Frozen

On January 23rd, with not a lot of work left to do in the guest cottage, I took a drive up to Abraham Lake.  When Margarit and I were last out at the cottage, around the beginning of January, temperatures were really mild, and the lake was still open.  Now, following that bitter cold snap of mid-January, the lake is fully frozen.  Ice conditions are OK, but not great.  Much of the lake surface is partly covered with snow.  There is some clear ice out near the center, but my guess is this part just recently froze... possibly since the snow... and may not be all that thick.  I didn't venture out that far, and generally stayed near the shoreline.

I stopped at the Windy Point/Mt Michener viewpoint, and true to its name, it was really windy.  Too windy to consider setting up a camera.  Of course this was the part of the lake that was least snow covered.  Then I drove up as far as Preachers Point.  The wind was a lot lighter here, but the ice didn't look very good, and was mostly snow covered.  My final stop was down below Mt. Abraham, immediately across from Mt. Michener, not far from the elbow of the lake.  I wandered down onto the shore here, and attempted a couple of photographs with the view camera.

It seemed like it remained more overcast around Nordegg, and up the valley by the lake, the sun actually broke out off and on.  The temperature peaked at +8C along the lake, but it didn't feel that warm with the wind blowing.  All the same it was nice to get out for a couple hours.

I wonder what the ice conditions are like in the mean time.  Since I returned home to Edmonton in the last part of January, we have seen another spell of really mild weather.  On January 31st the temperature peaked at about +12C.  I'm sure much of the snow has melted, but I'm not sure what happens to the snow out on the lake under such conditions.  I need to make a return visit and see what conditions are like.  Either way, it seems like the winter of 2024 is not a great one for Bubbling.