(04/11/05) Spring is Finally Here - see below NEW
(04/06/05) Daily Changes - The Osprey are Back - see below NEW
(04/01/05) A Rapidly Changing Lake, Shelburne Bay - see below NEW
(03/09/05) A Ferry Ride through the Ice - see below
(01/29/05) Lake Champlain Ice - see below
(01/09/05) A Walk on the Malletts Bay Railway Causeway - see below
(12/30/04) Red Rocks Park, on Foot - see below

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Black Ice with fracture lines on north side of Sandbar.

Sheet ice on Crescent Bay, South Hero


Smooth ice on Converse Bay

Open Water on the Broad Lake

(1/09/05) A Walk on the Mallets Bay Railway Fill. The sun could not decide if it was going to come out or not. In fact it teased me all afternoon. In the middle of January a day with sun is very different from one without. My mood rose and fell with the sun's brightness or lack thereof. With the sun out the temperature was quite mild and the causeway was beautiful in a way I had never experienced before. I have rarely "walked" on this path almost always traveling on it by bike, and I had never done so in the winter. I was surprised how long it took me to get out to the middle. In fact I never got all the way to the "Cut" because it was clear I was going to run out of daylight if I tried and I was unwilling to give up picture taking time. I couldn't help but think that had it not been for the snow I could have been biking. I was passed by several cross country skiers clearly moving more effortlessly than I was but it was easier to stop for pictures and climb down over the rocks without skis. What a beautiful place to ski on a calm day however. When I started, the sun was behind the clouds and the view to the east was flat and white, almost foggy. Mallets Bay was frozen over and covered with snow. Only the closest section of the Colchester shoreline was visible. In sharp contrast, the water to the west was open. Only the shallow bay at the beginning of the west side of the causeway had any ice on it. You could see each individual tree trunk on Law island with the lighter sky visible between the trees, the way you can see the trees on a ridge line of Vermont mountains when you drive along the Interstate in winter. Sabra Field has a wonderful way of depicting this in her winter landscapes. Without wind it was quiet and peaceful. I alternated my gauze between the two views, so different and yet separated only by this 30 foot snow covered causeway. There was one ice fisherman on the Malletts Bay ice. He had a large shanty sitting on the back of his pickup truck with an ATV along side. Not more than 300 yards from where he was, the water under the first bridge was open. I wondered if he had heard about the ATV that had fallen through the ice in St. Albans Bay the day before. A skier passed me and commented on the precarious position of the truck, ATV and shanty, given the open water hidden from the fisherman's view on the west side of the fill. I agreed. As I continued to walk toward the Cut I felt more and more removed from the rest of the world. There was ice as far as I could see on one side and water as far as I could see on the other. There were no mountains visible in either direction. South Hero was a very distant grey streak. The only sound was of an occasional duck flying away from the shore, startled by my presence. I could not help but think how different this part of the lake looked and felt in the summer with constant boat activity on both sides of the fill. I turned around at 3:00 to make sure I got back to my car before sunset. A cloud bank was moving up from the southwest. As the sun eventually disappeared and then poked in and out between small breaks in the clouds, Sunset and Law Islands alternately appear as if under a spotlight of bright light amidst a dark sea. (To top) (Back to Paddlers' Page)

(01/29/05) Lake Champlain Ice. Despite many bouts of strong south and north winds and periods of momentary warmth in between days of below zero temperatures, the lake is finally starting to freeze over in significant areas. Both sides of the Sandbar causeway are now frozen and covered with a thin layer of snow where the wind has not blown the snow away. The ice fishermen were out in force on the northwest end of the Sandbar , while para skaters were flying across the ice on the north east end. Meanwhile ATVs were racing around in circles on the south side. It is clear there is far more going on outside this winter than the skiing that Vermont is traditionally know for. The contrast between the traditional sport of ice fishing and the para-skaters and ATV riders was interesting and somewhat amusing. Clearly everyone was taking advantage of the first reasonably warm day in 2 weeks.

