Blog » The Coppermine Trail

The Coppermine Trail leads to Bridalveil Falls, and the path was so well tramped that we left our snowshoes at the trailhead and did the whole thing bare-footed.  Not THAT kind of bare-footed; are you crazy?  It's January!  Bare-footed as in "just shoes", no snowshoes or crampons.  We had to cross bits of ice along the way to the top.

Please note that this picture does not depict some sort of "Leaning Tower of Aaron", but rather a "Holy Crap it's cold and hard to hold the camera straight with mittens" incident.

The Falls at the top are great, and actually easier to get to in the winter than in the summer (when the weather is warm, you have sheer slick granite to walk on instead of sticky snow).

 "Hey," you might say, "that ice looks like pee."  Well, yes, it does.  Even more so in person, in contrast to the deep-blue ice of the rest of the falls.  I assume it has to do with minerals or dirt or something in the water.  A quick Google search gives me no answers, though it does point me to a product page for "Yellow Ice Shuffleboard Wax".  I am going to go out on a limb here and make the bold assumption that these falls are made of neither shuffleboard wax, nor pee. 

The whole area is pretty wet in the summer, which results in lots and lots of icefalls in the winter.  This is apparently a destination for ice climbers.  In my world, ice is not for climbing.  For me, this area is a destination for trail mix*.

* I accidentally typed that as "trail mixz", which is maybe even better.  MIXZ in da hiz-ouse (or, more appropriately:  biz-ackpack)!  Give a shout-out to the raisins and my main man Chocolate Chipz!