Just a week of very cold weather was enough to turn Lake Michigan into something that appears to be in the arctic. The floe ice has gathered at the shore, and some shelf ice "volcanoes" have also formed, transforming the waterscape dramatically. From approximately the same place - just with a different lens - I captured the change the beach has undergone in only a few days.
The image below was taken two weeks prior to the image above (yet actually the beach looked exactly the same one week prior).
Climbing up the trail to the small dune just above the beach, we can see the extent of the ice on the lake. While on the beach it appeared to completely cover Lake Michigan, from this vantage point 75 feet above the beach, open water can be seen on the horizon.
Again, this image was take from the same location as the one below (which was taken two weeks ago), using a different lens. The open water is only a memory until warm temptatures arrive and melt the ice on Lake Michigan.
Not only does the ice look beautiful, it also protects the beach from erosion by the crashing waves of winter storms. Protected by this front line defense of ice, erosion cannot take place. The newly replentished sand of Central Beach has already shown signs of erosion, but that is to be expected in this ever changing landscape. Dunes are the most unstable landforms on earth - according to the famous Henry Cowles who spent the better part of his life studying the biology of this area.
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