unnamed one of the two ancient potholes.
Near the centre of the western wall, a narrow gap leads to a small chamber named by W. S. Ayres, the White Grotto from the delicacy and beauty of its florescent calcium ornamentations. The passage of which the chamber is a part, is 40 feet long, 15 feet wide and 10 feet high. From the White Grotto a passage leads to the Bridal Chamber also named by Mt. Ayres, from the purity of its lime incrustations and the general beauty of the floral designs. It is a small chamber. Here the passage breaks off in a precipice falling to a deep chasm from which is heard the subterranean stream. It is 240 feet from the Wind Crack and 54 feet above it. The wind issuing from these lateral cracks already described, is probably due to a waterblast caused by the stream falling into the chasm .
Another passage is the Ice Cave situated above the deep entrance from the Gorge and reached directly from the valley. Its largest chamber is named the Temple. The name. Ice Cave, applying to the whole passageway, is on account of ice blocking the entrance the year round. A second set of passageways occur below Goat Falls which pour into them until they are icebound in late October. Their structure is similar to the passages leading to the Auditorium, via a series of connecting potholes, only these are much smaller. Probably the flow from Goat Falls the bulk of whose water passes through these channels, empties into the Turbine.
Looking down Cougar Brook Valley from Pt. Lookout
Exit of Cougar Brook from Mill Bridge