12-18-2011

Frozen lakes make intense noises, cracking and groaning, pinging ballistically, sounding like space whales waging war, echoing from all sides. On this day we could here the lake a half mile off, and it was so loud at the shore we were afraid the whole ice sheet might shatter to cubes beneath us.
Generally, these sounds are indicative of the expansion of thick ice and so should be reassuring, but it takes some convincing to over-ride the visceral reaction.