I hope you’re in a nice warm place while reading this because this post is full of ice like that in the photo above, and you might feel a little chilly by the time you’ve reached the end.
Last Sunday, about a month since my last visit, I decided to visit the deep cut rail trail up in Westmoreland where the “big ice” grows each winter. The walls of the manmade canyon are 50 feet high in places and groundwater running through the stone creates ice columns as big as tree trunks. I wanted to see how much the ice had grown in a month.
It had grown quite a lot; enough to climb, in fact and by chance the Appalachian Mountain Club were training here today. They come here as soon as the ice is safe to train people in ice climbing. On this day the 25 degree temperature and 10 mile per hour wind made this place feel like an icebox, and that’s exactly what the climbers call it.
I was here for ice too; not to climb but to photograph, and I saw plenty.
There was an entire canyon full of it.
Some of the ice is colored various colors, I believe according to the minerals that happen to be in the groundwater.
There are plenty of mineral stains to be seen on the stones where groundwater has seeped out of cracks and it makes sense that mineral rich water would color the ice.
This slab of ice is huge and if it ever lets go of the rock it grows on I hope I’m nowhere near it.
I speak about “rotten ice” a lot when I come here so I thought I’d show you the difference between good, solid ice like that in the above photo and the rotten ice in the following photo. This ice is clear and very hard and will ring sharply if you tap on it. It has very few air bubbles and other impurities trapped inside it.
Rotten ice on the other hand is opaque, weak and full of impurities. Ice becomes rotten when water, air bubbles, and/or dirt get in between the grains of ice and cause it to honeycomb and lose its strength. When you tap on ice that looks like this you hear a dull thud. The grayish white color and matte finish are a sure sign that you should stay away from it when it’s hanging over your head like it can do here.
Falling ice is a real danger here; most of these pieces were big enough to have killed someone. This doesn’t usually happen until the weather warms in March though, so I was surprised to see it.
Then there are the falling stones. These fell very recently because they were on the ice of the frozen drainage channel. This always concerns me because I walk in or over the drainage channels to get to the canyon walls. That’s where interesting mosses and liverworts grow. If I had been hit by any one of those stones it would have been all over.
But speaking of the drainage channels, the ice growing on them was beautiful.
The opening photo of this post also shows ice that formed on the drainage channel, just like that in the above shot.
Here was something I’ve never seen; an icicle fell and stabbed through the ice on the drainage channel, and then froze standing up.
Last year’s leaves were trapped under the ice in places.
In other places the drainage channel hadn’t frozen at all. Here the sun was reflected in the water of the channel. I thought the colors were very beautiful. Like molten sunshine.
This spirogyra algae dripping off the stones was something I’ve seen but have never seen here. Spirogyra has common names that include water silk and mermaid’s tresses. It is described as a “filamentous charophyte green algae of the order Zygnematales.” I’ve read that they grow in nutrient rich places. They’re always interesting and I wanted to take a closer look but I didn’t have my rubber boots on so I couldn’t walk through the drainage channel.
Here is some spirogyra algae that I found last year. The strange thing that looks like a vacuum cleaner hose is a chloroplast, and its spiral growth habit is what gives these algae their name. There are more than 400 species of Spirogyra in the world, almost always found in fresh water situations. According to what I’ve read, when used medicinally spirogyra are known as an important source of “natural bioactive compounds for antibiotic, antiviral, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and cytotoxic purposes.” As I said; they’re always interesting.
NOTE: A botanist friend has written in to say that chloroplasts are microscopic so the hose like thing is not one of those, but neither one of us can figure out exactly what it is. It’s a very strange thing to be seen under algae, that’s for sure. I wish we had studied algae in the botany classes that I had!
The orange red color in this shot is iron oxide, washed from the soil by groundwater. I thought the colors in this scene were amazing; otherworldly and beautiful. There was much beauty to be seen here on this day and it reminded me why I come here again and again.
As I always do I stopped at what is left of the old lineman’s shack. It was easy to imagine a group of workers huddled around an old potbellied stove in there on a day like this, but it would have had walls and a roof then. It was very well built and simply refuses to fall. They actually used railroad ties for the sills.
Here is a look at the inside of the shack. It’s too bad people feel the need to tear things apart, but it has probably been abandoned for close to 50 years now, since the Boston and Maine Railroad stopped running in the 1970s.
If you aren’t cold yet you must be a real trooper, but I thought I’d end with a warm shot of sunshine and blue sky just in case. With the wind chill the temperature was about 10 degrees F, and I was thankful that my cameras hadn’t stopped working. I was also thankful to be back in a warm car again even though I discovered that wearing a cloth mask is a good way to keep your face warm. Hopefully spring isn’t too far off.
It’s getting cold. Some of you will put on jackets from the last season. Check your pockets. You might well find a forgotten, unfulfilled wish.
~ Ljupka Cvetanova
Thanks for stopping in.
Wonderful pictures, thank you very much.
You’re welcome, I’m glad you liked them!
THANK YOU for the lovely pictures of Winter landscapes and Ice Formations (rotten ice is both graphic and picturesque) ..your ever-changing landscape offers something interesting with each future exploration.
You’re welcome Krys, I’m glad you enjoyed this icy wonderland!
