Winter Adventure: Fire and Ice

OUTDOORS

– Part two of Sharon Hawley’s Winter Adventure (read part one here).

June Lake Village in the morning (Photo – Sharon Hawley).

I arrived in June Lake Village and settled in for five days. A picture from my window (above).

By Sharon Hawley

In 2010, I came here to start hiking into the Sierras and came out in Yosemite Valley six days later.  Today I went back to two places where I had taken pictures in 2010.  They are both at Silver Lake which is a few miles from June Lake.  The comparison of summer and winter is quite striking.

[image-comparator title=”Silver Lake in July, 2010 and January 2016 (hover over photos).” left=”http://coloradoboulevard.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Silver-Lake-during-the-Summer-of-2010-Photo-Sharon-Hawley..jpg” right=”http://coloradoboulevard.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Silver-Lake-Winterr-of-2015-Photo-Sharon-Hawley.jpg” width=”100%” left_alt=”Silver Lake Summer of 2010 (Photo – Sharon Hawley)” right_alt=”Silver Lake Winter of 2016 (Photo – Sharon Hawley)” classes=”hover”][/image-comparator]

[image-comparator title=”I was happy to find this lodgepole pine still standing through six winters and summers since I last saw it (hover over photos).” left=”http://coloradoboulevard.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Photo-Sharon-Hawley.-2.jpg” right=”http://coloradoboulevard.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Photo-Sharon-Hawley.-2-1.jpg” width=”100%” left_alt=”Lodgepole pine July, 2010 (Photo – Sharon Hawley)” right_alt=”Lodgepole pine Winter, 2016 (Photo – Sharon Hawley)” classes=”hover”][/image-comparator]

Fire and ice

I call this Fire and Ice because even though Silver Lake has a thick sheet of ice on its surface, covered with a thicker layer of snow, it, like all the lakes in this region is underlain with magma not too far down.  liquid rock is near the surface, and it sometimes sends warm plumes of water up into an otherwise cold lake.

Silver Lake above the magma (Photo – Sharon Hawley).

So when I ventured out onto Silver Lake on Nordic skis, caution seemed wise.  The skis distribute my weight over the snow and ice, reducing the pressure on any one spot.  My only concern was the chance of a thin spot in the ice, weakening its support.

Melted snow on Silver Lake (Photo – Sharon Hawley).

I stayed close to the lake’s edge just in case.  And sure enough, there it was, a place where the snow had melted and maybe the ice too.  I inched around it, poking with the ski poles before each step.

> Sharon Hawley adventures in wild places several times a year and posts a blog for each trip. Her interests are geology, hiking, climbing, wilderness camping, and bringing others along vicariously.