I know lot’s of people are complaining about the winter weather we’re receiving here in Ontario this year. But in between bouts of scrapping ice off of the driveway, shoveling snow, dealing with bus cancellations, thawing freezing appendages and crashing your car into the ditch on the 401 (no not me, but plenty of people have!) it’s not hard to look around and see the beauty in all the chaos.

When my wife first mentioned the ice volcanoes at Presqu’ile I didn’t know what to think, but as soon as I did some Googling to find out what it was all about, I had to go check it out. Once my wife convinced me that, since people live out near the park the roads at the park would be passable, we packed up and hit the road (hoping not to wind up in the ditch on the 401).

Once we got to the park, the road was actually plowed quite well. That is, the road that the folks living out there use, was plowed quite well. Once we took the turn and headed into the day use area, we were on our own. But there were a number of tire tracks already in the fresh snow, and there were other vehicles in the area, so we went for it. I’d be lying though if I said I wasn’t envisioning getting stuck in the snow out in the middle of that (seemingly 50km) loop.

Did I mention how cold it was? I still have yet to find a pair of gloves that will allow me to operate a camera in this so called “beautiful” weather (oh wait… I said that didn’t I?) without freezing my hands off. So my son had some fun sliding around on the ice and my wife stuck it out for a few minutes before heading back to the car to stay warm. Of course I stayed out until the light was gone and I realized that my fingers had followed the worrying progression: cold -> burning -> really cold -> really burning -> numb -> what fingers? So once I was convinced I’d have to get my fingertips amputated I was out of there. But I’m going back… hopefully when it’s a little warmer!

The kicker is… the very cold that almost took my fingertips from me, is also responsible for creating the ice I was there to photograph. Stupid nature.