The weather has brought us a welcome break of cool sunshiny days, quite a contrast from the dark, rainy winter weather that seemed to have settled in since late October. Russ and I decided to take advantage of the nice day and make an adventure east up past Trout Lake, Washington and into the Mount Adams wilderness. Our destination: The Ice Caves. There is an ancient lava tube that had a tendency to hold cold air in the winter time and keep the caves at freezing temperatures all summer. The ground water leaking through the ceiling and floors makes some amazing ice sculptures in the cold air. So we packed up some warm gear, flashlights, and Max (Phoenix is still recovering from a leg injury and has been given the huge responsibility of guarding the sofa - it is an important job to make sure it doesn't leave the house!) and set out on our journey to the caves. Of course a trip east means a venture through the Columbia Gorge, and over to the "east side" where the air is drier and the landscape is noticeably different.
Trout Lake is a small mountain community that is peaceful and quite. I have spent sometime in the area working with the dairy farmers who live there, so I am already familiar with it's slow easy going pace. Russ found the atmosphere just as appealing. Once we left town and headed off onto forest roads, we found the wilderness to be just as peaceful and serene. Upon arrival at the caves, we equipped ourselves with lights and headed into the cave.
At the end of our decent of the stairs into the abyss, we were greeted with large boulders to climb over and then amazingly icy floors. The air was quite cold and damp for being "the drier side" of Washington. Russ has a wonderful assortment of lights from flooding beams to spotlights that would illuminate different aspects of the cave and the ice. Since it was the end of fall and the cold air in the cave had not been re established from the winter, yet, the ice formations were not all that spectacular, but there were a few beautiful and interesting structures to observe while in the dark.
After navigating over large boulders for a little while, and evaluating and comparing beams of various flashlight from the small collection Russ brought with him, we re surfaced into the light again. We were greeted by a family who missed the group they were to connect with for a tour of the caves. The elementary school - aged daughter was looking a little bummed that she was not going to be able to see the caves as she had no flashlight, and her parents were not too keen on making the excursion on their own. However, they were in luck, Russ and I were able to help in that department! We took the family back down in the cave and while the parents stood timidly at the foot of the steps with Russ, the gal and I went back into the caves to explore. We were not able to help them find their group, but we were able to assist in sharing with on our excursion.
Our next stop was to the natural bridges, just up the road. This was another ancient lava tube that had formed but collapsed, leaving some solid places and some deep gullies. The solid places made bridge structures over the gullies. It is a pretty neat phenomenon.
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