A Few Cool Things

A few cool things happened the last week:

The Copper Harbor Trails Club's Backcountry Snow Race took place on Saturday and Sunday.  Aaron and I were in charge of this event.  And though we and all the racers and volunteers had a wonderful time, I'm glad it's done with.  Planning a two day event takes a lot of time and effort!  I fell asleep on the john when it was over with.  Oy!

Sunday night I was sitting in the Community Building parking lot in the truck with Duce.  He was sweetly resting his head on my shoulder when something caught his attention.  He stared out the window intently.  There it went!  A dog?  No, the tail was fluffy like a coyote, but it was too big to be a coyote.  Then we watched another dog chase after the mystery animal.  The latter was Boozer, a town dog who always follows his nose... sometimes for miles and hours on end!

I told the owner of this dog about what I saw, and he said that another predator-savvy man in town thinks it's a mix of wolf and coyote.  Can you imagine?  It was so invigorating to see this what I thought was a wolf that Duce and I got out of the truck to sniff it out.  He darted around sniffing each step of the wolfote.  What a fun little adventure!

Monday I went out to the same shore where I took all those pictures of the ice arches.  Forgetting what to expect (though I know better than to have any expectations from Lake Superior) I was surprised to see them gone!  The man-eating beast arch was still there, but the rest had washed away in the pummeling waves.

What interested me the most about this phenomenon was that I could see how the waves affected these sculptures.  Big chunks of ice had broken off and floated away with the tide.  On the pieces that remained connected to the icy shore, the bottoms washed out, making the top wider.  And to top that off, the splashing waves would then freeze to the top and sides, creating more mass on top, but it also dripped before it froze, creating a saggy effect.  

Some of these sculptures looked like mushrooms or cauliflower.  Below is an example.  

And see that wave crashing to the shore?  I was getting wet out there!  Droplets from the wavetops were freezing to my glasses.  Boy, did I pick the wrong day not to wear my snowpants.  You'd think I would know better by now.  But nope, I'm still learning!