Monday, May 16, 2011

Ice Ice Baby

These pictures will show you how darn cold this spring has been! We’ve never seen this much ice up at the cabin this late in May….granted we’ve only been going up there since 2004, but we talked to other folks who have a much longer history and they agree with us.

When we went up on Friday night (May 13) it was pretty cloudy and chilly, we had to thread the boat through a couple narrow spots of ice but they were fine.


The biggest obstacle was when we made it to within sight of the property corner and a big sweeper was down in the river. It had trapped a bunch of ice behind it and there was no way we could get around (or through) it. We sat and thought about it for a while then figured our only option was to cut through the tree.


So Mike stood up in the bow with the chainsaw and I kept the boat steady against the tree while he cut.

CRACK! The tree snapped and as the crown sunk to the river bottom the ice jam started to shift and flow downstream, right around us. We got over to the side of the river and tried to keep from getting swept up in the ice.


As soon as it was clear we continued on up to the cabin, got everything offloaded and enjoyed moose chili & cornbread for dinner…..we were all tired after the excitement of the ride up so we fell asleep relatively early, thankful for the toasty wood stove & full stomachs.

Saturday was a much nicer day weather-wise, super sunny & breezy. We did some chores & spent a couple hours playing on a sunny gravel bar with Tekla and throwing rocks at all the ice chunks that were still flowing downriver.  



Mike and the kids did some shooting at the range and then we enjoyed a dutch oven dinner out by the fire ring. We even squeezed in a Dungeons and Dragons game before Piper fell asleep at the table. 



Yesterday (Sunday) was a gorgeous boat ride out, the ice had mostly melted and the river had came up….much easier driving conditions!

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