First Hike of the Pandemic on the Mountain Loop Highway

When: September 2020
Where: Big Four Ice Caves
Road Trip: Mountain Loop Scenic Byway in Washington (my trip report)
What: hiking
Accompaniment: I Dreamt We Spoke Again by Death Cab for Cutie

Camped nearby for a desperately-needed pandemic escape, we wandered over to check out the river below the Big Four Ice Caves. A third of the bridge over the river is washed out, but as we stood at the end looking across the gap, we noticed a family troupe down the rocky beach below the bridge. Intrepid hikers had created a crossing of rocks and boards over the low-flowing river. The parents carried their kids over, scrambled up a slippery bank, and reached the trail.

“Let’s go,” my husband said.

There are people, I argued. We’re not prepared. It’s too late in the day to start a hike.

Still griping, I pulled my mask over my face and followed him up the trail. We passed a few groups, some masked, some pulling their shirts over their mouths as we crossed paths. All summer, I’d been too scared to hike, not knowing how busy trails would be. My heart pounded: from anxiety, smoke, or being out of shape?

As we crested the hill before the ice caves, signs warned us that the caves were dangerous. “People have been killed past this point.” I remembered hearing about a little girl killed on the ice field several years ago, well back from the cave. Nevertheless, we could see tiny people right under the mouth of the ice cave, and many more crossing the wide rocky field between the trail and the snow. Already at my stress limit, I refused to get any closer than the trail. The last of the season’s wildflowers brightened the lush trailside foliage.

The smoky sky was tinged pink as we headed back down to our camp. Out of cell signal, we had no way to check the air quality. We stayed another two days, the smoke worsening each day, before deciding it was bad enough we didn’t want to breathe it any more, rental van and cat sitter be damned. The drive home felt like we were in a disaster movie, the air gray around us, our headlights painting stripes of light through the thick night air.

Mountain Loop Highway Road Trip

The Mountain Loop Scenic Byway starts about an hour north of Seattle, and loops through the lowland forest of the Cascade Mountains. It’s not long, officially only about 55 miles or 80 to get back to civilization, though the middle section is unpaved. There are many campgrounds, and we envisioned moving from site to site over five nights to fully sample the scenery, but we found they were full the Tuesday after Labor Day weekend. Fortuitously, we found an awesome dispersed site. The area was so packed that we decided to call off the “road trip” part of the trip, despite renting a camper van, and hold our sweet spot rather than trying our luck farther around the loop. Originally, we thought we’d finish the loop on our way out, but our abrupt departure due to the smoke ruled that out. So this is a bit of a cheat on the road trip front 😉