Mt Hood Ice Caves, Aug 15th

This is a hike we tried last year with no success. After a very long hike, fast moving clouds and improper gear, we had to turn around without getting to the caves. David rescheduled the hike and was very specific with the gear and fit requirements so this time we had a very strong group. Although weather forecast was calling for mostly sunny, on our way to Top Spur and at the trail head, it didn’t look that way. WE started our hike hoping weather was going to clear up or that we would be above the cloud level. The first part of the hike is the exact same trail to McNeil point that I did a couple of weeks back. This time, with the cloud cover, there were no views and no wow moment so the hike up to the shelter was a lot shorter. Once there though, we started to get some sun rays passing thru the clouds and suddenly, clouds were gone.

Finally some sunshine


With blue skies ahead, we continued our hike up on the Vista Ridge up to a point where we made a quick stop to put on our Gaiters. We then headed of trail traversing a meadow towards the next ridge. I recalled this section as one of the most difficult last year due to heavy bushwhacking. This time, we took off higher so we bypassed that area. The hike continued pretty much the same, traversing a couple of meadows and climbing a couple of ridges until we got to the ridge on one side of the muddy fork. From that point on, there was no more vegetation, just loose rocks, sand and snow. The good part is that we had the cave right in front of us.

There’s the cave


After a bit of a scramble, we got to the entrance of the cave which is larger than what it appears to be. We took a small break to gear up again to go in. Although it was a bright sunny day outside, inside the cave was colder and there was water falling everywhere. Besides using rain gear, we were also wearing helmets just in case rocks or chunks of ice fell off. While gearing up, the cave proved the necessity of it. Every couple of minutes we saw a bunch of rocks sliding and falling of the sides or the top of the entrance. Watching that, we went in one by one as quickly as possible while I was in the back watching for falling rocks. Once in, it was only water falling from the ceiling. What was really incredible though, was the magnitude of the cave. When you stand outside, it doesn’t seem to be that big but once you step in, it all comes into perspective and you realize how high the ceiling is.

Entering the cave


On the right side of the entrance, there was a big hole up in the ceiling that was letting some light in and illuminating the side of the cave that had some very interesting shapes and holes. As we hiked in, we saw another big hole straight up to the sky and then darkness. WE did go as far as we could, always climbing up on very loose gravel, rocks and a flowing river, a very interesting experience. Once back out, we took a break to have lunch before heading back. In order to avoid some of the heavy bushwhack, we climbed higher towards a ridge thinking the trail would be there. It wasn’t, instead we ended up high above a small peak with very steep inclines on both sides. Since scrambling down on loose rocks didn’t very safe, we continued on traversing a big snow field that was pretty steep. After that, we found our trail and headed back down to McNeil for a short rest and then all the way down to the parking lot which was still under the clouds.