Michigan City Harbor

 

 

A view of the shelf ice, floe ice, and the Michigan City East Pierhead lighthouse on a February afternoon following a brief thaw. The ice has broken up a bit allowing some ice to break free and float as the winds wish. 

This vantage point is about two miles west of the harbor, at Mount Baldy, part of the Indiana Dunes National Park. On a clear day, the Chicago skyline can also be seen, some 37 miles across Lake Michigan.

 

Taking advantage of a somewhat warm afternoon in February, visitors to the Indiana Dunes National Park watch as a lone man walks out onto the ice shelf. Walking far past the shore, this visitor is totally unaware of the dangers of such actions. The shoreline can be seen in this photo - it's the thin, diagonal line of ice mixed with sand; walking anywhere past that line can result in a fatal fall into the freezing waters of Lake Michigan. Luckily on this day, the man reached the shore without harm.

The Lighthouse Through the Ice

Following weeks of below freezing weather, Lake Michigan received a brief reprieve from the punishing February weather. With the rise in temperature, the floe ice on Lake Michigan has begun to move around, exposing liquid water between the floes and the shelf ice. Viewing the lighthouse from two miles across the water at Mt. Baldy, part of the Indiana Dunes National Park, seems more like the arctic than Indiana. Of course, most of the lakefront in winter appears arctic or even alien - especially to those who only head out to the beach in warm weather. 

 Almost every visit I make in the winter, when I come across people from other states, or those who generally don't visit in winter, I hear them gasp in surprise when they make their way over the dune and see the lake from the first time. Elevated between 50 and 100 feet above the beach, the views of the rolling shelf ice are spectacular, much better than the view from the beach. Of course when you're on the beach, it's like another world too, as you walk between the sand dunes and the 15 foot tall mounds of ice; it's like walking through a valley in winter.

 

This view from the beach level shows the lighthouse, again about two miles away, but though the mounds of ice. These mounds look like frozen waves, particularly if you look closely in front of the lighthouse. For most of the walk along the shore, you can't see any open water or the horizon due to the tall piles of ice, but every so often you can steal a view between the shelf ice. Even standing on a washed up log gives you a new perspective of the extent of the ice. 

For this type of viewing, Mt. Baldy, near Michigan City, is your best bet for legal higher altitude viewing. Further west is West Beach, which also allows climbing of dunes in marked areas and trails.

Ice Volcanoes

While they're not really volcanoes, these ice mounds are formed by similar physics, but instead of heat and pressure, these are formed by crashing waves and freezing temperatures. As Lake Michigan freezes and high winds churn up the water, the waves crash into shore. Slowly the ice begins to build up on the shoreline and as it builds, more an more floating ice is piled on top until a mound is created. Then the process begins again at the foot of the mound, and after time goes by, the mounds begin to form further into the lake. Some of these mounds form in a more of a circular way, where the water and ice chunks are tossed up in the center of an area, and the chunks begin to form a cone as the ice is deposited around a central point.

   

Ice mounds and cones line the beaches for miles, and can often extend hundreds or even thousands of feet into the lake. As the winds calm, ice forms on the outer edge of the cones, then, when the waves kick up again, mounds can form on the outer edges of this ice, extending the ice shelf further and further off shore. This is one of the main reasons these mounds are dangerous to walk on, the holes in the cones can be hidden by drifted snow or thin ice. Also, the ice between the mounds can be very thin as well.

Shelf Ice Stretching Along the Shore

It's that time of the winter again, when the surface of Lake Michigan is covered in ice, and the ridges of shelf ice form parallel to the shore. These ice formations are created by cold weather and waves pushing up the water and ice chunks onto the layers of ice on the beach. After a bit of time, the ice builds up into mounds that can reach a height of 15 feet, and stretch for hundreds - or thousands of feet into the lake.

The history of the winter's weather can be told by viewing the ice on the lake. The tall mounds form when the weather is windy, while the flat areas form when there is no wind or when there is a gentle breeze that pushes the floe ice toward the shore. The ice is then frozen in place until the next wind event when mounds once again form at the outer edge of the ice. This creates the familiar hills and valleys often seen on the lake in winter. The lakefront changes as often as the weather in all seasons, but it's especially noticeable in winter when the ice can build, crack, fall, or float, changing the appearance considerably.

In addition to the changes in the ice, the beach changes as well. Wind mixes the sand and snow creating beautiful drifts and layered patterns on the dunes and on the beach. These features change even more quickly than the ice, and these alone are worth a trip to the lake front.

In the image above, the snow and sand mix in the foreground, while the ice on the lake extends almost as far as one can see. If you look closely at the horizon on the right side of the image, you can see the Chicago skyline some 35 miles across Lake Michigan. It's a common thing to see, but not a guarantee on every visit.

Morning at West Beach

Finally, the sun came out after a couple of weeks of very cold weather, warming things up to 18°F which feels very comfortable with no wind and strong sun. Arriving at West Beach, the western-most property of the Indiana Dunes National Park, the clouds parted and the sun bathed the foredune. The foredune is the first dune from a body of water, so in this case, the first dune from Lake Michigan. These dunes hold a bit of heat, at least a bit longer than the surrounding land, so the sand is often free of snow, and once the sun comes out it quickly melts off even more. 

The low, morning sun washes the sand with warm light, in great contrast to the dunes closer to me, which were still in the shadow of taller dunes. The almost always overdone theme of "fire and ice" still captures my attention, and here the warm sand and sun against the cool snow and shade make a good example of this theme.

 

Heading closer to the beach, other dunes come into view before the walk to the top of the dunes which consists of 474 stairs - up most, but down quite a few at the end. This type of winter hike brings to mind another "fire and ice" theme - the one where your body is hot like fire and sweating, while your face is ice cold. A backpack full of gear doesn't help either! 

Once you finish the more strenuous portions of the hike, you begin to cool down and now that your body is wet, you begin to freeze. This is why I never bundle up unless the wind it blowing 30 or 40 mph and the temperature is below 0°F. I'm not pretending to be warm, I'm trying to stop from heating up too early - warm early on means cold later on, so cool early, warm later on.