Visiting the Lake Erie Shore in winter is one of my favorite photo activities. Most people think of the lake and the beaches in summer but I frequent them in the opposite pattern. The ice and snow formations that get created on the shore are the big part of these winter scapes appealing to me.

What you see here is what I like to call a snow volcano and it is in full action here. It takes a really crappy day to see them like this. On this particular occassion, it was around freezing and very windy with snow and sand from the beach throughout the air. My camera hot wrapped up in a mixture of water, snow, and sand within minutes making me retreat.

In an earlier photo, you can see it in its more pretty form, but dormant. These get created on the shore as waves find their way through the pile up of ice and snow and shoot through it up. They're in fact seasonal blowholes that stay active during windy days until the lake freezes over. Once that happens, these volcanoes become dormant and rarely wake up.

Lake Erie is one of the Great Lakes and is named after a Native American tribe that lived on its southern shore. Most of the water flows into Lake Erie from the Detroit River. The outflow from the lake creates another wonder, the Niagara River. The western basin of Lake Erie is the home for about 26 islands, depending on current water levels. Lake Erie also provides for a regional phenomenon - lake effect snow that makes Buffalo, NY infamous for its winter storms.