Another School Forest Snowshoe

Exercise partner, Lois Fite, and I were excited to get out on an adventure after the blizzard.  We decided to head out east of town to the Burt Township School Forest.  Thanks to the grooming crew who had already manicured the trails with their new equipment.  Snow was coating all the trees.  It was beautiful but still cold with a temperature around 10 degrees.

The new wide trail....

Red pines....

A cute family of evergreens....

 
And white birch..

The Sucker River with just a narrow band of flowing water...
  

Winter Morning

The two day blizzard is over.  Due to the blowing and drifting, it is hard to tell how much snow we received but I think it is probably around a foot.  I did not leave the house yesterday.  It was just too brutal out, plus I wanted to do a last push to finish my accounting and tax preparation.  Those who know me are aware that I do not like bookkeeping.  But the task is done!  Yea!

The wind has died down and we had some patches of clear sky this morning -- so it was a beautiful sunrise!  From my house, the sun is rising behind the trees but I was still able to get some photos.

The snow pile on the south side of my house is not nearly as high as it was this time last year, but at least it looks like winter out there right now.

Ice build up on a window....

Challenging Winter Beach Adventure

Yesterday my hiking partner, Lois, and I decided to be brave.  Despite the windy, cold, snowy weather -- we headed to the beach to see what it looks like.  At one point I had to cover my face up because of the intense wind.  Also, despite the wind chill being well below zero, in addition to snow there were also ice pellets stinging our faces.  I'm not sure how this freezing rain like precipitation falls (or blows sideways) in these cold temperatures.

We parked at the boardwalk and walked east.  At the water's edge, due to the warmer temperature of the lake, it was not completely frozen.  But everything else up the beach was.  We were glad to have our snowshoes on just because we needed the crampons to walk safely.

Lake effect snow is usually not continuous.  Bands of snow form and come ashore with the wind.  At times it was snowing very hard!

Driftwood ice art...

Lake effect Snow

The cold temperatures and warm Lake Superior have combined to crank up the lake effect machine.  It snowed off and on all day yesterday resulting in a few new inches of snow.  Today we are supposed to get 6-8 inches.  Each day this week we will get more.  It finally looks like winter!

Yesterday my friend, Renee, came over to play cards.  We decided to go out into the below zero wind chill weather for a snowshoe around my property.

Another snowshoe adventure through the Forest

It was fairly windy again yesterday so my exercise partner, Lois, and I decided to snowshoe through the woods.  The warm temperatures the previous two days made what snow we have left quite weird.  The top layer froze and was very crunchy, but underneath there was total slush.  Even though the snow depth was only 4-5 inches, it made snowshoeing a bit more difficult and quite a work out!

Lois's dogs, Nora and Bear, love our adventures!

Springs are still flowing!

The ice covering the swampy areas seemed to have weird structure, probably due to the freezing and thawing.

Burt Township School Forest Hike

Yesterday my exercise partner, Lois, and I drove into the school forest, parked by the bridge, and walked down Sandy Lane to the west.  This road follows the Sucker River for the first part, and then turns northwest toward the Lake Superior shoreline.  We didn't make it the whole way, but had a nice hike.  Yes "hike."  Warm temperatures melted a lot of the snow.  It is amazing how little snow we have on the ground, since this time last year we had many feet of snow.  But as I type it is snowing out; we are supposed to get 1-4 inches.  Later this next week, though, we could get two feet of snow.

 

We walked past the wide bend in the Sucker.  This is where my kids caught their first brook trout.  

When we decided to turn around and head back to the car, we noticed this interesting structure in the woods.  It appears to be half a house.  We do not know where the other half is.

Grand Sable Lake and Dunes Snowshoe

Yesterday exercise partner, Lois, and I decided to retrace our steps from the headlight hike on New Years eve.  While hiking in the dark, we were not sure if we were on our regular trail that we take when hiking from Sable Lake to Lake Superior across the Grand Sable dunes.  As it turns out, even though it didn't seem like we were on the trail because it looked so different in the dark, we were on the correct trail.

Up into the dunes we go....the picture below I took when I turned around and documented the ice at the north end of Sable Lake.

Is it snow and sand or agate?

Dunes...

Looking back at Sable Lake again...

More dunes...

Back down to road level....