Ice off -- for real!!

Just one day after my last post, on April 16th, 2010, the large ice floe at the south end of the lake, which didn't look so large when it finally appeared around the point, floated into the north end of Bowron Lake. The winds pushed and ground it against the northwest shore of the lake where it slowly disintegrated, and by 5pm the lake was ice free! We even jumped into the boat (the next morning) to make sure. So 'my' proclaimed ice off date is entered in my record books as April 16th, 2010. How does this relate to the records I have? It's a bit earlier then the mean average which works out to be May 1st. (This comes from 47 entries recorded by various people between the years of 1932 and 2010 (78 years), so there is a lot missing here.) For the record the earliest ice off event for Bowron Lake (that I have) occured on April 2, 1991, and the latest ice off event occured May 20, 2008.

To date (April 20, 2010) Bowron Lake is ice free, Kibbee is nearly ice free (still a bit along the edges), Spectacle still has lots of ice on it, Indianpoint and beyond have not been checked but are most probably still frozen. Isaac Lake traditionally clears off 2 weeks after Bowron Lake, so that brings us to the 30th of April. At this point the park personnel (and I) expect that the Lakes will all be clear in plenty of time for the Parks opening on May 15, 2010.

Lots of birds are back; robins, blackbirds, mergansers, canadian geese, eagles, plovers. The ravens are nesting, the starlings are ripping out the wire and nesting under our eves... AGAIN!! and the mosquitos have appeared! (yes I can enter them under birds because they are certainly big enough!) We have seen a few moose on the road, otters and beavers are in the river and squirrels are running rampant everywhere. No bear sitings yet. The water has only risen slightly, 5 cm in the last week (measured at the Bowron River Bridge), but there is still lots of snow in the mountains yet to melt. Tourists and strange cars are beginning to appear driving up and down the road... spring has sprung in the Bowron!