On the Edge

On the Edge

This image is made up of 4, portrait oriented images, stitched together.

Standing (safely) on the first mound of shelf ice. I say "safely" because I know the beach is underneath me, not cold Lake Michigan. If I were to venture any further to the right, I would be standing on ice that formed over water, and was only connected to the shore at the surface - like a shelf; hence the term "shelf ice."

Barely visible are two people walking down the beach - they certainly give some scale to the amount of ice here at the shore. It extends hundreds of feet out into Lake Michigan. The wind and waves kick up the floating drift ice, it piles up near the shore in mounds over 15 feet tall. Then a calm period follows where more drift ice forms, followed by another windy day of ice piling up, and so on. This creates the series of ice mounds seen here.

No comments: