fun with nonliquid water
Jan. 31st, 2022 08:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nosrednaydujSo on Saturday, it snew. We didn't get around to measuring with a yardstick until Sunday, when it found 15 inches in the backyard, but it had packed down for a while. So more than that actually fell. On Saturday, Ken and I stomped around in snowshoes in the local youth camp woods while it was still snowing. Snowshoeing in a foot of snow is a lot of work, when you are breaking trail. We switched off.
Sunday, I tried to ski on the lake. You would think that having over a foot of snow on it would be great for skiing, but it turns out that the snow is heavy enough to push the underlying ice down below what it's natural floating level would be, and so everywhere there is a crack (and there are a lot – there is an enormous amount of thermal stress on the ice, and it produces cracks, which are not unsafe, but which do permit the passage of water), then water wells up and spreads out below the snow, creating 2 inches of slush underneath the foot of snow. And, the snow is not uniform, because it was windy, so there was some drifting, so there are places where there is 6 inches of snow or even 2 inches of snow (revealing the underlying slush), and when you drag your ski through water, and then through snow, it builds up a huge stuck on snowball that impedes sliding tremendously. It was quite a slog. I stopped and cleaned off the skis a few times, but it was a losing battle. I didn't go very far.
Today, I went skiing in the place that Ken and I had snowshoed, and it was great. Even though some more snow had fallen after we made our tracks, it was much easier to break trail than in pristine snow. And the cool thing is that deer also think it is easier to walk in the trail, so I was skiing over deer tracks quite a lot of the time.
Sunday, I tried to ski on the lake. You would think that having over a foot of snow on it would be great for skiing, but it turns out that the snow is heavy enough to push the underlying ice down below what it's natural floating level would be, and so everywhere there is a crack (and there are a lot – there is an enormous amount of thermal stress on the ice, and it produces cracks, which are not unsafe, but which do permit the passage of water), then water wells up and spreads out below the snow, creating 2 inches of slush underneath the foot of snow. And, the snow is not uniform, because it was windy, so there was some drifting, so there are places where there is 6 inches of snow or even 2 inches of snow (revealing the underlying slush), and when you drag your ski through water, and then through snow, it builds up a huge stuck on snowball that impedes sliding tremendously. It was quite a slog. I stopped and cleaned off the skis a few times, but it was a losing battle. I didn't go very far.
Today, I went skiing in the place that Ken and I had snowshoed, and it was great. Even though some more snow had fallen after we made our tracks, it was much easier to break trail than in pristine snow. And the cool thing is that deer also think it is easier to walk in the trail, so I was skiing over deer tracks quite a lot of the time.
