One of the things that I have been keeping myself busy doing during this extremely long, extremely cold winter here in Vermont is to get out and see things that I normally would not see. Yes, I hate being cold. Yes, it sucks when the wind chill is -25F! BUT did you know that these extreme conditions make for some incredible photography finds? Our Lake Champlain froze over completely this year (happened last year too but before that, not for I believe 7 years!) and I took the opportunity to get different perspectives of places I had already photographed many times from the shore. To view all of my Ice Walks this year please visit my gallery site!
The most recent ice walk took place at Shelburne Farms. This place is my idea of heaven. It is huge, full of awesome trails and interesting building structures, and you pretty much have free range of the place as long as you respect the private areas and don't cause trouble. Thursday, March 19, I picked up my friend Ceili and we met up with our friend Joanne near the Coach Barn.
While waiting for Joanne we crawled around on the ice at the shore with both our cameras and our phones (for macros) admiring the bubbles and cracks and feathery appearance of the refrozen ice. You could hear the ice groaning and pinging and splooshing as it was freezing up harder. We had a warm snap last weekend and the top layer had melted a bit, but it got super cold again and things were hardening up once more. The result was a lot of little bubbles and fractures that scattered the light from the late afternoon sun:
A goose feather
Feathery patterns in the ice
When Joanne got there she led us around the edge of the water to the base of a very interesting rock ledge.
Looking to the South toward Quaker Smith Point
Places that had started melting and then refroze forming ridges
I have never seen rock do this. I think it is shale?
We walked on the piles of ice right at the edge of the cliff base. I did not feel that walking out too far was very safe, although there was a man walking way out past the ice ridges and he didn't seem too concerned. There was also a couple with a dog who were not quite as far but still farther than I dared. We didn't need to walk out anyway to see some really beautiful ice formations:
Icicles were everywhere
Ice "cave" in the snow
I spotted this golden glowing hunk of ice among the dirt. It was catching the intense yellow of the sunset.
This caught my eye
Piles of ice diamonds were everywhere. You had to step on them to get anywhere and they made a satisfying crunching sound...
The sky was very clear so yellow and blue dominated the colors reflected.
Natural ice cubes
An ice bird
Cieli
I saw a plate of ice with this Oak leaf frozen inside. I picked it up and part of it broke but I like that the edges are sticking out.
Just beyond the piles of hardened snow and ice there was open water on top...Glad we didn't go too far!
The ice was clear as glass. Each piece looked beautiful and unique.
I see a skeleton of a prehistoric bird in this one
Open water that is refreezing on the edges
We decided to play with the open water and toss chunks in. It was hard to catch them clearly in the waning light but still fun trying!
It was such a beautiful night that we had a hard time leaving. Venus was shining bright in the sky and there was still a glow on the horizon. Looking forward to the next time I can come back here!
