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| "The Crick" after the recent snow |
A medium-size stream flows along the border of our
farm. It is officially known as a "Creek", but to old time Fulton
County backwoodsmen it is known as a "Crick" Since I love the old time
vernacular I always refer to it by this name. There is a fording which
one uses to access the other side which I call "goin' acrosst the
crick". I have spent a lot of money on repair bills through the years
due to water damage to hubs, brakes, and universal joints incurred by
"crossin' the crick" as when it is low enough I usually cross it every
day to look for wildlife, but that is a story for another day.
When
I was young the creek was usually frozen for most of the winter and we
spent a lot of time walking and sledding on the ice. It was an exciting
time when a combination of heavy rainfall and melting snow caused the
ice to break up, but in recent years this has not happened nearly as
often and I have little photos or HD video of this. This changed
somewhat this past Wednesday when I got photos and footage of ice
flowing down the creek shortly after it had broken up, but it was not as
dramatic as some of the ice-outs that I witnessed as a youth.
We
received about 24" of snow from winter storm Jonas. The weather
moderated after a few days and the snow went down substantially raising
the creek to levels that required a vehicle with high ground clearance
such as my old Ford Bronco. There was heavy rain last Tuesday night and
I really didn't expect to be able to cross on Wednesday morning,, but
it if found that it was still a few inches below the maximum level that I
would try. It was plain , however, that the level would soon be too
high for crossing as the feeder streams running into it were high and
muddy. As it turned out I was able to return home the same way, but that
was the last crossing until this afternoon.
I drove
to the fording that afternoon in hopes of documenting the ice going
out. When I arrived the ice was already gone from the pond immediately
above the fording and the water was high and muddy. As I stood there,
the rushing water grew louder and I could hear the grinding and crashing
of ice and looked up the stream and saw it was gorged with ice rushing
toward me. I mostly took video of this, but here is a still of the same
general area shown in the first photo except part of it is a bit to the
right of the area shown above.I usually cross just above the small
trees that the ice is smashing into in the center of the photo. There
are certain reference marks that I know to look for to determine if it
is safe to cross and there is little to no risk involved when the
stream's flow is stable or declining, but the problem with crossing
while it is rising is that if the vehicle stalls it must either be
gotten out right away or it is almost certain to be severely damaged. In
this case, had I stalled out near the trees when I crossed in the
morning,and not been able to retrieve the vehicle before the ice went
out, it would have been hammered severely by the ice and likely
destroyed.
After taking photos and video in this area, I moved on down the stream to a
better vantage point and took more photos and video, but again I
concentrated mostly on video. Immediately below is a short video of
this.
Ice Out from
Willard C. Hill on
Vimeo.
The
old timers had a saying that the creek only froze over
solid enough to walk on once a year and that the ice-out was only a once
a year occurrence. Now that the ice is gone, and it is only early
February, it will be interesting to see what the rest of the winter
brings and if this saying will prove to be accurate.
