Brrrr, it's starting to get a little chilly!

I can tell you I'm still catching up on blog from a couple of weeks ago.  The pictures you are seeing here now are from early November.  As I post every day my student does, and of course days he doesn't, I'll catch up quickly.  For now though you get to experience the change in Egegik from the fall to the winter in quick succession.  

The first tastes of winter come with a cold snap that "burn" the bushes into the dry summer grass fields of the Willamette Valley.  While the air isn't nearly as warm (not even close!), a walk along the beach sure is welcome.  From my vantage point here I can see where the Egegik River starts to mesh with the Bering Sea.  The fresh water with the salt water and the beginnings of ice with start to form where the fresh water sticks around.  The salt water will freeze much later.

As I head further down onto the beach and look towards the south, the "flats" hold a cool sight to behold.  Off the edges fall fresh water that has been pushed ashore by the tide.  As it falls off the flats the cold air whips around it, freezing it to itself and forms ice that droops off each available point.  

The fresh water that comes from up river is starting to freeze.  One wonders how it decides to freeze in certain locations to make large cubes.  Well, maybe it's just me that wonders but man, this one was two feet long by a foot tall.  It looks like it might have broken off of a larger chunk too.  Amazing to see just siting there on the beach.  Just sitting there, the tide didn't take it away.  Currently it's sitting on top of more ice that is not stable enough to walk on but enough to hold more ice that had floated downstream.




Frozen along the shores about 15-20 feet into the river here near AGS (Alaska General Seafoods), ice sits on top of other ice. Yes, this is where the chunk from above was found.  You can't walk on it (yet) but they tell me that this whole bay will freeze over.  It seems amazing that it can happen but I am looking forward to it.  For now though, I still watch from the frozen shore as the channel in the river slides along with chunks of ice in it.

Below you'll see a video of our coldest day so far (to that date anyhow) What can you say, I was bored?!