Some years back, Barry Bennick wrote a description of a paddle that he had made at Lake Charlotte following a hard freeze. I have been intrigued by it ever since, and I thought that it would be a really cool thing to do. But, being as we are in a subtropical climate, such an opportunity comes only very infrequently.
With seriously cold weather headed for us on January 16, it occurred to me that a perfect day for this might be on its way. Out near Lake Charlotte, the temperature dropped to freezing by early Tuesday morning, and it stayed below the freezing mark for almost 27 hours. Then, it dropped back below freezing on Wednesday evening and stayed there for more than another 16 hours. As if that weren’t enough, the water level in the lake dropped about 8 inches during 48 hours, creating the interesting possibility that ice sheets might have been bent into interesting shapes as they slumped down. Remembering what one of my Scottish paddling friends likes to say: (“There is no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing,”) I decided to go for it.
On Wednesday the 17th, I sent out an email to several paddling buddies to see if anyone would be interested. The only one who could make it on such short notice was Paul Woodcock, so the two of us decided to meet up at Cedar Hill Park on Thursday morning and give it a try.
When we saw ice on the surface of the slough at the north edge of the park, we knew that we were onto something good.
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Still Below Freezing
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The Slough
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Reasoning that the quickest access to small and protected bayous and sloughs might be to the north, we headed over to Mac Bayou, where Paul spotted the first river bank icicles. Turning into the entrance of “Secret Lake,” which lies between Mac Lake and the Trinity River, we started to see more and more ice. Soon, an ice sheet about an eighth of an inch thick covered much of the surface. Farther to the north, this became around a half inch thick, making it necessary for us to turn back when we were only part way up Secret Lake.
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| Icicles |
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That's ice! |
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Secret Lake
Turnaround |
Back in Mac Bayou, we headed north toward Mac Lake. Again, we had to turn around part way up the lake due to thick ice.
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Mac Lake
Turnaround
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Mac Lake Return
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Now that we had discovered the limits of navigation and shot videos of several of our more-or-less successful attempts to crash our boats through the ice, we began to concentrate on smaller features along the edges of the lake and back into little sloughs along the fringes of Mac Lake and Mac Bayou.
(The following videos may take a minute to appear, so please be patient - it will be well worth the wait.)
Video: Paul in the ice
Video: Tom in the ice
Here and there, the ice had slumped down as anticipated, but in most places the ice sheet had not been strong enough for that, so that it broke away, leaving bits of ice attached to a cypress tree’s trunk or knee.
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Tutu Tree
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Tutu Family
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Little Dancer
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In most cases, this left a small “tutu” of ice clinging to the tree, but occasionally there would be a delicate “trampoline” of ice suspended between several cypress knees. In some places, the cycles of freezing temperatures had even left two or three different “tutus” at different levels on the same tree. Little, clear bead-like “baubles” had formed on some of the icicles as the water level had dropped, and one of these even dangled entrancingly from an almost-invisible strand of abandoned fishing line. Simply amazing!
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Sky Bridge
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Snow Fairy
Trampoline
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Baubles
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Nativity Scene |
Several anhingas and a black-crowned night heron just couldn’t be bothered to fly away, so that we got an unusually close look at them. At the old sulfur mine’s barge canal, an eagle made slow circles overhead.
Returning to Cedar Hill Park, we took a few minutes to paddle up into the nearby slough. Here, still more icy wonders made a fitting close to a wonderful day. True to predictions, there had been almost no wind, and neither one of us had been at all cold during the entire paddle. Looking back on my many paddling trips here, this had been a truly unique experience. Woo-hoo!
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Back to Lake
Charlotte
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Over Too Soon
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The Paddling Route
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