Intro
I had heard that in the winter, Lake Haiyaha has some unique ice formations. I was curious to check them out. So during a midweek afternoon lull in my workload, I took advantage of a couple of free afternoon hours to do a quick hike up to Lake Haiyaha.
Indeed, the ice formations on Lake Haiyaha were quite fascinating! Most of the frozen lakes I have encountered in RMNP in the winter are relatively smooth and sometimes even glassy, but not Lake Haiyaha: The ice around the edges of the lake had been pushed up to create jagged edges and there were large cracked mounds of ice. There are giant boulders and rocks at the shore of Lake Haiyaha, so perhaps these "ice pimples" form over these boulders and rocks, which create disturbances in the flow of water.
My go-to geology consult Doug McKeever adds: "I agree that there is cracking of the ice most likely due to slight currents beneath the surface. Cracks allow overflow of liquid, which freezes into icy ridges. This happens in polar seas all the time, where significant currents are the rule. The whole process is identical in form to divergent plate boundaries such as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the only real differences being material (magma vs. water), linear scale (meters vs. kilometers), and time scale (hours vs. thousands of years and more)."
My round trip time starting and ending at the Bear Lake Trailhead was just under 2 hours (involving about 20 minutes photographing cool ice formations at Lake Haiyaha). It had not snowed recently and this is a popular area, so I did not bring or need snowshoes, but spikes were nice to have. (Note that you can also get to Lake Haiyaha by taking the Glacier Gorge trail up to the Mills Lake/Sky Pond junction—this is a longer way to go, but could be used to create a nice loop or avoid a short section of open slope on the direct approach from Bear Lake. In fact, a couple of weeks after my first visit to Lake Haiyaha, I returned to Lake Haiyaha via the Glacier Gorge approach. It had snowed just before this second trip to Lake Haiyaha, making snowshoes necessary and adding some extra wallowing exercise to the trip. Photos from this trip are given on this page as well.)
Below is a sampling of photos from my afternoon hike to Lake Haiyaha.
Photos