The Ice Has Arrived!

Or it surely must have, my friends Sue Pierce and Dan Wall and I believed, when we met at Moreau Lake this past Friday, following several nights that were well below freezing.  But we found that most of the lake was still wide open, ice-free enough as yet to welcome large flocks of waterfowl.  A thin border of ice lined the shore, but it will be some time yet (and take much lower temperatures) before any ice fishermen can start auguring holes out on the lake's frozen surface, when the ice grows thick enough to bear their weight.

 

Ah well. . . .  At least recent rains and several inches of snowmelt had set Zen Brook to rushing again, as it tumbled down the mountainside.  Perhaps we would find some crystalline ornamentation along its banks.  We could hear the brook splashing merrily along as we approached.

And sure enough, as the water rushed along, it threw up enough spray to create dangling tongues of ice on overhanging branches.

Where mini-cascades splashed over rocks, fringes of icicles ornamented the mossy roots of creekside trees.

As we ascended the mountain slope, the brook's energy increased, as did the beauty of whitewater tumbling over and among craggy boulders.

We each of us stopped every few feet to observe and photograph the brook's both fluid and crystalline beauty.

The brook's bankside mosses and other vegetation were festooned with shining baubles and glittering icicles.

Overhanging branches grew heavy with multiple accretions of ice.

This fern frond was completely encased in crystal.

Tiny pools of crystal-clear open water bore floating bubbles that reflected the images of the sky and treetops above.

We later descended the mountain slope to walk along the shore as close as we could get to the water's edge.

The thin sheet of ice along the shore bore crinkles and swirls on its surface, and bubbles of different sizes had risen from below to be trapped in transparent crystal.

This photo reveals how utterly transparent was the ice along this shore. And also that we could not yet safely walk on it.