Please share where I could access this deep-cut –I feel the need to check it out some day. Such wonderful photos and scientific details, giving me inspiration to find more mosses and lichen and algae… thank you!
What a beautiful walk through the ice canyon of the rail trail! I enjoy seeing the photos every year. The long object in the algae is interesting. If you do find out what it is, please let readers know.
Thank you Lavinia, I will!
A feast of great pictures here but my favourite was not the ice but the spirogyra algae. What a place to visit! I would go often.
Thank you. If you know a place where water seeps down the face of a smooth stone I’d look there for that algae, because in the three or four times I’ve seen it that’s where it was.
I do go there often. In fact I was afraid I was going too often and doing too many blog posts about it.
There certainly haven’t been too many. It is a wonderful place.
That does look cold! We’re waiting on a storm that’s supposed to drop up to 9″ of snow tonight.
I hope that storm doesn’t come here!
Ahhh, so much icy beauty, Allen! I love the second pic. Ice “grows” in so many fascinating patterns. Thanks for sharing all the lovely pics and for taking this cold hike for us. Undoubtedly masks are easier to tolerate in cold weather, as they are indeed warmer than a bare face. Still enjoying the new camera/phone?
Thanks Ginny! It is a beautiful wonderland of a place and you can never tell what the ice will do.
Yes, that mask kept my face surprisingly warm. I forgot the thing I usually use so it came in handy in a pinch.
I am still enjoying the camera phone. Many of these photos were taken with it.
A delightful journey. The colours make me want to go to a paint store with the photos and choose some new colour combinations. And the impaled icicle, or perhaps more properly, the impaling icicle, was one of those things you only see once. As I say to friends, “You just have to BE there” meaning you have to spend time in nature to happen upon the rarities.
The other interesting experience I noted was my response to the temperatures you mention. I grew up with Fahrenheit but Canada joined the majority of the world somewhere along the way and I now shiver in Celsius. I learned today that I can no longer easily “translate”. I have lost my ease with my native language of Fahrenheit. Oh I can do the math if need be, but I can’t automatically read your numbers and know how many sweaters I would need. I have never understood why the USA has hung onto the archaic “British” system (after rebelling against them in other ways).
Thanks for your wonderful blog. It always motivates me to get back out there. By the way, it is even colder here. Lol.
Keep up the delight. Mavis
Thanks very much Mavis. I’ve never seen such colors as I find in that spot. They’re very beautiful!
What you tell your friends is true. You can’t see it if you aren’t there.
I’m sorry I didn’t translate the temperature. I used to do that but then I saw that few other bloggers did so I stopped.
I’m not sure why the U.S. has never changed completely but parts of it have. When I worked as an engineer both inches and millimeters had to appear on every drawing. Some people called them “sillimeters” so there was some resistance.
Sorry to hear that you’re colder there!
I’ve saved a couple of the photos from this post – they’re beautiful. I save them as the backdrop for my computer. Not only are your photos wonderful, but as usual, you add poetry to your visuals. “Molten sunshine”! I have to work that into a poem. Thanks!
Thanks very much Paula. I certainly don’t claim to be a poet but I do get excited over the beauty that I see and I’d like you to see it too, so I’m glad you like it!
Hi Allen,
Perhaps I should withdraw whatever silly thoughts I had expressed about a winter visit. I almost headed over to the thermostat just now. But I do like the icicle monument and the leaves under ice… both cool. Not to mention the spirogyra that must certainly have inspired a few scenes from Ghost Busters.
And oh by the way, It seems you’ve been predicting, if not lamenting, the ultimate demise of the lineman’s shack for years. I for one am pleased to see it still standing in defiance of your untimely forecast. Maybe it will outlast the both of us.
Thanks Dave. You might want to wait just a little while. We have -13 here this morning.
That spirogyra algae is fascinating. I wish I’d see more of it but I’m lucky to see it once each year. It doesn’t freeze, apparently.
I have been lamenting the death of the linemen’s shack for years but the railroad builds things to last and it just keeps on standing without two of its walls. I hope it will outlast us!
13 below. Jeez. I must admit that most times I hear the furnace kick on I am reminded of how fortunate we are, but after seeing your recent posts, I feel especially grateful. I do remember a few weeks some time back in the early 80’s that it never got above -30 in Marlow. When I was kid, my dad was a reporter for the Keene Sentinel and he told us he had coined the phrase “the ice box of the Monadnock Region” when writing a piece referring to Marlow’s balmy weather.
I’ve always been very glad that I didn’t live in Marlow. I’ve seen -30 here twice since 1993. That’s when things in your house start going a little wonky.
Speaking of wonky, this is going to sound made up, but I swear it’s true. I knew a guy in Marlow who dug a small pit in his carport, right below where the front of his truck would go. He would shovel coals from his fireplace into a small bucket and dump them in before pulling his truck in for the night. That ole New Hampshire ingenuity. I guess a block heater was just too much money. This may come as a shock, but the story didn’t end well.
If the truck was a diesel it might have worked. They used to keep tanks warm that way in WW II.
I love your ‘icy’ posts, such wonderful shapes the ice makes. You are very brave to go out in such cold temperatures..
Thank you Susan. Compared to this morning at -13F that was warm!
Wow! Rather you than me.