Lake Superior Ice Mountain

There certainly isn't a shortage of ice this week!  It seems like everywhere you look there is another unique and interesting ice formation to photograph.  My second favorite type of ice to photograph (behind abstract close-up forms of ice) are huge ice piles.  These piles of ice form when the ice gets pushed up by the wind and/or waves.  

First, the lake needs to be calm and the air needs to be cold for the ice to form.  It will form flat at first.  The surface of the lake will be nice and (relatively) smooth.  Once the wind or waves kick in, it will cause the ice to start moving up and down and eventually crack into smaller pieces.  If the wind and/or waves continue long enough in the same direction, it will push the ice in one direction and eventually the ice won't be able to take the pressure anymore.  Where it has cracked, it will give to the pressure and slide up on top of another piece of ice.  

This process will continue over and over until the wind lets up, pushing one piece of ice on top of another over and over again until you get these big piles.  Sometimes, these piles occur far out from shore.  If we're lucky, they will occur very close to shore.  Thankfully for us, it is pretty common that they occur close to shore because it is often the shoreline itself that will stop the forward march of the ice.  

I found this particular pile of ice between Two Harbors and Duluth earlier this week.  I'm just over 6 feet tall, and this pile was quite a bit taller than me.  I got down low with my wide-angle lens to accentuate the height of the pile.  I loved the piece of ice in the lower left, it's not very often you see a piece shaped like that.  There are lots of photographers on the shore this weekend and I hope you are all finding awesome ice like this to photograph today!