SILVERTON — Her face, friendly and innocent, looks out from a boulder beneath the sheer 4,000-foot wall, well beyond the snowfield’s edge at the Big Four Ice Caves.
The image, taken from a family photo and etched in metal, is of an 11-year-old Marysville girl on her first day of fifth grade.
Beside the picture are four paragraphs describing the tragic end to Grace Tam’s life, and warning others of the dangers the postcard-worthy ice fields can inflict. In the summer, water cascades into avalanche-dumped snow to hollow out the caves, a popular hiking destination about 20 miles east of Granite Falls.
On the fourth anniversary of her death Thursday, Grace’s family returned to a site not far from where a large chunk of ice broke free and crushed her. Grace died that afternoon.
Joining her parents and brother were workers from the U.S. Forest Service, an agency the family at one point sued in pursuit of safety reforms around the ice caves. They abandoned the case and chose a different path. On Thursday, the family worked side by side with a Forest Service crew, mixing epoxy to install the plaque and sharing hopes that it will make a difference.
As John Tam took a rag to polish his daughter’s likeness to a gleaming shine, he reflected on its beauty but rued its necessity.
“I wish I’m not seeing the plaque,” he said. “I appreciate the plaque. I wanted this plaque” but it simply can’t replace the daughter he so adored. Grace was an energetic child who loved to write and dreamed of opening a shelter for mistreated pets.
To the Forest Service, the sign is an attempt to spare others from similar loss. “This is not a memorial,” said Adrienne Hall of the Forest Service’s Darrington Ranger Station. “This is a safety message.”
Grace was sitting on a flat rock, well back from the ice, when a chunk broke free and bounced into her, crushing her pelvis.
She remained conscious for more than an hour, but medical help arrived too late.
It is important to the Tam family that people understand Grace never went inside or on top of the caves. She was about 20 feet away from the ice.
Paul Moe, a registered nurse from south Snohomish County, was hiking with his family near the ice caves that day. He gathered people’s sweatshirts to make her a bed. He lifted her head onto some rocks to support her neck. He had others bring ice from the field to cool her body to slow the internal bleeding.
He had her family ask Grace questions to try to keep her from losing consciousness while others raced down the trail for help.
What Moe lacked were the medical supplies to help Grace. “She passed away in my arms.”
Grace’s mother, Tamami Okauchi, her younger brother, William, and her dog, Sugar, were present Thursday. John Tam hopes the plaque will be heeded. “In the end, I wish it would save a life, one at least,” he said.
