Enjoying a beautiful January day on the sublime groomed surface of the trails at Kakabeka Falls Provincial Park in Ontario. This photo is from a couple of weeks ago. The past couple of days we've been experience some massive snow melt thanks to lots of sunshine and temperatures hovering right around 40 degrees. Thankfully the highs are dropping back into the low 20's and teens this coming week. Hopefully there is still enough snow left on the trails for some decent skiing!
Remember the photo of the fire tower that I posted yesterday? Well, here's the view from the tower, looking northwest over Trout and Swamp Lakes. It sure was a beautiful afternoon! What a winter wonderland, especially with all the frost on the trees in the foreground. This is one of my favorite views anywhere in the world. It never disappoints!
The other day I went for a little biking and hiking adventure in the winter forest. The highlight of the day was hiking up to one of the tallest hills in the area and seeing one of our local fire towers completely covered in frost. At the bottom of the hill the trees looked nothing like what you see in this photo. It was only along the top of the ridge that the trees were coated in snow and frost. As I got my first glimpse of the tower through the trees I really liked the framing of the scene so I pulled out my camera and made this photograph.
High winds and waves make for a dramatic sunset over the Lake Superior shoreline!
On one of our days off this week we headed across the border into Canada for an afternoon ski at Kakabeka Falls Provincial Park, followed by dinner and an evening at the movies. The ski conditions at Kakabeka were sublime. The track was immaculate and we basically had the entire place to ourselves. We only saw one other skier the entire time we were there. One of our favorite places along the trail is this beaver pond, where you ski right past the beaver lodge. On our way back to the car it was approaching sunset and the clouds were really beautiful. With the beaver pond and the cool sky, it was time for a photo and it ended up being my favorite photo of the day :-)
Not a lot of color in the sky this morning, but a beautiful sunrise nonetheless. We have some decent ice built up along the shoreline in certain places now, something we haven't had much of this winter due to the overall warm temperatures. The colder temps of the past week or two have been a little more conducive to ice forming along the shore. I, for one, am glad to see it. After all, it wouldn't be winter without some cool Lake Superior ice formations to admire!
A couple of weeks ago we had some very stormy days on Lake Superior. On one of those days I spent the better part of the day photographing the big waves as they rolled into shore in Grand Marais. One of the more unique aspects of that day were all these temporary waterfalls that were created whenever an especially large wave would hit.
On the west side of the harbor in Grand Marais there is a high section of rock that is very exposed to the waves. Every now and then when a bigger wave made contact with the rock, it would send huge amounts of water up and over the top of the rock. As the water washed down the harbor side of the rock, it made all these little channels of water that looked like waterfalls.
It was a fun thing to watch, as the waterfalls only lasted about 10 to 15 seconds. For a brief moment it was a waterfall paradise, then nothing but rock until the next big wave hit and another waterfall paradise was created.
