The Mad River is an amazing piece of work, one that often lives up to its name. When we had a warm spell and rain two weeks ago, the ice on many rivers, including the Mad, broke up, forming huge ice jambs along the way. In places the huge blocks of ice were piled twenty feet high. A few cold days later the water had subsided and begun to refreeze. My bet is much of the ice will remain until Spring.

With great care and wearing ice cleats and lots of clothes I walked in the sunny but sub-zero weather on the jumbles of huge blocks strewn all along the shore. In many places I could use the perch they provided to photograph the newly forming ice on the river below. The ice there was littered with flakes of frost the size of silver dollars. Though tempted, I resisted getting closer to them with a macro lens! In one spot, however, I found beautiful, delicate frost feathers where vapor had worked its way up from the river through the crevices in the ice jamb.

I love being out in this kind of weather, at least as long as I’m dressed for it, careful and can enjoy coming back to a warm house in the end.

27 Jan This entry was published on January 27, 2014 at 8:37 am. It’s filed under Abstract, Ice, John Snell, Patterns, Photograph, Snow, Vermont, Water, Winter and tagged Frost, Ice, ice jambs, Mad River. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.