The Ice Mound

Besides finding the other large masses of ice at Hemlock, I also came upon this piece of interesting work. What we have here is an ice mound being formed by water running off the cliff at the top. I know from this angle it really doesn't look very big but it's when you get up close and personal with it that you really get idea for the scale of it all.

The icicles hanging from the top have a constant stream of water coming down over it. This second picture gives you a better idea of the mass of it. The top section of the ice is every bit of 8 feet across if not more. You can see the amount of water pouring through the middle of the icicle. Yes that is through the middle of icicle. Other water allows the icicle to become wider and larger. This is one massive piece of ice you don't want to be under when the thaw starts.

I decided to show you just how big the mound really was by setting my camera in the self-timer mode then running up to the mound. Needless to say the mound was a lot more impressive when you get up close. I'm almost six feet tall so you can gauge the size of the mound from that. There were also some large ice balls on the left side of the base, some of them almost bowling ball size. They weren't real pretty like some I've seen so I decided not to take pictures of them. I don't know how long this mound will last as temps are supposed to get back above freezing next week. It will definitley hang around for a while though.

More Comparisons

I didn't want to overload the blog so I decided to make this into two parts. This second parts shows two more comparisons. I've also added a third picture from a different angle on the second set to show how big some of the ice blocks are that fall from the cliffs. Had you been under this you would have been squashed like a bug.

Comparisons

It's amazing what a few days and a big temperature drop can do to a place. All you have to do to see what Hemlock Cliffs looked like last week is to scroll down this blog. Today, however, I've got something new to look at. It's the same place but after having temperatures below zero and single digits for a few nights straight some changes happened. What I'm going to do is simply let you look at the picture from then and now. I don't know if things will be that way next week either. They're calling for a warmup, which will definitely change the look of it even again.

Hemlock's Ice

Two days ago I took my first hike for 2007. Now I know the first thing you're going to be guessing is how big of adventure I went on this time. Well, it was actually only a mile and a quarter. Not much you might say but I went looking for something in particular this time....giant icicles. I went to Hemlock Cliffs in Crawford County, Indiana, which is only about 15 minutes from where I live. The icicles there come in the large economy size there. These in this first picture are actually pretty small coming from under the root system of a large tree. On the rock wall behind them, however, some much larger ones grow.

The ice at Hemlock comes in all shapes and sizes. As I was walking in I saw what amounted to glob ice with the same kind of formation like you would see lava in at a Hawaiian volcano. Other ice just seems to flow from some of the rocks at Hemlock.

Without doing a lot of talking this time what I'm going to do is just let you see what I saw Wednesday. I've put myself in some of the pictures to show some scale as to just how big some of the icicles and ice masses were. The ice will get even better this week too. Temperatures are supposed to get in the single digits next week and possibly even below zero during the night. That means the icicles will get longer and harder. Some of the cicles in these pictures are 15 feet long. By next week, if all goes as forecast there will be icicles in the 20-25 foot range and as wide as 2 feet or more, weighing in at several hundred pounds for each one hanging off the cliffs. On one cliff that has a comtinuous stream of water, if it stays cold enough, 0 to single digits, for at least a week a giant ice pillar forms. That one has been known to get 80 feet high, 30 feet wide across the base and 6 feet wide in the middle. We'll have to see if Mother Nature allows that one to form or not. But anyway here are some pictures from Wednesday. I'll be going back next week to see how much more ice is there. I'm expecting quite a show.

This particular bit of ice was on a small stream that runs through the gorge. I found this bit at a crossing with several stones to step around. While some of the ice was more soft and smoothe looking this crystalized ice had the look of something that would take your hand off if you reached down into the water. The ice was very brittle, however, and easily broke off if you touched it. If the much colder weather holds like it's supposed to it will be interesting to see how this looks after temps in the single digits.