Despite a lack of snow, things are really cracking up at Vallecito Reservoir this winter.
Literally.
Weather conditions, including the dearth of snow, have led to an extra thick layer of ice on the lake, and an accompanying cracking and groaning of the ice. The noise is eerie – particularly to those who haven’t experienced it before.
The lack of snow has been bad for snowmobilers and snowshoers, and cross-country conditions on the groomed eastern shore are getting sketchy. But on the flip side, ice fishing and skating are hot.
“I caught a whopper,” Vallecito resident Nancy Walb said of a trout she snagged Jan. 18. “I don’t know how I got it through the little hole.”
Ice fishers use an auger to drill a hole, in this case, about 8 inches in diameter, through the ice. Lately, they’ve had to drill about a foot deep in sections, nearly twice the norm, Walb said.
Ice skaters have begun to come out in droves, as well, some just to skate and some to play hockey.
In a normal winter, the lake freezes over, a few people go out and skate, and then snows come, and people don’t skate anymore, said Rosemary Chacho, who has lived in Vallecito for 22 years. This winter, the skaters have kept coming and coming.
Chacho also confirmed that the ice is making a lot of noise, but she isn’t all that impressed.
“I don’t pay attention anymore,” she said, but did grant that it’s a little noisier than usual.
“Some people think it’s coyotes and wolves,” Chacho said. “It doesn’t sound like cracking. It sounds like animals.”
Which could explain why Walb’s dog Nugget, a yellow Labrador, has been a little wigged out this winter. In previous years when Nancy and Steve Walb, her husband, have gone ice fishing, Nugget has been out there chasing a ball and having a good time.
“He’s scared of it ’cause it makes so much noise,” Walb said. “He’s a scaredy-dog. He sits on the bank.”
And when the Walbs go for walks around the lake, “He just sticks close to it when it makes that noise. He just doesn’t like it.”
The dictionary of geology defines the noise as “ice yowling,” said Ray Kenny, professor of geosciences at Fort Lewis College. The ice expands and contracts, creating cracks in the ice.
“The bottom line is that, like almost any material that’s out there, ice is going to contract and expand with respect to temperature changes,” Kenny said. “It can be minor sounds to something that’s booming.”
He likened it to a drum. The ice is like the drum’s skin, and the water is like the drum’s trapped air. “If you smack it ... it’ll make a sound.”
The lack of snow, and lack of insulation for the ice, apparently has contributed to the ice freezing and has made it thicker than normal. People do skate at Vallecito, but usually they have to shovel.
And the warm days apparently have moved up “yowling” season, which often is heard later in the winter or spring.
Lisa Bourque, who has lived at Vallecito for a decade, said she went skating on the reservoir surface Saturday.
“You could hear it right underneath you,” she said. “It sounds like whales. ... It’s a really interesting sound.
“It’s loud. It’s really pretty cool.”
johnp@durangoherald.com
