Ice volcanoes

At least that's what I call 'em. Rode a short stretch of snowmobile singletrack today down to Fair Haven State Park and the shoreline of Lake Ontario. Perhaps a mile and a half worth. Tight and twisty...at least by snowmobile standards...through the trees. Stays pretty firm even though it's not a groomed trail, 'cause it's tight enough where the sleds all have to follow in the same track. They can't torque on those big snowtotillers either because the tight and twisty nature of the trail keeps their speed in check. I even ran across a few XC skiers. It's sure fun to see the surprise on people's faces to see a biker out on snowy trails.Anyway, back to ice volcanoes. I call them that because in the past I've seen ice formations on the shore that form much like a volcano; heavy wave action under the thick ice shelf that forms out over the water pounds up through the center of a hole. As the water comes down it keeps freezing around the perimeter of the hole, building up the sides over the course of a day or more. The sides of this ice volcano keep building up higher and steeper, forming a mini ice volcano about 10 feet high that spews water from its top every time a big wave comes in. Even though there were none of these to be seen today, the shore was still like a topographical scale model of the Himalayas with incredible ice formations extending way out over the water. In fact, its been so cold for so long recently that the lake was frozen out to beyond where I could even see the open water. I don't think I've seen it frozen this far out from shore in years. That first shot is looking straight out over the lake, towards Canada. If you double click on it and look at it full size, you will also see that it shows off quite nicely the stainless steel sheet metal screws that I stud my tire with. The second shot is looking Eastward, towards Oswego. I didn't get many pictures today because I forgot to charge my camera batteries. Felt cold today too...quite windy and right off the lake. Therefore I didn't really ride very far and only stayed out for about 2 hours. Mainly just fooled around on the trails staying pretty close to home. Being that my Blog is so new, I was also excited about getting on the computer to play around and make another post.I'm throwing in this last photo, above, just because I took it before I started this Blog and I want to share it. It's from a night ride I did last Monday night from Fair Haven to Cato and back...on the snowmobile trail. The round trip was 28 miles and I was out for 3.5 hrs. I was feeling awesome that night, even though it got down to about 10 degrees F by the time I made it home. I felt like a goddamn timber wolf out there tearing ass through the abysmal darkness of the woods, fields, and low swamps that those deep, snowy trails run through. I'll probably publish a few more pre-Blog photos in future posts.