A few years back we were out exploring the back end of Menzies mainline. We found our way across to the Memekay River Valley and checked out the views. We came around a corner in the road and there in front of us was a water sprinkler sending up water at the edge of the road. Needless to say, this was something we did not expect to see. We found Crystal Cave that day.
We stopped to have a better look, it appeared to be a campsite. It also appeared to be used on a regular basis. As we looked around, we noticed there were benches and a table stored under a tarp, the benches had Vancouver Island Cave Exploration Group stamped on them. This was quite intriguing to us. We began to look around, and we discovered that there were numerous caves to be found. One of these caves was just over the edge of the road, it was Crystal Cave, and it was pretty cool.
After exploring the Crystal Cave, we hiked around a bit and found several more caves right in the vicinity. It was the start of checking out the area’s caves, we have crawled through at least 20 or more of the local caves here and usually find at least one more on every visit to the area.
Crystal Cave is a pretty easy cave to explore, with no real tight crawls, lots of formations, and several ways to exit.
Hi Bud, I am from Vancouver Island. I was born in Alert Bay. My niece and nephew both have dances and songs that relate to what we know as the Nimpkish Mountain. You would know it as Cain Mountain. It is important to us because the stories teach us how to be better people. They have never been to Cain mountain but would like to go. For nostalgic reasons I would like to go see myself as well. We hear a lot about the stories and tails passed down to us from our past generations. This is one place we can actually visit and feel the good intent from our ancestors. We do plan on going to the mountain in the near future. It would be so wonderful if you could direct us to the crystal cave. Were we can actually visit one of the places of origin that inspired some of our teachings songs and dances. You can return an email to Johnathan@whonnock.net
I look forward to hearing from you.
Gilakas’la
Johnathan Whonnock
Johnathan, this cave is up along the memekay River, quite a ways from Nimpkish mountain.