After a brief stop to watch the activity, we went out to Crescent Bay to see what the ice looked like on a south facing shore on the open lake. It looked far different than what we had observed at Sandbar. It was beautiful in a violent sort of way. There were large and small pieces of jagged sheet ice about 2 inches thick that had piled up on top of each other at all angles when the initial freeze over had been broken up by south winds. The ice created a 200 yard wide jagged ice field, most of it covered with just enough snow to hide the slippery smooth ice beneath. But if you could get beyond those 200 yards, no easy task, the ice was black and smooth and had beautiful fracture lines running through it that showed the ice to be about 6 inches thick. Our dog Sophie was so excited to get to smooth ice that she started running around in circles at warp speed looking a lot like a smaller version of the ATVs we had seen at Sandbar. Sporadically having one or all of her legs fly out from under her her did not seem to phase her at all.

Two days later I was on Thompson's Point, the point of land we had paddled around in a raging south wind just 5 months earlier, and the ice in Converse Bay, looking across to Cedar Island was as smooth as could be. In fact, except for a few yards of ragged ice along the shore, it was so smooth that it looked like the water was not even frozen. Only the narrow fracture lines that took off in straight lines from shore gave any hint that the water was indeed frozen.

Looking west however it was clear that there was still open water in the middle of the lake.

(03/09/05) A Ferry Ride through the Ice - There are a few indications that winter might be starting to loose its grip on northern Vermont, but not many. The male goldfinches at our bird feeder now have a few bright yellow feathers, and there is a large flock of robins hanging out in the trees in our yard. But the ground is still covered with a foot of snow and the day time temperatures have been in the teens. It certainly does not feel like spring is just around the corner. Yet I look fondly at my kayak each day hanging from the rafters of the garage wondering when Margy and I will actually be able to get back out on the water. Winter lake expeditions have been few and far between. From all reports, the lake ice has been somewhat unpredictable lately which has deterred me from venturing very far out from shore. Some days, looking across to New York State it looks like there is a lot of open water and other days it looks like there is none. So I decided to take a ride on the Charlotte-Essex ferry and get a closer look at the lake and the ice for myself. Sophie and I arrived at the ferry dock about 11:30 in the morning. According to the sign, the ferry runs 7:00 am to 5:00 pm "weather and ice permitting". There were no employees around that I could see, and no ferry in sight so I am not sure how one would know if the weather or ice were not permitting. Fortunately there was one car in line, with its engine running so I took that as a good sign and pulled in behind it. The sign at the empty ticket booth told me to buy my ticket on the ferry, upstairs. While I waited for what I hoped would be a ferry from New York, I looked around the dock and took some pictures. The water was open immediately in front of the dock but not for far. Elsewhere the ice looked fairly thick and the boundaries between open water and solid ice were ragged with chunks of floating ice barely attached to the sides. That is where most of the resident ducks were swimming. It looked like a pretty harsh place to spend the winter to me but there were a significant number there. For all the detrimental effects we humans have on the other living things we share this habitat with, the ferry was providing a guarantee of open water for the ducks for the whole winter - weather and ice permitting of course. I knew from having flown over the lake several weeks earlier on my way to California to visit family, that the ferry's channel was lined on either side with solid sheet ice but the channel itself was filled with ice pieces that looked almost solid but were not. Even from a few thousand feet above, the ferry channel had a fluid quality to it. As I wandered around taking pictures, the line of cars began to get longer and by the time the ferry arrived from Essex there were two lines of cars waiting to board. Once we started moving the noise level increased considerably. We sounded like a large wearing blender running at medium speed as the ferry gobbled up the ice in front of us and then spit it out behind us as we passed through. I walked from one end of the ferry to the other and back again taking pictures. We passed a dead Christmas tree laying on the solid ice about 3 feet away from the ferry. We left it in our wake almost before I could take a picture of it. Looking from the stern of the boat, the channel of clear water the ferry had just created filled quickly with ice as we moved forward. Snow covered Mount Abraham and Camel's Hump were clearly visible in the distance to the east. It felt strange being in the middle of the lake filled with ice. The ferry was moving easily across the lake, nosily churning up ice as it went. Yet even within a few feet on either side we seemed to be surrounded by solid ice. And there were no waves or gentle rocking of the boat. My senses were being challenged to make sense of the contradictory images. As bizarre and beautiful as the lake was on this cold March morning, I looked forward to reaching the quiet of the open water near the Essex dock. There was a much larger area of open water there extending out several hundred yards from shore. There were more ducks as well. They too, like their Vermont cousins, stayed close to the edges of the channel, probably a learned strategy for keeping their distance from the ferry. An approaching ferry looks pretty menacing to me as a kayaker in the water, the size differential being enormous. I can't imagine how a little duck must feel as a ferry bears down on it. On the other hand they can fly away, something we had yet to figure out how to do in our kayaks. I do not mean to imply that Lake Champlain Transportation ferries are necessarily unsympathetic to ducks. I was on the Cumberland head ferry as a foot passenger one summer day, standing at the front of the boat as we approached the Grand Isle dock. There was a mother duck and about 8 ducklings swimming inside the ferry slit as we came within 15 yards of the dock. It was clear the ducks were not going to leave the slit. So the ferry went into reverse and backed out of the slit, giving the mother duck and her ducklings a route to leave by. Being somewhat amazed at this turn of events, I asked the deck hand it this happened often and he assured me it did.

