Ice Caves of Lake Superior

After leaving Duluth yesterday, we decided to check out these now famous ice caves on Lake Superior near Bayfield, WI.  We drove to Cornucopia, a small town close to the caves.  We were greeted by a loooooong line of people waiting for a shuttle to bring them to Myer's Beach.  The line wasn't moving very fast and the shuttle was really just a short bus, so we decided to try our luck at parking and walking to Myer's Beach.  We got fairly lucky; we probably walked about 3/4 mile to the beach.  Then the real journey began.  We joined the steady stream of people walking across the frozen Lake Superior to the ice caves that are traditionally only reachable by kayak.  We walked about a mile across the lake and finally reached the ice caves.

This is the first time in five years that it has been cold enough long enough (lucky us) for the lake to freeze so solidly that people can walk across to the caves.

They were spectacular from the outside, but from the inside, they were even more beautiful and impressive.  It was really funny - there were tons of people exploring the caves by sliding between the frozen waterfall and the frozen lake (there was about a foot clearance), slipping into and out of holes (basically looking like they were being birthed), and crouching into the caverns.  Pretty much reminiscent of Field of Dreams when the baseball players walk into and out of the corn field.

Here are some of my pictures: 

We did our fair share of exploring.  We slid around on our backs and stomachs to see the beautiful ice formations.  My husband's favorite was a place where you slide in between the waterfall streams, climb up on top of an ice platform, and then slide down into an ice room.  In a lot of these places, you have to be sure that you can lift yourself out of wherever you are sliding down into.   There are a lot of caves to explore, each one unique. 

It was just beautiful and fun to explore.  So different than anything we've ever seen and done.  And like most amazing things in nature, you really have to work for it.  Walking that far in the snow in boots and snow gear is tiring.  But so worth it.