Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Hookers and Holes

I took the SUV as a sign. The blue sky, the wind chill warning, the photos on Facebook of ice fisherman with their coolers: it all makes for a lovely day at the lake, and it was, but when I saw the red Ford SUV pulling out of a gravelly drive, a pony-tailed woman on a cell phone behind the wheel, and the words, "Mobile Escort Service" emblazoned on the side, I knew it was also going to be a weird day at the lake.

Funky snow
I guess fishermen get as lonely as the next guy, right? Blech.

Okay, yes, it's entirely possible this was the kind of escort that follows a large truck from the fracking fields to the gas plant. That actually didn't occur to me until just now, after several uncomfortable hours imagining a diminutive woman in heels knocking on the creaky door of Big Curtis's ice shack. 

The desert of ice and the approaching cirrus clouds
In 35 years I've never seen the ice stick around for eight weeks. Moreover, this blog has given me wonderful occasion to walk on it every ten days. I thought perhaps I'd go back into the woods today, that maybe everyone is tired of my ice walks. But here's the thing about ice: it's constantly morphing into something new. It's as undependable as my husband at the grocery store. ("You wanted pads, right? These say "Poise". Is that okay?") At the moment, because of this extreme, lengthy cold, it feels as solid as the ground. When I jump on it, it neither echoes nor vibrates. And, hidden as it is under the crusty snow, it may as well be a sleeping cornfield. Yet, when the jet stream changes and warmer air arrives or a different sort of snow falls, it’ll be a foreign place again. 

I keep putting off her haircut for these hikes.

In my photos it always appears to be same lake. I’m so glad I’ve got words on my side to explain to you how vastly different it is from visit to visit. In January the ice was glassy and new. Two weeks ago it was windswept, and the snow was thin and spread out as on a blustery beach. Today the ice looked like a desert. There's no snow on the trees, and we endured a weird snowstorm last weekend that created this Piedmont Sahara. Four inches of snow fell and then it began to rain/sleet/ice. The result is a snow cone, and in places it looked popcorny. The thin crust on the top of the snow cover gave way when I stepped on it. Temperatures have been so cold for so long that the ice can handle a fleet of Hummers. I transitioned from terra firma to the surface of the lake and had every intention of walking right across the cove to the other shore. We rarely get to do that; temps have to be below freezing for about two weeks. Our temps have been below zero for so long that all the melanin has left my skin and my butt now blends in with the bathroom tile. 

The solidity of the footing lulled me into a false sense of security. I walked along and suddenly crack! A tiny canyon shot horizontally across my path. I promptly shit my pants did a foul-mouthed two-step as I hustled my buns back to the shallows. My heart beat out its terror in my chest and my throat was dry and I felt the adrenaline surge diminish all the way down in my legs. It made no sense! The ice is every bit of ten inches thick. The Piedmont Facebook page was awash with ice fisherman this weekend. How could it—how dare it—crack under my weight? 

And so Nature gets a kick out of the silly writer who thinks she has it all figured out, who assumes there are rules, that 35 years of ice walks confers upon her a PhD in Piedmont Experience, giving her the rights and privileges to assume her way through all things wild.

I know nothing, Jon Snow.

The cracks seemed to follow me wherever I went. (Way to scarf that lemon paczki this morning, fatty.) I walked on the ice because I had to, because the snow-cone consistency of the land-snow made it impossible to navigate. Every ten minutes a crack tore out from under me heading off in an endless streak of horror. Even though my brain knew that the ice was thick enough to hold a gaggle of grumpy old men and their fishing huts, my body reacted with adrenaline and a sprint for the shore every time it uttered a noise. 

The mysterious hole
I theorized that there’s so much ice that it had nowhere to go, no choice but to crack. It’s almost a foot thick, if not more. It couldn't have dropped me no matter how many delightful Polish pastries I consumed. Water expands as it freezes. It’s so heavy, so massive, that it inevitably tears itself apart.  Canyons open up, exposing stratifications like the sides of Pennsylvania hills when they’re blasted for an interstate. It heaves and sighs and bitches and complains when the temperature fluctuates. And, in places, it spouts its frustrations. I came to a hole in the ice that had frozen over. This appeared to be a very deep hole, and I could look down into its blackness. Ice fisherman's plunder? Couldn’t be—there were no tracks nearby. As I walked along the shoreline I encountered many of these frozen holes. (And the wind chill today was probably around zero so I had some frozen holes of my own.)

