A week before spring break, my roommate Gwen and I decided to visit the ice caves. We first walked downtown and looked out across Lake Champlain while we waited for the bus. It was pretty well frozen over, several boats and ships were frozen into place. Being down there reminded me of an NR1 lab when we visited the ECHO center and went out on the Melosira. During that lab we learned about the dynamics of the lake and how twice a year it “turns over” in the spring and the fall. Seeing the frozen lake prompted me to think about this process as the last time I saw it it was right before the fall turnover and the water was still warm. It was also interesting in comparison to the Winooski River which I observe on my visits to Salmon Hole. The ice on the lake was not as fragmented and broken as it was last time I was at the river, probably because the water is calmer and slower moving at the shore of the lake than at a river dam outlet.
Gwen and I proceeded to take the bus to the ice caves, which I found out were located right by Burlington High School. We walked down a hill through a sliver of forest until we were out on the ice. At first we didn’t even notice we reached the ice yet because there were several inches of fresh powdery snow covering the ground.
Inside the ice cave there was unfrozen, still water and massive icicles hanging from between the ceiling rocks. The shape of the cave was peculiar and made me wonder how it got to be the way it was. There was one rock pillar that reminded me of the windblown rock monuments of the west.
After a brief time at the ice caves, we walked to Rock Point because it was so close (across the street, passed the high school and the bike path) and I wondered how it would look in the winter.
The path that allows access to the shore of Rock Point was effectively a frozen waterfall. This was unexpected, and unfortunate because we were unable to view the limestone trust fault. Instead, we walked to the observation points a short hike away and overlooked Lake Champlain from a new perspective.
This perspective provided a far more expansive view of the lake’s ice. We could see that there were large fissures that disconnected portions of the ice and that it was not solidly frozen. On the edge of one of the fissures stood a bird of prey which we could observe from a distance (too far to photograph). It appeared to have prey locked in its talons and was tearing pieces off to eat with its beak. There was another bird flying around, presumably another bird of prey looking to do the same as the other. I would tentatively identify the birds as falcons due to their flight pattern, wing shape and size; they flew in swooping circles with minimal flapping of their sickle shaped wings. They were fairly small but larger than a backyard songbird.
