Friday: Barlow Point and the Ice Caves

I've finally gotten the hang of this waking early thing. I made coffee and wrote, and Omaha rose an hour later. We made pancakes and bacon, the bacon mostly just to season the pan but nobody rejects bacon, right? The pancakes were amazing, some of the best I've ever made. The existence of pancake mix offends me evermore.

We drove to Barlow Pass, a pass between two smaller mounts in the Snoqualmie National Forest and the site of four trailheads. The most popular head southwest, but Omaha and I decided to take a look at a much shorter trail, the Barlow Point Lookout trail. It was in the book as a "side trail" to the much longer Monte Cristo trail, but we decided we weren't up for the long hike, which was also rated as a Level 4 (out of 5) difficulty.

We learned a lesson: always assume side-hikes are as hard or harder as the primary trail. Barlow Point was a peak right in the middle of a vast valley, with great views all around, to watch for forest fires. It burned down in the early 1960s and was never rebuilt. Omaha and I wanted to see what was left.

Omaha and I at Barlow Point

The hike was hard. A constant, uphill climb that put immense strain on our knees and ankles. Omaha was doing much better after her painful Tuesday experience, but we were still huffing and puffing, stopping every few hundred yards. Omaha and I had a wonderful time, though. It was lovely, and when we got to the top, it was gorgeous. Despite the still-present woodsmoke, the views were lovely, and there were all these pretty alpine bees flitting around.

We walked back down, which was much easier, and then drove up to the Ice Caves Trail. We pumped filtered water from a nearby stream to refill our bottles, then stopped to have lunch, only to discover that the picnic area was roped off with sherrif's tape! They're still searching for Sam Sayers, an experienced hiker who went missing almost three weeks ago, and the S&R team was using the Ice Cave picnic area as a landing and refueling pitch. The sherrif said it would be more than an hour until the chopper came back, so we could use the shelter if we wanted. We did, making egg salad sandwiches, then made our way to the Ice Caves.

This was a level 1 walk: groomed pathways, in some places literally a boardwalk, filled with families. Hardly the arduous trek of the morning. The Ice Caves themselves are fascinating, snow-filled pockets in the lee of a mountain so that they never get sunlight, but undercut by water running down the mountain that brings warmth, energy and motion below the snowpacks, resulting in huge, hollow caves of packed snow.

There are markers all along the trail warning us that the ice caves were dangerous and we shouldn't go near. Omaha and I went close enough for a photo, but nowhere near the actual caves themselves. Just a few years ago, those caves killed a little girl, and have claimed three other lives in the past twenty years. That didn't stop another family from walking right up to, and in some cases under, the overhang of the caves. Idiots. As we were watching, another young lady informed us she'd heard rumors of a rattlesnake. We newer heard any rattling.

After we got back to our campsite, Omaha took a short nap, and we made a quick meal of Calico Beans & Meat. The neighboring campsite is full of Germans on holiday. Now that it's Friday, the campsite is full, despite the "problem bear" warning. Some sites have as many as six or eight people and three cars!

We tried baking apples over the campfire, but they didn't work. We ended up going to bed a little early.