Otis
Member
- Joined
- Feb 25, 2015
- Messages
- 18
Apostle Islands National Lakeshore - 2/28/15
So the ice caves were open again for the second year in a row, which I understand to be relatively rare considering before last year they hadn't been open for 5 years. It is an area I've wanted to check out, so when the opportunity came I jumped on it, just like everyone else... Estimates put the number of visitors at about 12,000 for the weekend. I met a guy that drove 12 hours from Ohio, and saw license plates from as far away as NY.
The park service doesn't allow access to the caves until they deem the ice thick enough for thousands of people. According to their website, they send people out wearing full cold water immersion suits to check the thickness of the ice before they ok it.
This trip was planned fully last minute, so invites were sent out for people to join us. The two people that decided to tag along were friends of my girlfriend that I had never met. Turned out to be not the best company. One of the members of our group took to complaining about the hike right away so it kinda put a damper on how far we could go. Kinda frustrating. It was basically impossible to get away from people for pictures, but I made the most of it. I think if you got there early or stayed late, you could get some pretty good photos.
Thanks for checking it out, Tom
So the ice caves were open again for the second year in a row, which I understand to be relatively rare considering before last year they hadn't been open for 5 years. It is an area I've wanted to check out, so when the opportunity came I jumped on it, just like everyone else... Estimates put the number of visitors at about 12,000 for the weekend. I met a guy that drove 12 hours from Ohio, and saw license plates from as far away as NY.
The park service doesn't allow access to the caves until they deem the ice thick enough for thousands of people. According to their website, they send people out wearing full cold water immersion suits to check the thickness of the ice before they ok it.
This trip was planned fully last minute, so invites were sent out for people to join us. The two people that decided to tag along were friends of my girlfriend that I had never met. Turned out to be not the best company. One of the members of our group took to complaining about the hike right away so it kinda put a damper on how far we could go. Kinda frustrating. It was basically impossible to get away from people for pictures, but I made the most of it. I think if you got there early or stayed late, you could get some pretty good photos.
Thanks for checking it out, Tom
