Bump in the Snow

Last week was cold. It started off cold. It ended cold. There was some cold in between. One day pretended to be warm, but other than that, last week can be best described as cold.

Numbered highways are clear of snow. The rest of the roads up here are mostly patchy snow and frozen slush. Allow a few extra minutes to get to your destination.

At the start of the week, there was still a little ice covering the tree tops. It wasn't very thick. By the end of the week, the sun and a warm Friday cleared it off.

Sunsets last week were, for the most part, missable. It either cleared up and we'd get no color or it would cloud up so fast you'd get a touch of color and shortly afterward the dull gray of thick clouds. We preferred the dull gray ones. They were not paired with the following single digit mornings.

Before Friday, the snow on the lake was deepish, soft, and fluffy. Sledding was like riding on a cloud.

Around mid-week we got an inch or three of cold, blowing snow.

After the snow, the sledding got even better.

When the sun was out, even the colder days felt warm. As best as we can tell, one raft left on the lake in the sun burst into flames after the snow.

The warm on Friday (48°F!) slushified the lake snow. Then the cold came back. Friday's snow tracks froze. The lake became hard, cold, and lumpy.

Wild turkeys tromped around the bar on Friday and haven't been seen since.

There was a white pine on the north end of the lake that has not been doing well. It lost all its needles two years ago. They didn't grow back last year. It was leaning toward the lake. One of the men gave it a little shove.

There might have been some chainsaw sounds before the shove.

Parts of it (the bottom part) is to be cut into cabin parts. The top is 2026 campfire wood.

The northern bottle rocket fort is gone. The southern one is as sick as that white pine. It won't make next weekend.

We didn't get the sub-zero of Deep Winter. What we did get wasn't much better and will stretch out the Thaw. Extended Thaw: Fear it. With all the tree trimming and bouncy sled rides, we neglected to get an ice check. With the snow cover transformed into airy ice, our guess is the ice is inches thicker than last week. A March ice-out, while not impossible, is getting less and less likely.

-Nemo's confident the ice will be gone by June. July at the latest.

Bump in the Snow

February 23rd through March 1st, 2026