Caves as big as subway tunnels crisscross the glacier at the Big Four Ice Caves.
Carved into ice on the side of a mountain 25 miles east of Granite Falls, the caves hide under layers of compacted snow in the winter and emerge each summer, newly formed by warm air gliding down the mountain.
Big Four Mountain’s ice caves are one of the two most popular spots in the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, attracting 50,000 visitors from all over the world each year.
Not for the time being.
The one-mile path to the ice caves is closed indefinitely. As hikers begin to emerge from hibernation and trek off into the woods, they’ll find Big Four’s ice caves trail and dozens of others around the region closed because of winter storm damage.
A lack of funding has left their future uncertain – and disappointed the many hikers who count the ice caves among their most favorite places.
“I come out here because there’s not very many places in the world where you can go from a major metropolitan area on a paved road and see something like this,” said Seattle writer Bruce Taylor as he hiked toward the downed bridge Tuesday. “I’ve been to the Sierra Nevada, the New Zealand Alps and the European Alps – and some of the scenery here rivals anything I’ve seen in the world. It’s truly remarkable.”
On Nov. 6, a massive storm sent swift currents and entire trees crashing into the bridge that allowed hikers to reach the glacier and its ice caves. The middle portion of the wooden bridge broke into two big chunks. They floated several yards down the South Fork Stillaguamish and washed up on the river’s rocky shore.
Until last week, that’s where they remained. And that’s where they would have stayed indefinitely had not a Job Corps youth work crew decided to dismantle and haul away parts of the bridge.
In order to save a few thousand dollars, the Forest Service plans to salvage the wood and reuse it to build a new bridge. Last week, a five-person crew of aspiring tradesmen unbolted dozens of the bridge’s planks and lugged them a quarter-mile to the trailhead. The planks will be trucked to a nearby ranger station, where they will remain until a new bridge is built.
It’s unlikely that will happen anytime soon.
The Forest Service lacks both the half-million dollars and the permits needed to replace the bridge.
“If we had $500,000 drop on us right now, we probably wouldn’t have a bridge until 2009,” said Gary Paull, wilderness and trails coordinator for the Mount Baker Snoqualmie-National Forest.
No money has been set aside for the project.
That means the people who visit the caves, as many as 400 on a summer day, will have to find new places to explore.
“A lot of people would have had a good introduction to the wilderness and now they can’t get to it,” said Taylor, who has been visiting Big Four’s ice caves since he was 8. He’s nearing 60 now.
Don Temple, a volunteer interpretive guide at the trail, used to hike to the caves with groups. As they walked, he’d share historical and geological information.
Now he stands at the trailhead, telling groups the trail is closed ahead.
“People come here expecting to see the ice caves,” said Temple, before turning away three hikers. “It’s kind of a bummer. Of course, I can tell them they can still take a one-mile loop. I’ve walked the trail 400 times. I can tell them exactly what they’d see.”
Until the bridge is fixed, that may be as good as it gets.
Reporter Kaitlin Manry: 425-339-3292 or kmanry@heraldnet.com.
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