We hoped to see at least one frozen waterfall on our trip to Matthiessen State Park, in northern Illinois. Unseasonably high temperatures would surely melt the icefalls, and as we hiked past the lower dell overlook, we could hear a lot of water flowing over Cascade Falls below us. Certain all of the waterfalls were gone, we made the hike across the swollen stream to the small canyon past Cedar Point. This canyon typically has two waterfalls, and in winter, they freeze to form ice caves.
As we made the first turn in the canyon, we could see the first fall was indeed still frozen. With some melt occurring, some of the intricate details were missing from the ice formations, and a lot of leaf debris could be seen in the ice and the snow on the canyon floor.
The meltwater from the snow in the park was flowing over the icefalls, making it a bit difficult to access the falls, but more difficult to get behind them and into the ice caves. Careful not to walk under any of the hanging ice - for fear it would fall and crush us - we did manage to get inside the ice caves which were pouring with water.
Because we had to walk through knee-deep water in the stream to access these waterfalls, we shared the canyon with only one other visitor. Surprisingly, walking through the cold water wasn't so bad, the water in your boots warms up a bit after a few minutes.
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