Winters in Michigan are known to be long, snowy, and cold. This winter was no exception, nothing out of the ordinary. Oh wait, but it was! The words “Polar Vortex” had become a household name. Everybody was talking about it. It was all over the news, and across my social media channels. The Polar Vortex was creating the coldest, longest winter anyone had seen in years. What it produced was truly spectacular!
Amid the numerous accounts of the Polar Vortex wreaking havoc across the Midwest, stories started popping up about Ice Caves that had formed along the lakeshore. Many had already explored and photographed this amazing phenomenon. It was a once in a lifetime experience, something to share with future generations and we were totally going to have to check it out too!
We piled on our layers, packed our Snowshoe gear and headed out to Lake Michigan. Lake Michigan has always been our favorite place to explore no matter what the season. But ice caves? This was going be a new exciting adventure! Off we went, in search of ice caves.
As we turned down the road near the lakeshore it was obvious we were in the right place. Cars were parked all down the road. Gear laden people were filing out with their dogs on leashes, and kids in tow on sleds. Our excitement grew. This was going to be SO COOL!
We hiked down the road a long ways, but finally we arrived to the spot where people were entering, walking out onto the ice. They looked like ants on an ant hill. Only the ant hills were huge, massive ice caves carved out of ice and snow all along the shoreline of the very frozen Lake Michigan. Our jaws dropped. It was nothing we had ever seen before. In all of the years we had lived in Northern Michigan we had never seen anything like it. I grabbed my camera from my backpack and began snapping up pictures as we walked in and out of the long line of ice caves. We couldn’t tear ourselves away. We stayed and explored the ice caves until the sun began to set. Then we headed home satisfied that we had just witnessed Mother Nature in her rarest form. We could not wait to share our photos with friends and family. Share the splendor of winter in Northern Michigan.
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