It's become tradition that when the girls have a baby/wedding/whatever shower it's time for the boys to head to the mountains. In the past we've gone snowshoeing and we've found extremely hard ways to see waterfalls. Given the forecast for Sunday (rain, rain, and more rain) we figured we'd choose something pretty easy and decently close. Margaret Lake was our destination.
Except it really rained. I mean it really rained. Apparently we got more rain in the first couple of hours than we were expecting for all of August. This meant the trail to the lake just east of Snoqualmie Pass would be nasty and the brush would be wet and the views would be crap and it just generally wouldn't be worth going to. Oh well.
I had tried to get the whole family to go to the Big Four Ice Caves the day before, with little success, so that itinerary was close at hand. Yeah, it was a long drive (1.5 hours from Kirkland), but we had time to kill so Carl, Dan, and Don piled into the car next to Clara and Tokul and we headed north.
By the time we got to the trailhead around 3pm we were all ready to get out except Clara who had finally found a comfy spot to snooze. She was so upset by being awakened that she wouldn't get into the backpack and as a result I carried her while wearing the empty pack. Luckily, the trail was short (one mile) and mostly flat so it wasn't a problem. We popped out of the woods to see a glacial plain before us with a big hunk-o-ice at the other end butted up against a sheer cliff with waterfalls cascading down the surface.
Don't ask why there's a glacier at the foot of the mountain because we couldn't figure it out, but there it is. Apparently the waterfalls run into it from the back, create a little streams that create big tunnels. This starts when the melt starts and by July or August the caves have formed. Around October the snow starts and soon the caves are hidden again.
When we were there we saw two massive caves that joined a little way in. A frigid mist blew out the entrances accompanied by a little stream. Signs warned about the danger so we only barely peeked our heads in.
We climbed a little hill to the right of the main glacier and found another ice shelf with another waterfall. Dan threw snowballs which all fell short, thankfully, and Tokul played in the pool at the base of the falls. A short climb yet further to the right found another free-falling waterfall that I tried to shoot in super-slo-mo, but that didn't turn out quite as well.
Overall, the Big Four Ice Caves are a great winner in spite of the falling rain, low clouds, and icy mist covering the glacial plain. We'll definitely be back with the girls, probably next summer in order to see the caves in a different stage of their yearly metamorphosis.
