It was another snowy day in Grand Portage today. The forecast was only calling for a half inch to inch of new snow, but we easily got 3 or 4 times that. Unlike previous snow days, this one was extra beautiful with large, fluffy flakes and almost no wind. It was, as I like to call it, storybook snow.
A few photos from a recent snowshoe outing. I love the forest in the winter! The beauty may bit a bit more subtle than other seasons but is impressive nonetheless.
It was a rare non-windy day today so I decided to break out the skis and spend the afternoon on them. I skied up to the Pigeon River to check out Partridge Falls, which looks like a mountain of ice right now. The weather was just about perfect for skiing... about 7 degrees and absolutely no wind! Hopefully we start getting more days like this.
Close-up shot of an ice luminary that Sarah made using some "decorations" from around the yard.
I'd be curious to see what the stats are as far as how often and how severe the winds have been this winter compared to past winters. It sure seems like we've had a lot more wind than usual. Many days it seems the scenes I encounter make it look like we're living north of the Arctic Circle.
With all the wind we've been having lately there's been a lot of water spray from Lake Superior coating things that are close to the shoreline. This past weekend on our grocery run to Grand Marais we checked out a couple of areas around the harbor where the ice was covering everything within 20 to 30 feet of the water. The ice formations were fascinating and a lot of fun to photograph.
Well, today is another dreary gray sky day with SUPER high winds. A perfect chance to look back at an awesome snowshoe outing this past Saturday, where it was a much calmer day with a beautifully blue sky. We went to a local path that goes down to the Lake Superior shoreline where we saw cool ice piles that had formed from the incredibly high winds the day before. It never ceases to amaze me how the weather can be so violent one day and so calm the next day. The calm days seem few and far between this winter, so get out and enjoy them when they occur!
