Big Four Ice Caves, Big Four Ice Caves Snowshoe — Monday, Dec. 27, 1999

North Cascades > Mountain Loop Highway

This is the first year I have done a significant amount of hiking (I am only 16). The dreary days of fall and early winter going to school had left me yearning for the forest. Now it's Christmas vacation and I have two weeks off. Gee, the weather has been unusually calm and clear over this vacation. What should I do' Head for the hills! Today was the third time I have gone hiking over vacation (Tiger Mountain and Mt. Si last week) and I still want more. I headed off at about 9:30 am this morning to take in as much of the Mountain Loop Highway as I could. I would start by heading up to the trail to Big Four Ice Caves. The road started gettion frosty in the shade of trees just after Granite Falls. This didn't surprize me, but the frost kept getting thicker and thicker Until it was about an inch thick and coating everything aroud Big Four Picnic Area. I was also surprized to see 1-2 feet of snow at the Picnic Area. The access road was closed so I had to walk about a quarter mile extra over snow to get to the picnic area. The view of the shady north face of Big Four Mountain is absolutly incredible in its layer of snow. I think I got some great pictures with frosty shrubs in the foreground. The trail (boardwalk) is completely covered in snow but is easy to follow because of the trench left by others. I am not used to hiking in hard (sometimes icy) snow so I slipped around quite a bit. I turned around where the trail started going uphill and I was slipping a lot. I think this was a little over half way to the ice caves. Anybody with any confidence and experience in the snow whatsoever could go further than I did. I was also worried about my dad's nice car that I had to park right next to the slippery highway. Oh well. I went back down the Mountain Loop Highway to the Lake 22 Trailhead hoping for better luck there.