STONES IN THEIR SHOES, AND FROZEN ASSETS

BUSY BAYFIELD

EMERGENCY SIGN ON HWY. 13

DITTO

 TWO MILES OF PARKED CARS

DEPUTIES DIRECTING TRAFFIC

THE ICE CAVES ARE THE REASON

Sunday,  8:30 AM.  -14 degrees F on the back porch, -18 degrees downtown.  Wind SW, moderate, increasing the effect of the bitter cold.  The sky is cloudless, the humidity is still trending down, now at 61%, and the barometer has risen to a very high 30.57".
   I chickened out on walking Buddy this morning. I will take him for a walk/run down Old San Road later when it is bound to warm up some.  If there had been no wind I would have put his jacket on him and taken a walk at least around the block, as my flannel lined jeans are warm even in this extreme cold, but I see little reason to challenge the windchill.
  The winter economic boom in the Bayfield area is definitely continuing.  Bayfield was very, and uncharacteristically, busy yesterday.  Asking around, the easy conclusion is Ice Cave tourists.  One acquaintance said she and her husband went to Maggies for a pizza Friday night and fell into conversation with a Japanese couple who had just flown into Duluth from Tokyo, rented a car and were going to visit the caves on Saturday.  Another friend said a tour bus from Minneapolis with a group of Asian tourists was at the Bayfield Inn.
   We decided to see what the conditions were like at the Park Service Myers Beach Road entrance (Ice Cave access) and drove out Hwy. 13 a bit before noon.  Traffic was lined up on the north side of the highway a full mile on both the east and west side of the Myers Beach entrance.  Crowds of people were walking the roads and shuttle busses were delivering more.  The actual beach parking lot and road were parked full.  Sherrifs cars with flashing lights slowed traffic and  deputies kept a semblance of order.
   Two miles of cars parked on the north side of Hwy 13, plus parking on another quarter of a mile on the park road, plus the parking lot, add up conservatively to about 500 cars.  Figuring three cohorts of cars for the day, that's 1,500 cars.  At an average of 3 persons per vehicle, that's at least 4,500 visitors to the caves yesterday, and probably more like six thousand including those using the shuttles.
   And its not a short and easy hike.  For most it would be a mile to the lake, and then at least another mile and a half to the caves.  Round trip that is around five miles.   I assume most make it all the way and I haven't heard any real horror stories, but have heard of broken legs and sprained ankles. And it has been brutally cold. In any case it is quite an unexpected challenge for the Park Service and the community, which have responded well it seems.
   This  phenomena seems more and more like filling some sort of  sacred obligation, like climbing Mt. Fiji, visiting Mecca or, as Joan's German Catholic grandparents did, walk up southern Wisconsin's Holy Hill (with stones in their shoes).  Interesting.
   But it has certainly been an economic boomlet in a tough winter economy.  The big question now is, will the once-in-a-lifetime publicity and visitation have a lasting economic effect.  If visitors thought it all worth the trip and the trouble, if they had a good time and were treated well, perhaps they will be back at another time and another season.  The Ice Caves are open only sporadically because of changing ice conditions.  You might say we are a community with frozen assets.