The need for speed.
Winter can be a real slog if you don’t have an activity you enjoy doing outside – for many, it is skiing. I continue hiking through the winter and I like snowshoeing as well, but one thing that really blows my hair back is strapping on my Nordic skates and zooming around on some wild ice. With all the snow we had in north-central Montana last winter, the snowshoeing was great – the ice skating, not so much (too much wind-blown crusty snow). I only skated once last winter, and that was while I was home in Helena for the holiday break. 😦
I love being right!
The big dump of snow we had in October is long gone, so I’d been watching temperatures in the Milk River Valley (40 miles north of Hays where I teach), hoping to get an opportunity to skate. With temps dipping down into the low teens several nights in a row this past week, I suspected there might be good ice on a couple oxbow lakes in the Milk River Valley. Wednesday(11/29/23) after school, I grabbed my skates and drove north to see if my hunch was correct. Ice on the mile-long unnamed oxbow lake by the Agency was very good – clean, smooth, snow-free, 3-4 inches thick! I skated around for about an hour, then drove 6 miles west to check “Dead River”, an oxbow lake near Harlem. The ice there was even better, but darkness was setting in, so Dead River had to wait until Friday morning (12/1/23).
A Friday to remember.
My young friend Alex (teaches fifth grade) joined me for the Friday morning skate on Dead River. It seems like whenever I invite this young man to go along, the weather is perfect. This day was no exception, and the ice was perfect as well (3-4 inches thick, like glass) . We skated back and forth on the 1.7 mile track of the oxbow lake for about almost two hours, thoroughly enjoying ourselves! Unfortunately, conditions like this seldom last – Fluctuating temperatures (typical of Hi-Line winters) often ruin the ice, wind storms cover it with a film of silt, or snow covers the surface. To see what two hours of skating on pristine wild ice looks like, check out the photo tour, which includes several taken with my drone. If you’d like to know more about oxbow lakes, continue reading.
Rivers like short-cuts too!
Rivers that flow across gently-sloping land tend to erode side to side (meandering), whereas steeper rivers in mountainous areas tend to cut downward, forming V-shaped valleys. As a result of this side to side erosion, rivers like the Milk often erode themselves short-cuts (see diagram below). Once the short-cut is established, the big loop is no longer part of the river. The ends of the loop fill with sediment (yellow in diagram), and the abandoned channel becomes an oxbow lake – named for the U-shaped contraptions that were put on the necks of oxen back when they were used to pull wagons. Once it’s left out, the oxbow lake depends on groundwater to keep it filled. Eventually the entire lake will fill with sediment and organic material, becoming a waterless scar. Both oxbow lakes featured in this blog formed sometime after 1888 – You’ll have to read the captions in my photo tour to find out how I know this. Now that you’re a bit smarter, go enjoy the photos!
FYI – I recently started an Instagram account. I will try to post something interesting at least once a week. Check it out: rodbenson406
Below: This map marks hikes that have been featured on bigskywalker.com so far, including several in Glacier Park – Select full screen to expand, zoom in for more detail, or click on a marker for a link to the post.
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