The winds are a howlin

The drifts are piling up, and the ice is forming further and further out, muffling the roar of the waves normally heard when a gale blows thru.


Lake Superior looking towards Shot Point, Marquette County.

Ice Volcanos

The time is now for "ice volcanos" to form along the shoreline.
"ice volcano", Lake Superior

When the wind and temps are just right to cause the surf to splash up on the ice banks, the water from the surf keeps freezing, and the ice sometimes forms a hole that the water keeeps shooting through every time a wave hits the shoreline. These ice volcanos don't last long, as the ice keeps forming further and further out under these conditions, or it warms up and they get smashed to shreds. Pretty cool.

Oh, and Happy Birthday MOM!

"oh what a beautiful morning"

Not this morning, but yesterday!

Sunrise, Marquette Upper Harbor, near the mouth of the Dead River.
After having it snow for 20 some odd days straight(which means LOTS of cloudy skies), the sunrise yesterday was a most pleasant change of pace. In this picture you can see how the frost builds up on the plants from the outflow of the power plant nearby, and boy was it chilly, below zero again this morning.

Perigee moon

Full moon lighting up the snowscape over Lake Superior

This moonrise and moonset has the biggest moon of the year, called the perigee moon. The moon is 14% wider and 30% brighter than other moons.
I went out this morning and thought I might get lucky with catching the moon setting between clouds. It cleared out beautifully, and here's a couple pics looking west towards Marquette MI. It was below zero when these pics were taken, with temperature differential adding to the distortion around the moon's edges at 300mm focal lengths.

the full moon setting over Marquette, MI, Jan 10,2009

I'm used to it now

You know you are acclamating to the cold when you step outside and 15 degrees feels warm. Looks like we have an artic blast headed our way early next week. This will probably freeze up the Big Lake for sure.

surface ice piling up on the shore broken up into shards by a wind shift on Lake Superior.

Where there's a will, There's a wave

Still thinking about that last surf trip in the dead of winter, on the coldest day of winter to date, with open water waning on Lake Superior. The water was right on the edge of freezing, as evidenced by the growing surface ice. It was interesting how the surface ice that was forming,from a surfer's point of view, acted as kelp beds in turning the water to glassy condition, something you rarely see on the lakes. The two choices of surfable waves that day were blown out waves at Hurricane River, had bigger waves, but a nasty sidewind, -or- sheltered Grand Sable Dunes,smaller waves, but awesomely glassy. With such positive stoke in the air, on this day it was Grand Sable. The only way down to the waves was a 300 ft slippery steep slope down the frozen dune of Log Slide-can't wait to get back to this spot again under more forgiving conditions.

Grand Sable waves- more pics from the Grand Sable surf trip available at a later date.

A cure for cabin fever

Winter really feels like it's setting in in earnest. So when the details came together about an expedition by some Great Lake surfers out to Grand Sable Dunes, I volunteered, as I felt that this might be the last surfable waves of the season with the lake freezing up fast. I had been out to Grand Sable many times when there were absolutely beautiful sets rolling in and always wanted to see surfers there. However, I don't think we could have picked a more difficult day in terms of snow, ice, and temps. Well, yes we could have, if it would have been snow blowing sideways, then photos of this trip would have been impossible as everything Au Sable was taken from the overlook or near there 300 feet up.
Surfable waves on the lakes don't happen every day. In fact, there's really only two times of year when the waves are at their biggest, late Fall/early Winter and after ice out in the Spring. So when the forecast called for 12-16 foot waves on Jan 05, 2009, we jumped on it.
Temps for the day didn't go much above zero all day. The winds, however, dropped considerably, which when all was said and done was probably a blessing.
We met up at Pictured Rocks Visitor Center 5 mi east of Au Sable. From there we snomobiled in, with surfboards strapped to one sled and equipment in backpacks such as wetsuits, 600 ft of safety rope to get down the "Log Slide", (a 300 ft sand dune), and lots of fortitude.
We checked out Log Slide and Hurricane River and decided on Log Slide due to the cleaner little peelers with less side wind and current to deal with. Dan is a freekin mountain goat. He basically ran down the Log Slide and was surfing before Billy even got his harness on to rappel down. I reeeeally wanted to get to the bottom, but no way for me. I didn't have cleats to dig in to the ice for footing, was hesitant, the dune was frozen and steep, so I reluctantly took a pass.
As it turned out, a birdseye view provided for some incredible sights and I'm glad it worked out that way. It was interesting to see surface ice forming on the horizon, slowly creeping forward with a fingerlike appearance, which seemed to contribute to dampening the waves down to a glassy appearance. Combine that with passing clouds reflecting pastels on the water with the low winter sunlight for a spectacular view. There's nothing like winter.

As usual, wave conditions were not even close to the forecast, the gentle waves made it possible to get in the water without getting pegged by slushballs on the shoreline. If waves had been bigger, it probably would have been a no go. So that's it for now,more pics will be available at a later date.