Nightmare on Ice, Miracle on Ice

Remembering a near-death experience on frozen Lake Michigan

Photo of Leelanau shoreline ice caves this winter by James Weston Schaberg

From staff reports

It was Super Bowl Sunday of 1984, and the carefree 15-year-old girls wanted to find ice caves.

Karen Gros and Bobbi Boos, students at the Leelanau School north of Glen Arbor, walked onto frozen Sleeping Bear Bay in search of tunnels and mammoth formations they expected to find on Lake Michigan. They dressed in warm winter gear and carried ski poles to test the depth of the ice.

“What stood out at first was how crappy the ice was,” remembered Gros, who currently lives in Northport. “The ice caves were epic for years before that. There were walls of ice and little volcanoes, and the lake had frozen almost to the Manitou Islands in previous years. They were fascinating to explore.”

But on this day the girls suddenly found themselves on a chunk of ice that broke off from the pack and began floating away from the shore.

“I thought we were on something frozen that connected to the ground,” said Gros. “It floated out, but I still thought the wind would blow the chunk of ice parallel to the shoreline. I wasn’t that worried.”

Suddenly, the ice on which they stood began to disintegrate into smaller chunks.

“I saw that happening and I knew we were in trouble,” said Gros. “I started looking for bigger icebergs that were floating with us. I found one that was six feet wide, but it was further out from the main ice sheet.”

The girls transferred to the intact ice chunk but now found themselves floating 20 feet away from the main pack.

“We were stuck out there,” said Gros. “Twenty minutes later that iceberg we were originally standing on disappeared into nothing. That’s when [our situation] got real.”

Gros said that she and Boos were wearing layers, so they weren’t cold. But they had no way back to the main ice sheet, unless they swam through the frigid waters.

Then they got lucky. A woman in a beach-front condominium at The Homestead resort looked out at the water and saw the girls floating on the iceberg. She happened to be a piano teacher at the Leelanau School. According to Gros, the woman called the Leelanau County sheriff, who called the Coast Guard, who dispatched a helicopter and crew from their Traverse City station toward Sleeping Bear Bay.

Gros estimated they floated for 2-3 hours. When the sun began to recede in the winter sky, she grew nervous.

The chopper located them and lowered a basket for them to climb into as it hovered overhead.

“It was kind of exhilarating. They hauled us up, and we got to ride in the helicopter and wear headsets on the way back to Traverse City.”

Gros remembered the Coast Guardsmen were upset that that girls’ folly kept them from watching the Super Bowl. (The Los Angeles Raiders beat the defending champion Washington Redskins, 38-9 in the 1984 game). She also remembered that the Traverse City Record-Eagle story the following day was critical of the girls’ decisions that day: Gros’ mother carried a clip of that story with her for years.

The day after their near-death experience, Gros returned to the beach and saw that not a single iceberg was left floating in Sleeping Bear Bay. They had all blown out into Lake Michigan.

“As we would have been if we hadn’t been picked up,” she said.

The Coast Guard later visited the Leelanau School and warned the students about Lake Michigan ice.

“They said that 95 percent of people who are stuck out on the ice like we were don’t came back alive,” said Gros. “We were extremely lucky.”

The story didn’t end there.

Decades later, Gros lived in Everett, Washington—north of Seattle—where she worked as a ranger on Jetty Island. One morning, while waiting for a boat, she struck up a conversation with a Coast Guardsman about maneuvers they conduct to lift people from boats, and the danger of the chopper’s powerful wind downdraft knocking someone into the water. Gros described her experience as a teenager on the Lake Michigan iceberg.

Gros said the Coast Guardsman froze, looked at her and crossed his arms. He responded that he was in the helicopter that day over Sleeping Bear Bay. He was a member of the crew that saved their lives. He remembered that the crew worried their downdraft would flip over the iceberg before the girls could be lifted to safety.

“We really thought you were going to fall into the water,” he told Gros.

Ice temptations

When the water freezes along the shoreline and forms magnificent ice caves, it tempts us to explore and to wonder at mother nature’s creation—despite the obvious dangers.

Thirty years after Karen Gros and Bobbi Boos nearly died in Sleeping Bear Bay, a polar vortex during the winter of 2013-14 froze nearly 94 percent of Lake Michigan—the highest ice coverage on the lake since recording began in 1973. In February and March, thousands of locals and tourists, alike, flocked to Gill’s Pier near Northport to behold the towering ice caves. Photographer Ken Scott published a stunning book with Leelanau Press on Memorial Day weekend 2014 called Ice Caves of Leelanau.

On March 6, 2014, Cherry Republic owner Bob Sutherland and three of his staff, Andrew Pritchard, Andrew Moore and Tom Bisbee, walked the ice from Pyramid Point eight miles to North Manitou Island—a feat that Bob’s dad Dale and his two brothers had attempted in the 1970s but met open water and turned around.

When the ice caves returned along the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore shoreline during the winter of 2025-26, the spectacle again beckoned us, despite the perils.

As regional media published photos and video of the ice caves, the National Lakeshore and Glen Lake Fire Department issued clear warnings:

“Walking on shelf ice? Hard no!” Park staff posted on social media on Jan. 30. “Great Lakes shelf ice might look like a winter wonderland, but it’s one of the most dangerous places you can step. This ice is NOT solid. It’s full of cracks and thin areas that can collapse without warning. Waves and currents constantly shift the ice, making it unstable even if it looks safe.

“If you fall through, hypothermia sets in within minutes. Rescue is nearly impossible. … Admire the ice. Photograph the ice. Don’t walk on the ice; your life depends on it.”

The National Lakeshore posted another warning on Feb. 6: “Admire from a distance—your life depends on it.”

The following day, the Glen Lake Fire Department used Facebook to recommend local winter activities that are less likely to result in frantic 911 calls and potential death.

“It’s a beautiful winter Saturday in Leelanau County. Here’s some recommendations for ways you can enjoy our winter wonderland.

• Sledding at The NPS Dune Climb
• Cross County Ski or Snowshoe the Heritage Tail
• Visit The Homestead Resort for downhill recreation
• Enjoy the area beaches and scenery from the shoreline

Here’s one activity we explicitly advise you not partake in.

RISKING YOUR LIFE ON THE LAKE MICHIGAN SHELF ICE.”

Responding to comments on the Facebook post, Leelanau County Sheriffs Department dispatcher Ronda Coleman remembered the chaos and dangers posed by crowds flocking to the Gill’s Pier ice caves 12 years ago.

“We had dozens of rescue calls from sprained ankles to cracked skulls to broken hips,” she wrote. “It also puts the responders at risk for the same injuries.

“We fielded hundreds of calls a day (not exaggerating) asking us if the ice caves were OPEN???? This also took away our ability to mitigate other critical incidents while answering idiotic questions of nature was “open.” No ice is safe ice.”