A view of a partially frozen Lake Michigan. Credit: Ann Brummitt

It started as a joke and grew to a Facebook page daringly called: "Drive or bike across Lake Michigan?"

On the ice, all the way from Milwaukee to Muskegon.

It's still basically a joke, but also a conversation among friends of a quest they would love to try if only the lake would cooperate.

"Are you in?" posted page co-creator Marty Weigel. "Four-wheel-drive cars for sure. Snowmobiles, motorcycles, bikes or even a plane to help scout a route would be good. 90-ish miles one way. I'm just saying, if it freezes, and you miss this chance, when will it happen again?"

Seventy-five people, including me, have clicked the button saying we're going, even though we're not really going. Not this year at least.

Problem No. 1: Only 66% of the lake is covered in ice, even though we all agree it's been a brutally cold winter. I'll get to the other obstacles in a minute.

First, let's hear some details of what Weigel calls more of a thought experiment than a solid plan.

"We'd send out guys on bikes with a cordless drill. Every five miles they could stop and drill a hole and see how thick the ice is, radio back to people in cars, whoever is brave enough to risk it," said Weigel, 54, who is a biking enthusiast, owner of Benno's Genuine Bar & Grill and a West Allis alderman.

And don't forget the chain saws to hack through icy ridges that block the way. Inflatable rafts would come in handy to traverse open water, though you probably don't want to put your car into one.

"You could actually kind of water ski behind cars on snow skis, you know a rope with a handle off the bumper of the car," Weigel said. "Now would you want to do that for 90 miles?"

People have water skied clear across Lake Michigan in the summer. I found an account of a guy from East Lansing named Victor Jackson who crossed in a motorized bathtub mounted on pontoons on Aug. 24, 1969. So there's plenty of crazy out there.

But I have not found anyone who drove a car, biked, snow skied or snowmobiled over the frozen lake the way Weigel and his friends picture it.

The main photo on the Facebook page shows what an idealized ice road across Lake Michigan might look like. It's smooth as glass and even has curbs and gutters. You expect to see a sign saying, "Rest area, one mile on the right." The photo is one he found on Google and apparently is actually somewhere in Antarctica.

In a perfect world, the ice crossers could tailgate on the way and whip out the brooms for some curling, Weigel said. This could be fun if you don't fall through the ice into the frigid water or watch your car sink 200 feet down to the bottom.

Speaking of cold water, that's exactly what George Leshkevich, a lake scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Ann Arbor, throws on this idea.

"I wouldn't recommend it," he said.

Even if the lake were completely covered in ice, as it was in 1936, 1963 and 1979, it's not the kind of ice you see in the Olympic arena, though the average thickness on the lake is now about 10 inches, Leshkevich said.

Give us the reality check, sir. We can take it.

"You're likely to encounter cracks, polynyas, which are little holes or open water areas. The ice can be ridged where you have pressure pushing the ice up. Or you can have grafting of the ice sheets. You can have areas of brash ice or what we call rubble fields, which are pieces of ice likely broken by the wind and wind-generated waves and piled up on itself. It's very angular. It's like plate glass. It would be very hard to get a vehicle of any kind across that. It would be very hard to walk on that type of ice. These ridges..."

OK, that's enough. I'm unclicking the "I'm going" button.

Wait. Leshkevich still isn't done. "The ice is very dynamic. It can change rapidly, especially if there's wind," he said. "Some areas you can walk on and some areas you better not walk on, and they don't have to be that far apart, either."

Safety, of course, would be the No. 1 concern, Weigel said. But nobody gets hurt by merely imagining a crossing.

Marianne Greco posted on the Facebook page: "I'm trying to imagine how the conversation will go. The one that starts with, 'Hey Mom, can I borrow your 4-wheel-drive car to drive across Lake Michigan?'"

Zeke Stanis wanted to know if this would be a ride or a race, to which David Snyder replied, "If the ice starts to break up, THEN it's a race."

Dave Schlabowske, deputy director of the Wisconsin Bike Fed, would love to pedal across Lake Michigan. He has been riding around on it this winter, but only inside the breakwater. He and some friends also biked up the Milwaukee River from North Ave. to Good Hope Road and back.

Weigel admits the ride won't be happening this year, and he's OK with that.

"Secretly, I'm kind of glad it's warming up," he said. "I talked to my insurance guy and he said, well honestly, if I drop my car in the lake, my insurance would cover my vehicle. But my insurance company would probably drop me after that."

I guess they just don't understand us dreamers.

Call Jim Stingl at (414) 224-2017 or email at jstingl@jrn.com