Wolf Rock Cave


Useful Information

Location: Kisatchie National Forest.
From Highway 171, exit Pickerin, LA10 east 7.6 km, turn right 2.7 km, turn right on FS403 and left after 150m, 3.6 km to sign. Parking lot signposted.
(30.972277, -93.192258)
Open: No restrictions.
[2022]
Fee: free.
[2022]
Classification: SpeleologyErosional Cave
Light: bring torch
Dimension:
Guided tours: self guided
Photography: allowed
Accessibility: no
Bibliography:
Address: Wolf Rock Cave, Kisatchie National Forest, Calcasieu Ranger District, 9912 Highway 28 West, Boyce, Louisiana 71409, Tel: +1-318-793-9427.
As far as we know this information was accurate when it was published (see years in brackets), but may have changed since then.
Please check rates and details directly with the companies in question if you need more recent info.

History


Description

Wolf Rock Cave is considered Louisianas only cave. It is an outcrop of the Oligocene Catahoula Formation, 30 Ma old river sediments like sandstones, clays, and conglomerates. which were eroded to for a small cliff with two shallow shelters. The lower layer of rock seem to be softer and there was actually a sort of passage or low chamber eroded from the rock. However, as it was used by man for millennia it is heavily altered and its original state is unknown.

The oldest human remains discovered by excavations in the shelter are from the Late Archaic (2500-1000 BC). The Archaic people used the cave mostly to collect chert, probably they stayed now and then for a few days in the shelter. Several pages about the cave explain which artifacts were found from this people, such as axes, bone needles, fishhooks, beads, baskets, and hairpins, without actually adding that they were not found here. This cave was only rarely visited by them and not a popular spot. Arrowheads can still be found in the woods surrounding the cave, though.

While the spectacular part is outside, the two overhanging rocks forming the shelter, there is actually a real cave behind one of them. The cave is developed in the softer layer of rock at the bottom, the ceiling is formed by a harder layer and looks like a flat ceiling. The site was a campsite for local hunters and fishers. During the 1950s and 60s it was a spot where teens from the nearby towns of Pitkin and DeRidder gathered to drink beer. In the 1970s it came under the jurisdiction of the United States Forest Service. They thought the cave was too unstable for public visitation, and used explosives to seal off two back rooms. Today we do not consider such behaviour environment friendly, but the 70s were obviously different. Its completely unknown why they not simply closed it with a gate.

There are stories that there was once a huge chamber at the far end which was used as a Union barracks and garrison, hiding horses and supplies from the Confederate forces during the American Civil War. And local lore tells that Jesse James used the cave as a hide-out. Unfortunately there has never been a survey of the cave before it was blown up, and so the story of the back chambers has become a sort of legend. It's not clear if they ever existed and how big they really were. However, as the cave is considered an erosional cave such huge chambers are quite unlikely. Any river flowing in front of the rocks, forming the escarpment, the overhangs, and the cave, would never have created huge chambers behind a rather narrow passage. How could the water flow in and out through a single passage?