4/7/05 – What a beautiful day! It froze last night, so I snapped on my skating skis this morning and took advantage of a smooth, fast lake surface. The ice is about 20″ thick overall, but has a 6″ layer of slush ice on top of the solid lake ice. There is a layer of water between the slush ice and the lake ice which results in a very disconcerting hollow sound when you ski on it. By 11:30 a.m. I was starting to break through the softening top crust. I turned around, but not in time to avoid a high speed crash when my skis broke through into the soft under-layer. This brought me crashing down hard face first on the abrasive and unforgiving ice surface. I’ll have a few bruises, but it was well worth it, as you can see from the pictures below. – Bill

Heaven on skis – near the first narrows, BWCA Wilderness, Sawbill Lake.

The lake is scattered with these naturally occuring holes. They form when standing surface water finds its way down a crack and gradually erodes the ice as it drains into the lake. The ice is sound right up to the edge of these holes.

There is nothing in this world as fine as looking at majestic white pines, against a clear blue sky, with the sun warming your back.