Althouse: The ice cave craze.

February 7, 2014

The ice cave craze.

Droves of people going to the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore see the "gleaming columns of white and pastel earth tones, translucent stalactites of ice and windblown, feathery creations... the caves... of magic and wonder," so that what was once a mile-long hike out onto Lake Superior has gotten much longer because it's hard to snag parking at the Meyers Beach parking lot.

The eerie beauty will have a different feeling with such large crowds, but maybe it's a grand winter festival. We want to go. It's pretty cold up there right now, but actually less cold than here in Madison. I've been in those caves in the summertime, by kayak: see. But I'd love to see them with the ice.

24 comments:

Laslo Spatula said...: I go on about volcanoes, and Althouse brings up ice caves. I see how this works.; 2/7/14, 10:31 AM
Bushman of the Kohlrabi said...: I've seen stories in the Milwaukee JS telling us this might be the last chance to walk to the caves because, global warming! Hurry while it lasts!; 2/7/14, 10:53 AM
traditionalguy said...: Good to see Wisconsin folks have something to do in the winter. Gets them out of the cabin more.; 2/7/14, 10:55 AM
Anonymous said...: Breathtakingly beautiful. Wooly long johns and an empty bladder might be a good idea.; 2/7/14, 11:00 AM
Richard Dolan said...: A "lakeshore sea cave"? Seems to be a problem with that formulation, no?; 2/7/14, 11:30 AM
kjbe said...: We're heading up next weekend. Not only parking, but rooms are scarce.; 2/7/14, 11:42 AM
paul a'barge said...: Would it not be hilarious if they demanded that you show Photo ID before you could get in?

If you get my drift.; 2/7/14, 11:43 AM
garage mahal said...: According to Bayfield Chamber of Commerce Executive Director David Eades, the sudden popularity of the ice caves has had a huge economic impact for the area.
“Our hotels have been booked solid for the past couple of weeks and are booked into the end of March,” he said. “It’s way more than normal, the restaurants are telling me that they are double, triple more than they normally do.”
Eades said his discussions with Bayfield County Tourism officials revealed just how much of an impact the tourism boost represented.
“Using the state’s economic impact equations, we can estimate five to seven million dollars of influx into the region,” he said. “I’m not complaining.”

And they plan on blowing up the Penokees and digging the world's largest open pit taconite mine not too far away. Makes no sense.; 2/7/14, 11:55 AM
Unknown said...: I think you'd have a much better experience if you stayed home and read a book about ice caves.; 2/7/14, 12:16 PM
Brennan said...: I think you'd have a much better experience if you stayed home and read a book about ice caves.

It's way too cold outside to stay indoors. :); 2/7/14, 12:20 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: We read about cave paintings during art this morning. The kids were more into this than expected, so I said, "How would you like to really see them and where they are?" Yes, this was desirable. So we watched half of Cave of Forgotten Dreams. Children cannot help but be entranced by Werner Herzog's voice. They liked Happy People too, which we watched in parts a while back.; 2/7/14, 12:40 PM
Smilin' Jack said...: ...what was once a mile-long hike out onto Lake Superior has gotten much longer because it's hard to snag parking at the Meyers Beach parking lot.

This is yet another example of the horrors of Global Warming, which must be stopped at any cost.; 2/7/14, 12:53 PM
Heartless Aztec said...: Going to drag my English Seahawk up and sail the Apostle islands this summer...or at least that's the plan. Thinking it might be warmer then.; 2/7/14, 1:08 PM
Naked Surfer said...: There’s nothing to fear in the ice cave!

Some pure evil of palpable bitchery will enter that inner space cavern of frozen female hell and melt the good v. evil crystalized in the ice. “Oh, look! There’s Lynn Margulis on a walk with one of her biology classes, and all those male students with her, sleepwalking in underwear, silently begging for rescue, like lost dogs, to escape her droning on.” Never mind those silent men, just art forms of a subconscious moment frozen like ice in time, unable to scream for help. Margulis uses her iPhone from the deepest pit of frozen hell, her selfie launched from darkest inner spaces, published instantly back to her blog out there in the warm light, a fresh, new, and hot pic of her standing next to a huge, frozen, throbbing, fully erect stalagmite of unimaginable Stephen Kingesque horror, the poor stalagmite melting now, and sublimating, her blog tagline echoing that loving, tender refrain – "Gaia is one tough bitch!"

