Chicago Geysers

So when the weather gets even remotely better around here, something I do for fun/exercise/training/exploration is to take long urban hikes. This usually means a 15-ish mile wandering walk through the city with a 10-15 pound backpack (containing sandwiches and photography equipment). I took one such walk a couple weeks ago on a sunny but chilly day and it was pretty routin for the most part. Most of my photos were more pointless than usual. However, at one point I got close to the lake and I heard these loud booming sounds. Upon closer inspection, I realized that the booms were waves from an uncharacteristically brown Lake Michigan that were slamming into the corrugated sea wall and blasting geyser-like columns up to 40 feet into the air.


I wish I could have put something along the boardwalk for scale since it's hard to understand how huge it really was, but: (1) there was a solid sheet of ice covering the whole area; (2) the waves were unpredictable; and (3) anything on the lower section would have been immediately sucked right into the lake from the receding water.


Wall of water.


There was a serious wind rolling off the lake and as the "geysers" erupted, the mist was being pushed into a chain link fence up on a small hill. Although it had not been cold enough deeper within the city for ice for some time, it was cold enough by the lake for the mist to totally envelop the links in solid ice. I imagine the whole fence was a solid block of ice at some point before the sun came out.


Frozen links.


Absolutely epic. It was an amazing find, and the fact that it was totally unexpected made it that much better. I spent at least an hour watching the show as I enjoyed my morning sammich, and since it was so cold/icy/misty/inherently dangerous (and a weekday), I was the only one there - which also made it that much better.