Looking For Detachment

Well, it's weeks later, and I'm not up in the far northlands of Southcentral AK anymore (but instead am in the snowy middle-lands of the West), but indeed, the sun did come out the day after I took the ice and snow photos of my last post, and the trees, especially the deciduous trees, were covered with inch-plus-thick rime ice.

There were birds hanging out, in the birch trees especially, though we can't see them here—at least not clearly.

A tree partly in shadow.

Ice and snow on the back fence. Sparkling. Glittering.

Soft rime ice (from days of ice fog) on a shrubby tree.

Some ducks flew by overhead, as did a few ravens.

Ice covered trees and icy cirrus clouds.

And here we can see a few of the birds.

These are Bohemian waxwings.

There were huge flocks of the waxwings hanging out in the tops of the birch trees, and until I got these close-ups, we didn't know what they were. These are fairly common in Southcentral, though I don't think I had seen them up there for a few years.

It's been icy cold in the far northlands, with temperatures hovering not too far above zero for several days. The snow isn't really all that deep, only 8 inches in the back yard, but it's covering everything and hanging fairly heavy on the trees.

Snow on black spruce.

Looking upward, we can see ice crystals frozen on to the needles.

It was about 3°F when I was out taking these photos.

Brr!

Ice crystals on the twigs of a deciduous tree.

Ice is a mineral of the hexagonal crystal system. The crystals in this photo consist mostly of needles and plates, probably a combination of of soft rime ice and hoarfrost.

I'm hoping for some sun today so I can take more photos of the ice-laden trees.

It was another icy, foggy morning, with hoarfrost covering everything in sight, and the Pogonip barely lifting from the ground.

Splotchy-pattered frost on the window, and the tree from the first photo beyond.

We, of course, headed up to Water Canyon as soon as the temperature warmed a bit. (The high for the day is listed at 13°F, so I'm not sure how much it warmed up, but it least it was warmer than the official low of -21°F!)

This time, rather than snowshoeing, we hiked, possibly using chains on our boots. This may have been the trip when our chains iced up, making walking awkward, and causing us to revert to just boots.

Partially frozen creek.

At the rocky area in the lower part, we found some unusual ice patterns, apparently caused by intermittent freezing and thawing of the creek.

Flow patterns in ice.

Intriguing flame-like structures in ice, with flowing water beneath.

Side trail into snow.

We came to point-three-mile canyon (which I have, in the past, erroneously called half-mile canyon), and didn't take the trail, although some intrepid snowshoer had been up and back at least once (a trail goes around the deadfall).

The creek and frozen waterfall at third-mile creek crossing was covered with ice thick enough to walk on. (Photo below: compare to this photo from my last post.)

I can see at least five layers of ice in this photo: the first is a broken one around the edge, the second is the one the surface hoarfrost is growing on.

Little, dark bubbles of air moving beneath the ice were almost the only clue that the creek wasn't frozen solid. A second clue was a faint gurgling sound.

A layer of needle and feather ice crystals (hoarfrost) on a thick, transparent layer of ice, with  less shapely ice and snow on a deeper, dark-looking layer of ice.

Sagebrush and shadows on frosted snow.

My feet finally froze, and we turned around.

Compared to 2008 and 2009, frost is a little late this year. This photo from the 9th of this month, taken at a location very close to the these photos from the 12th of September, 2008, was the first frost seen at our coreshed, though we did have some hail in an icy storm about a week prior.
At our little house, the first frost of 2010 came later, just two days ago on the 12th of October, as seen on my windshield while driving to work. Last year, in 2009, we had a hard, killing freeze on September 30th, and had our first snow on October 4th. So far, no snow for 2010 (except in the high mountains above 9000 feet, which happened a couple weeks back).
As I drove farther up the road...
...it became clear that the ice on my windshield had been deposited by a Pogonip ice fog.

Brrr.