Lake Ice

I should have titled this “Lack of Lake Ice,” considering present circumstances.

I have lived along Hauser Lake since 1991. In previous winters, ice typically sheathed over the entire lake surface sometime before Christmas. It arrived reliably, easing its way across the water until the lake settled entirely for the season.

Now, here we are having reached January 20, following weeks of abnormally warm weather, and a section of the lake remains open not far from my lakefront. It’s an unfinished thought, a dark patch that looks like it’s still deciding whether winter applies this year.

Canyon Ferry, Holter, and Lake Helena also feature open water. None of them seem quite ready to commit.

At the same time, frigid temperatures and brutal winter storms have charged in and overtaken the eastern half of the country. Winter, it seems, went east and performed with conviction. Out here, we are essentially upside-down in our weather, watching the season happen somewhere else.

Strange stuff.

I have posted a photograph of the lake just below my house.

Open Water on Hauser Lake

—Mitchell Hegman