The coolest beach in America: Hundreds of giant ice boulders weighing 75 POUNDS wash ashore in Michigan


These massive snow boulders, estimated to be about 75 pounds, have washed ashore off the coast in northern Michigan.



The stunning snowballs were spotted by a woman who was walking her dog at the Sleeping Bear Dunes national park.

'I thought it was the coolest thing ever especially since I've never seen anything like it,' said Leda Olmstead. 'I have a small English bulldog and they were as tall as her. They were pretty massive.'

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Amazing: These ice boulders, estimated to weigh 75 pounds each, washed ashore in northern Michigan. Officials believe they broke off from hunks of ice floating in Lake Michigan and were rounded into shape by wind and waves

Olmstead said the snow boulders lined the coast for about a 100-foot stretch and there appeared to be hundreds of them.

She was walking her two dogs, Zola and Bula, when she happened upon them.

Olmstead quickly pulled out her camera and took these amazing photographs that were picked up by local media .

Hundreds of the boulders lined the coast of Sleeping Bear Dunes national park when they were spotted by a local woman who was walking her dogs.

'People think it's so boring and gross up here in the winter but I think it's beautiful,' Olmstead said of northern Michigan.



While the snow boulders seem like freak occurrences, or from another planet, weather experts provided a straight-forward explanation for how they came to be.

Sleeping Bear Park Ranger Amie Lipscomb told Michigan Live that the ice boulders begin to form - much like a pebble from actual boulders - when hunks of ice break off from the sheets that float in nearby Lake Michigan.

Then, after waves beat down on the pieces of ice, they become rounded and smoothed and are then washed ashore in seemingly perfect boulders.

There have been high-winds in the area of late which contribute to the boulders.

'Along the shoreline, lots of different ice formations form because of the waves crashing along the beach,' Lipscomb said.

What fun: Leda Olmstead and her two dogs enjoy the chance to play around with the massive ice boulders. She said people who have lived in the area their whole lives have never seen anything like it

Olmsted told The Weather Channel, 'Most of the people who've lived here their whole live said they've never seen anything like it either.



'So it's really cool.'

















