Video Reveals Rare Sights As Lake Michigan Thaws For Spring

A side of Lake Michigan most tourists never get the chance to see.

Of course we Michiganders know any time of the year is the perfect time to visit the Great Lakes. We are a "Water-Winter Wonderland" after all!

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Wintertime especially creates a whole new side to the Great Lakes. It's a wildly different experience seeing sand hoodoos, ice volcanoes, as well as giant orbs of ice and pancake ice swirling around the choppy, icy waters.

Even our lighthouses take on fascinating new shapes once they become encased in ice! Just don't be stupid enough to venture out on dangerous shelf ice to see them.

One Michigan-based outdoor recreational Tiktok account, @ian.outside, recently shared a rare glimpse of a side of Lake Michigan most summer tourists never get to see:

The annual spring thawing of Michigan beaches

Thanks to a recent string of 70 degree days much of the ice that had formed along the shoreline has broken off or melted, revealing rare and fascinating ice formations. As we can once again begin to see the sand on the beaches we are also met with stunning chunks of ice that are almost as clear and shiny as a diamond!

This is one of those things people dont really get to see outside the tourist season. The beaches transition from winter to spring. Just chunks of ice everywhere. Things are just frozen together in clumps.

As an amateur rockhound I am eager to get over to the lakeshore to see which new and interesting fossils and stones the lake has churned up and spit out on the shores for me to collect!