Thawing Lake Michigan - Southwest Michigan

3/22/2015

Most of the snow has melted in the lower half of the lower peninsula. What is left is either in heavy shade or the remnants of big piles from the parking lots. Lake Michigan is beginning to thaw, but when that much water freezes, it takes a long time to thaw. I decided to drive out to see how it looks in late March. The first photos are from the beach at Van Buren State Park.

This is the view when I first walked out on the beach.

This piece almost looks like it is floating in mid air.

A frozen sand bar. The water was lapping up against it.

There was quite a bit of this stuff on the beaches. It looks a little like tumbleweed.

An iceberg. I don't think this one could sink a ship.

It looks like someone forgot there is no alcohol on the beach.

One lone piece of ice.

It is only driftwood, but it looked really cool.

The flat looking area is still frozen. The rippled area is open water.

If the other piece of ice got together will all of its friends, it could cause some problems for a ship.

Looking back toward the beach as I walked out.

When I left Van Buren State Park, I drove south toward Benton Harbor. Along the way, I stopped at a Roadside Park in Hager Township.

This was a small river running in front of the small dunes in the next photo.

There are quite a few smaller dunes near the water. I could not get close to them, so I don't know if they are all sand, or if they are sand covering ice.

Looking north along the beach toward Van Buren State Park. The steam is from the Palisades Nuclear Power Plant. Later I realized that is probably why there was so much open water there.

The last stop was the St. Joseph North Pier Lighthouse. I would like to have seen the lighthouses a few weeks ago before the thaw, but I am not sure I could have made it out to see them. There are two lighthouses. I made it to the first one with no problem. As I was walking between the two lighthouses, the piles of snow encroached more and more on the walkway. Even though there was a person at the outer lighthouse I decided to turn around. I did not want to take a chance on going for a swim in the St. Joseph River with all my camera equipment. :-)