[Riverside Laker]

[Chief Joseph]

Maybe 1 in 500,000? There have been 4 deaths that I know of and there is really no way of knowing how many people visit there and what percentage of them enter the caves.

[Riverside Laker]

Maybe we can estimate. I just heard that 6100 people visit Monte Cristo each year. Let's double that. Say the four deaths occurred in 10 years. Then 120,000 people with four deaths is 1 out of 30,000. That gives you a 99.997% chance of all visitors. But maybe only half the visitors enter the cave. So that's 1 death out of 15,000 cromagnons. That's about 99.99%. It's not terribly far from the odds of a firearm accidental death. Most firearm folks think that safety training is a good idea (don't know that percentage). So maybe it's about half as common as firearm accidents, a third as common as drowning in a pool or falling off a ladder, but a couple orders of magnitude less common than motor vehicle accidents and unintentional poisoning. That's why we have lifeguards, seatbelts, and child-proof medicine bottles.

[Chief Joseph]

I would say that Big 4 gets at least triple the visitors as MC...plus you can still fairly easily get there even when deer creek gate is closed. Plus I think the first fatality was at least 20 years ago? So I am going with 1 in 125k.

[Cyclopath]

[Cyclopath]

The Big Four Ice Caves Trail, a designated National Recreation Trail,[1] (#723) is one of the most popular hikes in the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest attracting over 50,000 visitors per year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Four_Ice_Caves Well damn.

[Cyclopath]

So 4 deaths out of 1,000,000 visitors in the last 2 decades. In those same 2 decades, 700,000 Americans died in car accidents. Roughly the same number from guns. To give some context to the numbers. The Big Bad Ice Cave isn't so terrifying when you look at the facts.

[JonnyQuest]

[RumiDude]

Every analagy is imperfect but let me try a new one. I haven't read every post in this thread, but I don't think it has been used. Going into and near the Big 4 ice caves is like playing in the street. Growing up in the Midwest almost every kid I knew played in the street at one time or another. Most of us survived just fine. A few had some close calls. A few were actually hit by automobiles, suffering various degrees of injury. My best friend as a child had a long scar from behind his left ear to the top of his head as a result of an auto striking him while he was playing in the street. A relatively few of those struck by autos were killed. So that's my analogy, though imperfect it kinda fits. Most get by with no issues. But when something bad does happen, it is usually serious to the extreme. And that is why when I became a parent myself, I told my kids not to play in the street. As a side note, I took my two adolescent boys to Spider Meadow three or four times during their teen years. Usually there were similar piles of snow/ice with caves along the cliff sides of the valley. I would generally let them wander on their own in the evening, but with strict instructions not to enter those ice caves. Rumi

[Jim Dockery]

Chief Joe - your comparison to climbing is true in a way (both involve objective danger), but exploring the caves (like you and Scrooge used to do) is more like a climber purposely spending a summer day in a steep avalanche prone gully with an ice cliff looming overhead - no-one does that. As an alpine climber I learned to asses objective danger and try to mitigate it. Of course the obvious first choice would be to avoid such climbs, but some of the most beautiful and challenging routes involve at least some objective danger, so we study them, then choose the best season and time of day to climb them. When ever passing under obvious danger (ice cliffs or rock fall zones - like that posed by the ice caves) we try to cross below when it's coldest - at night or early morning - and/or moving as fast as possible. Many times we stop and rest at the edge of debris fields, then sprint across (as best we can in boots and crampons) to the other side, where we catch our breath when out of danger. I did the same in the caves once years ago when I was there on a below freezing fall day for ice climbing practice. I hurried far enough in to get a couple shots looking out, then quickly exited, feeling lucky because I knew that I'd taken a bit of a chance. I've never gone back in because my risk tolerance is going down with old age (I've used up most of my 9 lives) and the pictures weren't that good anyway Of course realistic assessment of the danger takes some mountain experience that most hikers on this super easy trail don't have. The other problem is that warm summer days, when ice fall danger is highest, is when most people go there. This is our go-to walk to show off the local mountains to non-hiking family and friends so I've been there many times. When avalanche danger from the looming face above is low (later in the summer or fall) we always walk up close enough to look inside and feel the cool breeze while staying well clear of any icefall. A few times I've been there when other people enter and I've pointed out the big blocks of ice on the ground and that that people have died recently right there when hit. At least once that got the person to stop, snap a shot, then exit a bit quicker than they might have otherwise. I'm so happy they reopened the trail and do feel that the long closure was ridiculous. If we followed that logic every easy access river, trail along a cliff, and ocean beach in the country would have to be closed to save people from themselves (see the recent thread about the two women killed clamming).

[Kim Brown]

[Foist]

[Foist]

[olderthanIusedtobe]

Ice caves sometimes form beneath the cliffs on the far side of Lake 22, although they are not permanent like the Big 4 caves. I went in one of them during one low snow early winter, probably December. Temperature was probably near freezing. I figured the chance of collapse was fairly low. I survived. Does that mean I'm stupid? I don't think I've ever gone in the Big 4 caves, although I've been at the edge of them a couple times. They are long gone, but weren't some ice caves up above Paradise in MRNP a big draw back in the day?

[Kim Brown]