A Fine Frosty Morning

Our first single-digit-cold dawn!  And no wind during the night.  Tuesday offered us exactly the kind of morning my friend Sue and I wait for each year, when we find the first glassy ice along the shore of Moreau Lake.  So we each donned our longjohns, heavy socks, and warmest coats and met at the lake, thrilled by the beauty of a bright blue sky and drifting fog and a shelf of crystal-clear brand-new ice along the shore.

A flock of Canada Geese was crowding the ever-shrinking patch of open water, source of the rising mist that touched every twig of the shoreline trees with sparkling hoarfrost.

Icy puffs of frost had formed at the base of every reed that protruded through the thin new ice along the shore.

We felt glad to have arrived early enough before a warming sun could melt the fragile, filigreed crystals.

These frosty stars were a brilliant white against the clear black ice.

As we proceeded around the lake, we found the north end mostly open, with tiny wavelets lapping against the ice-lined but still watery shore.

But beyond the bridge, the back bay was completely frozen over, and wind-drifted snow had swirled  across its opaque surface.

Here and there, mysterious "ice spiders" spread their transparent black arms through the older ice, which was rendered opaque by an earlier snow that fell on the newly formed very thin ice.  These spidery shapes are most likely formed when water wells up through weak spots in the ice and branches outward, melting the opaque ice and then freezing clear.

As we crossed the bridge that divides the main lake from the back bay, we noticed a remarkable texture to the snow atop the railing.

The original soft snow appeared to have sprouted feathery ice crystals.  Was this a kind of hoarfrost atop the snow? 

The trees were certainly whitened by hoarfrost, the result of fog rising from the open water that froze on every twig and needle in the bitterly cold overnight air.

I  even had to admire the despised invasive Phragmites, its fluffy seedheads rendered beautiful by the frozen mist.

The  evergreen pine needles appeared starkly white against the deep-blue sky.

These chalk-white pine needles glittered in the sunlight.

Some needle tufts held marshmallow-soft clumps of snow.

The rich-red Highbush Blueberry buds were rendered especially beautiful by clinging crystals of frost.

Despite the morning's bright sun and our extra-warm clothing, the frigid cold started to feel as if it would freeze our cheeks and toes. So we were delighted to see smoke rising from the Warming Hut's chimney.  A blazing fire would be waiting inside to warm us. 

And so it was!