Sophie, my kayak loving dog, was not very enthusiastic about this nosey winter crossing of the lake even though she had been given two treats by the deck hand on the ferry. She watched out the car window as we churned our way across the lake but did not want to get out. Once ashore she seemed a lot happier as we headed down Rt. 9 through Westport and Port Henry to Crown Point. At Crown Point, where the lake is narrower, the lake was snow covered all the way across. There were trucks and ice shanties scattered off both the Vermont and New York shores. I stopped at the park where we had put our kayaks in on one of our fall trips to take some pictures of the ice fishing shanties just on the other side of the bridge. Sophie enjoyed the chance to run around but did not let me out of her sight. Once across the bridge we headed home. Nothing on the entire trip gave me any reassurance that spring was even thinking of making an appearance any time soon, but I continue to put my faith in the goldfinches.

Essex Ferry Approaching Charlotte Dock

Ducks swimming in the open water around the ferry dock.

The icy path ahead.

The trail behind.

Ice fishing at Crown Point.

(04/01/05) A Rapidly Changing Lake, Shelburne Bay - Early spring brings rapid changes to the lake and what a difference a week can make. By law, all ice fishing shanties have to be off the lake by the last Sunday in March. Last Sunday (last Sunday was the last Sunday in March) was a day with temperatures in the low 40s and there was still solid ice as far as one could see as we crossed Sandbar headed to South Hero. Para-skaters were racing across the bay to the south having more faith in the ice than common sense might dictate. The ice looked slushy and yellow in places, a far cry from the hard clear black ice of February. There were just few ice fisherman on the northwest side of Sandbar. The traditional village of shanties and trucks usually found dotting the ice in January and February had pretty much disappeared. The south wind was brisk and the air felt cold. When we got to the Crescent Bay shore which faces south and opens to the broad lake the ice was still solid all the way out to Stave Island and there was a car about a quarter of a mile off shore. My immediate thought was that the car owner had even less sense than the para skaters. That thought was confirmed when I learned that a neighbor and his dog had fallen through the ice not far from shore, about half a mile west of where the car was sitting, several days before. He had been drilling fishing holes through 2 feet of ice just before he fell in. Fortunately both he and the dog got back to solid ground safely.

A day latter work drew me back to the islands. The sky was gray but the temperature much warmer and the wind calm. There was a low lying fog hovering just about the ice but ended sharply 30 feet above the surface. . We rarely get fog in the Champlain Valley. If it is going to happen however it usually does so in September and in early spring. I saw my first great blue heron of the season standing on the ice in the wildlife refuge on the east side of Sandbar. I must admit I have never seen a heron standing on ice. It looked strange to say the least. Just the same it was a welcome sight, which made me feel that spring was almost here. I don't know how optimistic the heron was. I don't think ice fishing is in his repertoire of skills.

