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If Chicago is hell (and it very well could be), then it has officially frozen over.

I thought the lake looked eerily foreign the last time I went over there, but as the weeks passed and winter showed no sign of relenting, the beach practically turned into a replica of Pluto. And that’s kind of cool, since I heard it’s really expensive to go vacationing there this time of year.

I ran into a longtime Chicago resident out there who said he hasn’t seen the lake this iced over since the mid 80s. WTF global warming amiright lolol

Indeed, the lake is downright arctic right now. And about as dangerous as an expedition to the real thing, too. Its frozen depths nearly claimed my real dedleg right here.

Check out how far past the piers the snow and ice stretch — most of the year that’s all liquid water. Both of these shots were taken considerably past the shore. There is no sand underneath all that ice — just a frigid, watery grave. In some spots the ice is thicker than a concrete wall, and three steps later it’s far too thin to support any weight. As you just saw I was lucky enough to discover that first hand.

As I’ve already noted… the terrain out there was fucking treacherous. Coming down a frozen hill, I had to go into a controlled slide. All my survival training is finally paying off. I decided not to include any photos of me drinking my own urine or eating maggots I found in a rotting polar bear carcass, but I’m good at that shit too.

This pile of metal… shit had been almost completely consumed by snow. The waves that normally crash against it all day slowly built up, freezing and thawing and freezing again, until it resembled a set piece from fucking Hoth. Fortunately, there were no Bantha sightings.

The East Coast might be getting all the blizzards this year, but Chicago’s winters are never to be outdone. There might not be 20 inches of snow on the ground in the middle of the city, but it’s been cold enough to freeze a lake nearly the size of West Virginia. Which is just a few notches below “cold enough to freeze your boogers,” for anybody out there who wants to get technical.