I love walking on the ice in spring. I walk
every day, sometimes twice a day. Often the top surface of the
ice softens enough in the afternoon to ski on the lake, and
then I can go great distances. Sometimes, when the conditions
are right, the cold of the morning hardens that crusty surface
into a
pavement like consistency, and I can ride my
bike.
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VIKI MATHER |
This daily walk keeps me in touch with the
changes that happen so quickly at this time of year. By walking
on the lake every day, I can gauge the changes.
I can see where and when it gets soft, and
where it stays strong. I get to know the ice intimately, which
is important if I want to continue these walks without falling
in.
Every year, the ice melts in much the same
way. And every year is different. The way the lake freezes in
December has a lot to do with how the ice melts in
spring.
But there are other factors, more subtle.
Last December, our lake froze over beautifully. Just the tips
of the shallow bays froze early in the month. Then all in one
night, the entire lake covered itself with a thin sheet of
ice.
Generally this bodes well for break-up. The
weak areas of the melting ice tend to be at the edges where the
older ice connected with newer ice.
Since 95 percent of the lake froze in one
shot, there are few of these potential weak areas.
But as much as every year's break-up is the
same as all the others, so are they all very different.
This year there are huge streaks of soft
white ice separating huge expanses of hard, black ice. The
white ice is melting slush. The black ice is pure,
solid frozen water.
The white ice at this time of year marks
where that early December ice cracked while it was thin, and
the water seeping though met with the new-falling snow and
turned to slush.
And while there is so far a lot of clear
black ice underneath, these will be likely be the first areas
to get weak this year.
As I walk across this frozen surface every
morning, it is like walking upon a patchwork quilt.
Near shore, where the snow piled up all
through the winter, the ice is white, and often soft.
Sometimes I sink through this melting slush,
which currently still has 10 inches or more of good, hard ice
underneath.
A lot of the white ice holds firm, and I walk
on top of that.
Every traveler who passed this way over the
winter left a track behind in the snow. The compacted snow
melts differently than the snow that was not trampled on.
I can see where we skied, where friends had
traversed the bay in snowshoes, where the wolf walked across
the bay half-way out.
There are footprints from people and otters,
foxes and snowshoe hares.
In some places, there are no marks at all,
except those of the warm, spring sun. As the days get warmer,
all that top snow/slush/ice disappears, and more of the hard,
clear black ice comes to the surface.
It holds no marks of winter past. But now, it
bears the criss-cross marks of ice crystals as they melt
away.
A few of these black ice areas occur near
shore, and I can see the lake bottom below.
Still, I see more than a foot of hard, clear,
ice. I expect it will be another week or so before I have to
put my walking stick away.
Viki Mather lives by a lake near Sudbury.
