Apostle Island Ice Caves Not Likely To Form This Year

The National Park Service said it’s less likely the ice caves will form this year at the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore near Bayfield.

The Apostle Islands National Lakeshore’s Julie Van Stappen said it’s definitely an El Niño year, with winds and warmer weather leaving a lot of open water. She said they’re seeing a lot of pancake ice near Bayfield.

“There’s pieces of ice that form and then it breaks up,” she said. “It actually looks circular. It looks like actually pancakes,”

Van Stappen said southerly winds have also been breaking up ice along the shore.

She said conditions for ice formations are best when they see the kind of extremely cold weather that hit the region two years ago, sending temperatures to record lows. The ice caves drew in more than 138,000 visitors over two months that year.

Last year, the caves were accessible for just nine days, drawing in about 39,000 people and around $140,000 in visitor fees.