Gray has been the theme on the lake lately. There has been some snow, some wind, a few clear nights that allowed ice to form and then wind and snow to clear it from all but the shores. Some of the ice that formed has been floating around as icebergs, too.
Ice formed on some of the shallow areas of the lake during the Thanksgiving cold wave. Then, the northwest wind came and moved the ice to the shores. When the ice arrives on shore, it makes some interesting patterns. Ice also forms on the rocks near shore.
The waves often form mountains out of the broken ice. Because there wasn’t a whole lot of frozen area on the lake, these mountains are only about a foot tall at most.
With more wind and a bit warmer weather, many of the mountains disappeared and then the slush froze.
The wind forced ice up onto the beach and the spray landed on the rocks creating patterns on the rocks.
Along the shore, animals are wandering about, wondering why there is snow this early. These are deer tracks on a sand beach. The beach was a bit above freezing when the snow came and also had pine and hemlock upwind so the trees collected much of the snow that fell so the beach was not snow covered.
And finally, a small section of ice and frozen slush was blown out into the lake by an east wind. Yes, ice out is occurring well before the ice out competition even starts. Well, because the entire lake wasn’t frozen, it really isn’t really “ice out”. It should be added that boating on the lake is not very inviting although there are probably a few brave souls who venture forth. These people know the dangers and take safety precautions that are never needed in July and August.
