Karst Caves

For one of the classes that I am currently taking, I recently had to do a "field observation" of a land area that I explored/ hiked through. After this field observation I had to write a description of what I saw. I thought that this description may make a good blog, so here it is:

Karst Caves on Prince of Wales Island is an area with boardwalk trails through the muskeg with old growth forest at the bottom of the hilled area. Karst Caves is a drive in Park area with a small crushed gravel parking area that leads to a raised platform with a placard that describes the karst caves, their formations, and the area of muskeg. There is an outhouse off the side and the area is designed to be hiker and tourist friendly.

A boardwalk trail leads from the raised platform and leads through the muskeg. The majority of the area as you walk down the boardwalk trail appears fairly treacherous if you were to accidentally step off the side. Most of the areas that are quite high off the ground floor have rails around the boardwalk.

The boardwalk gradually heads downhill and you see small pools of water teeming with water striders and other bugs amongst the grass, moss, and muskeg area. There are small cedar trees as toward the beginning of the trail and as the trail turns the trees get larger and older and you start to see the first outcroppings of karst. As you go farther down the trail and go deeper into the old growth forest there is less light that comes through and there are still some patches of snow, even at the beginning of June, especially in the deeply shaded areas. Continuing down the boardwalk you begin to see the first of the sinkholes, water runoffs, and small waterfalls falling into the sinkholes. Deeper into the old growth the canopy above us is thick and the entire ground is covered in moss and rotting trees, which have fallen over the course of time. We cross an area on the trail where a tree has fallen, crashed through the railing, and exploded onto the boardwalk. At the farthest point of the trail the largest sinkhole with a large basin floor was water flowing through. Currently the water is low, but it is evident from watermarks on the sides of the rock face wall how high the water can get, approximately 10 to 15 feet up the rock face. The boardwalk here is about 20 to 25 feet above the ground floor, less than 10 feet above where the water can rise up to.

It is surprising to me, but I hear very little evidence of animal life as we walk through. We can hear the water falling, especially the closer we got to the end of the trail and the largest of the sinkholes. The occasional bird sounds, which type(s) I’m unsure of. We do not see any of the birds, but the forest canopy is very thick through here. The most animal life we see are the water bugs and the constant presence of small biting flies and mosquitoes that we must constantly shoo away and keep moving to avoid.