West Branch Lake Run

Brian and me out on the lake

Brian and I met at the West Branch boat docks today to do a run ON the frozen lake. Our plan was to run/hike on the eastern side of Michael J Kirwan Lake. When we started out, we were a bit cautious trying to reassure ourselves the ice was solid. I got a stick and hit the ice every once in awhile to check it. We got to a couple different points along the way where our feet sunk down a bit and water filled our footsteps. This got us pretty nervous, but after checking it with the stick we found out that it was just some slush on top of the solid ice. Nonetheless, we didn't want our feet to get wet with temperatures in the teens so we had to be careful.

The day started out cloudy, but cleared up into a beautiful sunny day with a clear blue sky. It felt great being out there doing something out of the ordinary. We tried to stay close to the shore on the way out in case something did happen. Most of the lake was covered by 3-5 inches of snow with drifts in certain spots up to our knees!


After running in a few of the inlets, we got to the beach and had lunch at a picnic table. I brought a PB&J sandwhich and pretzels and Brian had a pre-made Subway Italian sub. We noticed the wind pick up as we were sitting there.

Very happy to eat!! haha

We then made our way to the dam where we saw a few ice fishermen and talked to them for a bit. They reassured us and said the ice was at least 12" thick and safe to walk on anywhere. The one guy's eyes bugged out when we told him we had come from the West boat docks. He said "I can think of alot better places to hike then here...Hawaii, Las Vegas....."



Brian and I then started running/hiking back to our cars. The wind made it pretty tough, but we were expecting this since it had been at our back the whole way there. We followed our footsteps somewhat, but made more of a direct path back skipping a few of the inlets.

It was great to get back to the cars as we were both pretty tired. We finished with 9 miles total. Below is a slideshow of some other photos we took during our run.