Frozen flatulence?
Last summer in Russia several enormous holes appeared on the Siberian tundra, and scientists spent considerable effort trying to determine their origin. The fear is that the warming climate is causing methane trapped in the formerly frozen ground to expand and blow. I suspect that something similar, albeit benign, is happening at Piedmont. The ice is so thick that the air trapped under it has to go somewhere. Perhaps it finally blew, like my tire last week. The water flowed up through the hole and froze over again as soon as it touched the chill of the atmosphere.
The site of a weekend ice hut,
tracks from a rolling cart and the
fishing hole.

Are these holes a place where the pressure is releasing? For all intents and purposes, was I down on my knees sniffing an ice fart?

I ran for the shoreline like a weenie every time the ice burped or thwumped. I slipped a few times on slick spots. Maya had another case of the Leon Trotskies and I caught her dragging her butt on the ice in perhaps the least dignified posture ever achieved by a noble daughter of Rin Tin Tin. By the end of the hike I was certain that nature was out to get me. It's the first time I've felt humbled by the lake. I had no answers, only questions, and though the bare hills revealed dozens of cabins I've never seen before, they were all empty and I felt incredibly isolated. It was me and the girls and a lone red-tailed hawk.

That's probably why I decided to pee behind my mother's boxwoods rather than fool with the frozen toilets.



Ice fisherman on 2/22/15



Who wants to tell my dad that his dock looks a little...askew?

Edited to add: When I told my father about the mysterious holes he said, "Well how do you know that they aren't ice fishing holes?" I said, "There are no tracks." He replied, "How do you know they weren't covered by snow?"

It's a good explanation. These mysterious fart holes, though...they were all right against the shoreline, in only a foot or two of water. I can't imagine a fisherman would be in such shallow water, and I know the fish aren't there. They're down in the deep.

5 comments:

  1. Every time you post, you make me laugh. Seriously. Your money put toward this MFA is well spent. Laughter aside, I loved your descriptions of the ice. The canyons and stratifications, the heaves and complaints, the spout of frustrations. Really nice. And yes, my ice was like a desert too. Maybe all thick lake ice is a desert. And strangely, well worth exploring.

    I agree with your dad's theory. It was my first thought too.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The solidity of the footing lulled me into a false sense of security. I walked along and suddenly crack! A tiny canyon shot horizontally across my path. I promptly shit my pants did a foul-mouthed two-step as I hustled my buns back to the shallows. My heart beat out its terror in my chest and my throat was dry and I felt the adrenaline surge diminish all the way down in my legs. It made no sense! The ice is every bit of ten inches thick. The Piedmont Facebook page was awash with ice fisherman this weekend. How could it—how dare it—crack under my weight?


    I thought you captured these series of actions so well. I was panicking with you as I read. Not an easy thing to accomplish when writing. I am going to echo Amanda, another wonderfully funny post. I think you execute voice and quirky observation so well. I like how your mind works, and your wit. I also love how this post kind of turned into an investigative piece. WHAT DO THE HOLES MEAN? Who knew ice could be so perplexing and mysterious. Thanks for sharing!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank you for brightening my Sunday. This is hysterical and well written. A pleasure to read.

    I will say, I imagined "hookers" to have something to do with the fishermen - until I began reading. I have a perfect mental picture of the ponytail-cellphone girl.

    Oh and "Ice Farts". I like that idea better than abandoned ice fishing holes. =)

    ReplyDelete
  4. I loved so many things about this post! It kept me laughing and engaged the entire way through.

    "In my photos it always appears to be same lake. I’m so glad I’ve got words on my side to explain to you how vastly different it is from visit to visit." I felt the same way when I was looking through my pictures the other day...they all looked the same, but I knew I experienced a lot of differences that you just can't see in the pictures.

    Your description of the ice cracking had me on the edge of my seat. You really captured the moment! Thanks for sharing!

    ReplyDelete
  5. It's the first time I've felt humbled by the lake. I had no answers, only questions...

    Such a richness of sensory detail in this visit. I love how you are suddenly seeing this place in entirely new and surprising ways. Surprise seems to be a recent trend here in the blogs.

    ReplyDelete