Three days later I drove down to Shelburne Bay to check on the ice. The bay was still frozen across and devoid of fishing shanties and cars except for a few brave souls near the entrance to the La Platte river . The next two days were warm and sunny, warm enough that I put work aside, resurrected my rake and started cleaning up the south facing and protected part of our yard and flower beds where daffodil, crocus and hyacinth bulbs were starting to poking up. I also placed some foul smelling garlic sticks in strategic places around them to try to ward off the rabbits in our yard who last year ate the leaves off every single tulip in the yard before they had a chance to bloom. There was still snow in the back of the yard and the ground was still frozen around the compost bins but from the back deck I was convinced that spring had arrived. I was curious about the state of the ice in Shelburne Bay so Sophie and I drove down to check it out. Sure enough there was open water in the La Platte river and in the immediate bay area were the river flows into the lake. Looking across the opening, I could see reflections of the trees on the far shore in the open water, the images being interrupted by large sections of ice floating in the water. Despite the fairly strong south wind the open water was glass like, protected from wind by the ice around it. There were gulls sitting on the ice along the shore and there was a flock of ducks of some sort floating in the open water far enough off shore that I could not get a good picture of them or even distinguish what kind of ducks they were. A woman arrive with a good pair of binoculars and identified the flock as mergansers. Just then a great blue heron flew by. There were honking geese on the shore of the La Platte and the water flowing out of the river into the lake had thin patches of rotten lace like ice floating in it, moving north at a stead but slow speed. This little river looked like it was single handedly trying to push all the ice out of Shelburne Bay into the broad lake. It had a long way to go but clearly the ice was on its way out and spring was in the air. The National Weather service said the lake temperature was 34 degrees F.

Ice breakup on Shelburne Bay

Rotten but lacey patches of ice floating down the La Platte River.

Rotten Ice

(04/06/05) Daily Changes - The Osprey are Back - The lake is changing daily. It is very exciting to watch for many reasons, not the least of which is that each small step in the Lake's awakening from its winter slumber brings Margy and I closer to getting back on the water. Yesterday morning I wandered down to the Burlington waterfront. The bay looked like a punch bowl at the end of a great party with just the remains of ice left to chill the leftover punch. The ice didn't have must humph to it but it was creating areas of smooth water between the pieces of ice while the rest of the lake was well rippled by the northwest wind. The birds seem to like to use the floating ice as a resting place in between feeding sessions. There were two resident Mallards near the shore, swimming back and forth across a reflection of one of the masts of the Lois McClure. The Champlain Maritime Museum's newest boat, a replica of a sailing canal boat of the late 1800s, will be taking her much anticipated voyage down Lake Champlain, through the Champlain Canal and locks, into the Hudson River and down to New York City this summer.

Yesterday, on my way to South Hero, I saw two osprey in a nest on top of one of the nesting platforms that VELCO provides in the Sandbar wildlife refuge. They appeared to be the first arrivals of the season. The other nests were empty. Ice still covered the vast majority of the water on both sides of Sandbar but only a fool or bird would set foot on it. There was a fairly large flock of mergansers swimming near the southeast shore in a small area of open water. The area on either side of the short opening under the Sandbar was also free of ice. That opening allows small boats to pass from Mallets Bay into the Inland Sea during the boating season. At first glance that might seem like a strange place to find the first open water in the area. It is fairly shallow and protected. But looks can be deceiving on the lake. The Lamoille River, one of the major rivers feeding into Lake Champlain, flows into Mallets Bay just south of the Sandbar causeway. There are only three relatively small openings through which that water can flow out of Mallets Bay into the broad lake. Two of the openings are on the railway fill, the western boundary of Mallets Bay. The other is this small opening under the Sandbar causeway. With heavy rains and warm temperatures facilitating snow melt over the weekend, the Lamoille River has been raging all week. You cannot keep pouring water into a mostly closed bay without having a fairly strong current develop through the three outlets that exist. There was open water around the openings on the railway fill as well. A walk on the South Hero end of the causeway revealed lots of birds far off shore congregating on the line between ice and open water. A friend reported that he had seen a large flock of snow geese flying north at the same location the day before. All of these birds, can't be wrong.

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Two Mallards swimming in the reflection of a mast of the sailing canal boat, the Lois McClure

Perkins Pier, Burlington, rotten ice, trees ready to bud and a rowboat anxious to be set free from its exposed winter home.

Looking across the "Cut" from South Hero. The apparent island in the middle is really the northern end of the causeway as it extends north from Colchester.