Cisco Sonar

Ice Pushing
by Bryce Neilson

Bryce Neilson

It is a beautiful spring day outside at Bear Lake.  Everyone knows that spring begins next week and everyone can't wait for the snow to leave and the green to appear.  This will begin everywhere around us but not in the Bear Lake Valley.  We have, as close as I can estimate,  (for the Muddled Male's benefit) 24,393,600 tons of ice to melt.  We are an icebox and it is going to take some time to turn the ice into water.  This is especially true considering the lake is covered with new snow that reflects heat and in fact it is still making ice.

If you travel along the shoreline you will see ice being pushed up on shore.  This is not due to the wind or changing lake elevations but expansion.  This action is actually very important to the littoral zone of the lake.  After years of low water, dead trees and phragmities in addition to sandbars and rocks are now encased in ice which is now moving.  With that much mass nothing can resist it.  So when it melts some time, I hope,  in April things will look different,  This stirs up and revitalizes the shoreline.  I personally be happy to see the old dead snags gone.   When breakup get closer I will talk about what happens then. 

 

(Editor's note: I'm just waiting for my first hamburger at Cisco's on the Marina!)