Actually, the Althouse animagus scared the crap out of me this morning with the rant on King and the intelligent bow to Tyler Cohen who rejects the push-button of good v. evil stories for his preferred superior push-button of having a higher IQ, superior to schmucks frozen in hell with lower IQ’s. The higher IQ test (the end-all criterion for the real hot smarties) juxtaposed against the raw animalistic gaia rant really scared me – until I saw what I felt (I may be wrong about this) was the point, er the two points, er the three points, (I can’t count higher than three, so I must stop here) – expressing palpable bitchery (that had to feel primally good) to provoke exactly the binary good v. evil reaction that Cohen criticizes – whether Cohen is right or wrong is not the issue, because simple rightness or wrongness is not the test – when it’s not the test.

Now, the sheer Kingesque binary horror of being stuck in any ice cave, anywhere, at any time, ever – with that particular (er, that many) Althouses melted my stalagmite manhood into dripping pools of half-frozen and half-watery ambiguity, the better part of which sublimated into a sheer gas, vaporized, dissipated, the sublimated gas that is now me, running like hell to escape, then gone into the gaseous void! Phew! I made it!

The ambiguity and plurality of triple state physics – solid, liquid, and gas – (I can’t count higher than three, because women-in-plasmid states are so uncontrollably wild, they could melt the whole cave into an implosion that would kill us all), all three states at the same time is/are/was/and-will-be attainable only through just the right temperatures and the perfect pressures of palpable bitchery, which-bitchery is so hard to get just right, if you’re trying too hard, so just let it come naturally ... because it’s all right there, built in, already inside, and thank Gaia (sorta) for that.

But, I’m still sleeping with one eye open. The hell if I’m going back to any ice cave. Anywhere! Ever!

And that’s that.; 2/7/14, 1:12 PM
Laslo Spatula said...: I came from a cold, emotionally detached mother; I have no desire to revisit the womb.; 2/7/14, 1:31 PM
Naked Surfer said...: My apologies.

I misread the header, “The Ice Cave Craze” as the “The Ice Cave Crave." Really did, just so you know where my heart was .

Which is the wherefore for why I said I’ll never enter any ice cave beckoning me – with a crave. ‘Twas just my subconscious desire to be desired that expressed itself in the misreading.

Now, a craze, that’s much better. “Certainty of death! Small chance of success. What are we waiting for?”; 2/7/14, 1:37 PM
MadisonMan said...: If it brings Tourists to the state, and they spend money, it's a good thing.

I wonder where most of the Ice Gawkers come from. Twin Cities? Duluth? Chicago?

One thing for sure: it won't be melting anytime soon.; 2/7/14, 2:57 PM
Anonymous said...: In the Twisting Convolutions of the Ice Cave in My Mind There is Everyone I Have Ever Met, Naked and Shivering in the Dark. Though They Beg and Plead There is No Way Out for Them: They are Left to Turn on Each Other in a World the Sun Has Forgotten. Why God Has Established This Outpost of Purgatory in My Mind I Will Leave to Men of Better Souls; All I Know is That the Chattering of Their Teeth is Rhythmic in a Way that Makes Me Think Incongruously of Morocco.; 2/7/14, 3:27 PM
Anonymous said...: Garage has something else in mind for us to feed our blast furnaces with, but he won't say what.; 2/7/14, 4:08 PM
garage mahal said...: Garage has something else in mind for us to feed our blast furnaces with, but he won't say what.

Blast a 22 mile long, asbestos laden hole in your backyard.; 2/7/14, 5:58 PM
Anonymous said...: Still won't say what.; 2/7/14, 8:47 PM
garage mahal said...: Waukesha County. The anus of Wisconsin. Try blasting there.; 2/7/14, 9:07 PM
viator said...: I wonder how many people get en brochette from those very numerous, sharp, overhanging spears of ice?; 2/8/14, 11:18 AM
kjbe said...: "One thing for sure: it won't be melting anytime soon."

Melting isn't a concern, here, for the 4+ mile out and back. Wave action and break up is.

The lake is at an unusual 90% frozen state, right now.; 2/8/14, 6:00 PM