Clear and cold

The past few mornings it's like we live in Yellowstone Park, only without the snowmobiles. Huge steam rising from the river, big ol' chunks of ice floating by (more on that in a sec), and sincere cold*.

* cold for these parts, not cold for Minnesota, North Dakota, Michigan, Maine, New Hampshire, et al.

We don't have a thermometer, so we rely on the internets for weather info. We know the websites aren't accurate for us; a forecast for Bigfork (eight miles away) really means Kalispell (30 miles away). If they say 20% chance of snow, we'll get six inches. We do know it's been below zero every night since Sunday, and the high hasn't been very. The only burden has been trying to start the vehicles every few hours to keep their vital fluids from freezing.

But the scenery... astonishing! Brilliant stars, lots and lots of river steam, and crystal clear skies. Two days ago I decided to go for a river walk. Waders, ear muffs, cheap driving gloves, camera... check!

I'm totally comfortable in water and I know this part of the river quite well, but I'd never been in water with ice before. What's floating on the surface may or may not have bulk below, but regardless: ice has mass, and moving ice has kinetic energy that can't be ignored. Of course I chose noon for my walk -- sun high, the "warm" part of the day. Guess what? That's also when most ice chunks break loose and float downriver.

Here's a shot of me in my waders and tennies, among clouds of bottom ice. The ice consistency is much like a DQ Mr. Misty^TM (ahh, the width and breadth of my education and life experience comes to the fore). It's not slippery at all.

My toes grew cold immediately, but I stayed dry. As soon as I entered the current, ice floated by. Most slushy and harmless, but some was big, several inches thick, and pointy! The beast in the photo below was about about twelve feet long, five wide, at least four inches thick, and moving quickly. I knew enough to not turn my back to the current.
Only got whammed once, by a sneaky chunk just below the surface. It wasn't pointy, but it was solid, and it hit me on the thigh. Monique watched as I took at least ten minutes to walk the last 20 feet back to shore. I was scanning upriver, waiting for a moment when not much (visible) ice was floating by. I wasn't scared, but I definitely knew my timing was poor and my toes were numb.

The snow is deep, beautiful, white, and it has those little sparkle flecks. Supposedly by Saturday the temps will soar to near-freezing... T-shirt weather!

This last shot is of frozen old footprints (mine), evoking a photo from the moon. The only footprints upriver from us for quite a ways, are mine. Mine and the deer's and the beaver's. That's just good.