Sawtooth Mountains and Lake Superior Locked in Ice

Well we are still locked into the deep freeze of 2014. For Minnesota this is now the second coldest winter on record. Not a record anyone was striving for. We woke up this morning to 22 below zero. As you can tell from this photo Lake Superior is almost completely frozen except for some small open strips. The last time that happened was in 1979 when the lake was about 95% frozen.

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Lake Superior in March

With the abundance of snow and the lake nearly frozen it is like winters from the past.

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Northern Minnesota Road

Snowplow operators have worked many days this year keeping the roads open.

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Deer want the winter to end

This deer was on the backside of the snow bank standing up to its neck in snow. Like the rest of us, it appeared as though it also wanted winter to end.

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Porcupine

Karla and I found this porcupine while looking for owls. It was walking in circles around this small maple tree in the deep snow. Around and around and around it went. I put on my snowshoes and walked up to it to see if it was sick. It looked fine but didn’t pay any attention to me being there and it just kept walking around in circles. Thirty minutes later when we left it was still walking circles around the tree. I think this winter’s snow and cold has even the porcupines losing their minds.

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Sea Caves 001

We went to the Apostle Island Sea Caves for one last time before the ice breaks up. It was on a weekday and we went early in the day to get ahead of the crowds. It was a beautiful sunny day so we saw some exceptional color in the sandstone cliffs along with the ice coated caves. You can still find beauty in the cold.

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Sea Caves 002

It is that little island that you see in the distance that keeps the ice against the shore allowing access to the sea caves.

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Sea Caves 003

This is one of the larger caves.

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Sea Caves 004

Some of the caves are completely coated with ice.

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Several of the cave openings are covered with frost due to warm air coming from back in the cave.

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Sea Caves 006

This one had an exceptional amount of frost covering the icicles.

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While exploring the back of one of the caves I looked up and just had to take a photo of these icicles. I tired to imagine just how the spray from Lake Superior waves could form such a beautiful circular pattern.

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