The Grottos is a short and easy looped trail located near Aspen, Colorado. Its appeal is the “hidden” ice cave on the trail. My friends and I visited The Grottos over Memorial Day weekend, so despite knowing there was an ice cave to explore, we didn’t expect much since it was in the middle of summer after all. When we got there, we were pleasantly surprised!
The parking lot is not too big, so you may have to wait a bit for parking, so you can park on the dirt roads nearby. After a short hike on The Grottos trail, we found the entrance to the ice cave, which was unmarked, but there were signs on the trail pointing to it. (We also knew it was the cave because of the people coming in and out of the rocks.)
Entrance to The Grottos ice cave
The trek in and out of the cave was an adventure in itself, and we had such a great time dying of laughter watching everyone play a game of “slip and slide” on the ice. Don’t let the below photo fool you…the incline is steeper than it looks and VERY slippery. It took me 3 tries, many falls and several people helping me to climb in. It would have been nice if we had some crampons, or if I were just a wee bit taller than 5’2….
A peek inside the ice cave at The Grottos
The cave was not too big, but it was bigger than it looked from just peeking in. When you get inside the cave opens up into different sections and then dead ends into a beautiful waterfall. Even though it’s called a cave, there was plenty of light from the openings above, so we did not need lights at all.
Inside The Grottos ice cave. This is the “I made it!” photo. 🙂
Inside the Grottos ice cave – there is plenty of light
Inside The Grottos ice cave – the cave dead ends into a waterfall
Getting out was a lot funnier than getting in. There were different ways to get in/out of the cave, and we chose to go back to the same way we came in. And oh my, did we have some laughs!
Leaving The Grottos ice cave – you have to jump past a mini waterfall
And then you have to climb out
The Grottos was one of the highlights of our road trip around Colorado. I highly recommend it!