I think Moses and the Red Sea have us by a very wide margin here--but we were sure happy to find the great ice pack that is Lake Manitou parted just enough to get us through to shore.
Prior to this we had been trapped by a most unusual form of ice--one that we had never seen before. The ice--due to the warm weather--had lost all ability to carry weight on top. However, it was still three inches thick, which meant you could not force a kayak either through it or over it.
The crystal structure of this ice was quite amazing to me. Imagine the kind of prisms that hung from your grandma's lamp. Now pack them all together vertically so they form an ice slab and you have Lake Manitou. The prisms were not strongly attached, so they would collapse under weight--but each three inch prism had the beauty of a perfectly formed ice crystal three inches long with many sides.
As I write this two days later, we have the last gasp of the ice and a new Spring dawning for the lake.
