It was after 9 pm and already -10F. It would be even colder when I got there, if I got there. It was a long drive on slippery roads. I’d have to hike alone in the dark out on to the ice of Lake Superior which, at that point, may or may not have been solid enough for safe travel. There were a million reasons not to go.
So, I got in the car and left.
It was February 2014. It would become known as the winter of the Apostle Islands ice caves, a worldwide phenomena that would draw more than 100,000 people to a small stretch of sandstone caves festooned with winter ice along the shoreline of Lake Superior in northern Wisconsin. There would be lines of people hiking in tennis shoes on the frozen lake, cars strung out for miles, viral internet posts, CBS News reporters, and more.
But none of that had happened yet. In those days, locals knew when the caves were accessible, word passing in the coffee shop, between neighbors at the transfer station, and in the aisles of the hardware store. We’d put on winter boots and snow pants, wind scarves around our children’s faces, pack a picnic lunch, and have the place to ourselves nearly every year, a local secret that none of us knew would soon become a media frenzy. For us, it was just a winter’s ritual, one of the perks of staying put while the snowbirds fled.
I was the only car in the parking lot.
As a paddler, one of the first National Park kayak rangers at Meyers Beach, and as a local, I had been out at the caves summer and winter many times. I knew every cave, every arch, every cliff wall.
But those trips had been with others, usually, and in daylight.
At night, alone, at 12 below zero now, under stars so sharp it felt like I could hear them scratching the back wall of the sky, this was a different. I had entered a place enchanted.
There was a partial moon. Starlight. Northern lights glowing. The reflective shimmer of snow and all of that light dancing in the ice formations that were untouched and perfect, the handblown glass of dreams.
I barely breathed.
It was so quiet that even the scrunch of my boots in the snow seemed like an intrusion. So, I walked very slowly, enjoying every ice formation for the masterpiece it was. I moved in a gallery of ice and stars.
The moment I remember most came when I climbed back as far as I could against a sandstone cliff behind a frozen waterfall of ice as much to be out of the wind as anything. Cupped in the palm of the cliff was like being inside of a sea shell. I stilled myself, listening for my own heartbeat. The moon had dimmed behind one of the few streaks of clouds and the darkness deepened. Still, I set my camera on the tripod, set it for a thirty-second exposure, and hoped.
What appeared took my breath away, literally. And I leaned back against the cliff wall and tried to make myself remember that moment, to freeze it into my soul - the spangled stars, the unfurling green scarf of the aurora, the groaning and restlessness of the lake ice, the feeling of being held by the cliff wall, and that light that seemed to glow from within the ice, within the rock, from within even me somehow.
It sank into my soul. It has never left.
I’ve done a lot in my life — traveled on six continents skied across glaciers and rappelled into smoking volcanoes in Alaska, hacked my way through parts of the Amazon rainforest, river rafted in China, watched the kaleidoscope of icebergs in Antarctica, mountain climbed in Africa. I have been touched by a grizzly in Kamchatka, and more.
That night on the ice, which is ten years ago this month, may be the moment in my life I felt most alive, most in the presence of the pure power that moves in the world even when we are not looking. That night, I was looking. I felt it in every breath of cold air, heard it when the ice bellowed beneath me, saw it in every star, and felt it in myself.
I was alive.
Five hours alone on the ice, sometimes photographing, sometimes just sitting and breathing it all in. Time seemingly frozen, stopped, stilled by the low temperatures, the raw and wild beauty of the night. I could barely bring myself to turn my back to it all.
But eventually, I had to. The cold had seeped into my clothing and its sharp teeth were nearing my bones. My camera batteries were drained, my muscles ached. And I still had the hike back to the car on the ice.
With one more look, I turned away from the caves and began the long walk back.
By the time I reached the car I was close to hypothermic and I knew it, the key shaking in my hand as I struggled to unlock the driver’s side door.
Inside, I blasted the heater and sat for a long, long time, trembling. There were tears melting down my cheeks. I could barely breathe.
And some of it may have even been because I was cold.
— Jeff Rennicke
The Apostle Islands ice caves will likely not be accessible in 2024. They haven’t been officially opened since 2015. For more information on the caves, go to the official National Park Service website of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore at https://www.nps.gov/apis/mainland-caves-winter.htm.
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What a profound and visceral post!
I was most alive…on a trip to the Central Oregon Coast in 2022. It was a very cold and rainy spring in early April. My husband and I took time to explore the coast near Eugene, Oregon. We took a day to wander the rugged coast and saw our first whale sightings near Yachats. We stopped at a Neptune’s Beach a hidden cove, with boulders that appeared to have been smashed and tossed onto the beach by Neptune himself.
Walking the path to the beach, we began to hear the North Pacific Ocean. Rain pelted our coats and the wind picked up.
The path opened up to a beach full of big black boulders, many covered with slippery sea grass at low tide. Once there, it felt like the most rugged and natural place I had ever visited. The cold wind and rain whipped around my face - yet the air was so fresh and pure it was revitalizing. The area was untouched to us, and amazing to explore boulder after boulder as they wrapped around on the beach into the next cove. Cold waves splashed sea spray near by and we felt so alive, to be in that moment with nature.
-Kelly Blumenthal
I meant to continue on , I have to say your experience was incredible beyond all the other adventures you have shared with northern lights and early morning trips into caves .
I can well understand how it would never leave you and the photographs are fabulous and happy I could take that journey seeing them . I will remember !