Big Four Ice Caves Snowshoe — Friday, Jan. 2, 2026

Had a wonderful day making the trip from the Mountain Loop Highway closure gate to the ice caves today! It’s a pretty relaxed adventure if you’re prepared, but I did see lots of people with a wiiiide variety of clothing, footwear, and traction choices. While not everyone needs to go out and buy a bunch of things to go play in the slow, it definitely makes a difference to be warm, dry, and not slipping!

Mountain Loop Highway is totally clear and was just a bit wet as of this morning up to the gate. After the gate the walk to the picnic area is like 80-90% ice or packed, icy snow. I walked out extra traction, but did put microspikes on for the walk back. I put snowshoes on once I left the road at the picnic area and wore them the entire way up to the end viewpoint for lunch. Enjoyed some hot cocoa and watched the waterfalls and looked for (small) avalanches. Saw a few small snowslides up in the cliffs and did *hear* two pretty big sounding avalanches before and after I left, but didn’t see where they happened; was mostly just a reminder that the hills are alive with activity!

Swapped snowshoes for microspikes on the way back which .. ehhh .. pros and cons. There are a handful of trees down over the trail between the picnic area and ice caves which were cumbersome on the way in with snowshoes on; that being said, there were also kinda cumbersome on the way out with just spikes and also the snow kept balling up in my spikes, even on the solid snowpack of the trail.

Overall, a great day out in the snow and excited for more to fall to get some more consistent cover on the road walk out to the picnic area and snowy trail starting there!