Manic frost fairies turn the town white!
posted in Alaska, Injuries, Photography, Winter |We have had a series of foggy, foggy nights here in the Valley, and with the fog comes a beautiful after-effect: hoar frost. The fog hangs in the air, the icy nights precipitate the fog onto any nearby surface, and the droplets of water freeze and build upon each other into an airy, fairy coating on trees, branches, signs, fences. Then the sunlight comes out, and in all directions you see a sea of frosty white. This time, instead of just one night, we had many nights in a row with the fog, and instead of breezes blowing the delicate frost formations off the surfaces during the day (which usually happens), they have stayed and the next night’s precipitation can build upon the last night’s.
The fog, of course, is not homogenous; you have areas where the fog is thick and areas where it drifts and blows and thins out…all of which shows up in the amount of frost that deposits on the surfaces.
This phone pole, for instance, didn’t get much frost:
It looks just like kids’ experiments with crystallizing sugar or salt.
This batch of trees on a ridgeline caught the sunlight; on our side of the ridge, it was dark:
A little later in the day, I wandered by Suburban Alaska Lake, and was able to photograph this lovely set of little trees, all covered with the frost:
A closer look reveals the leaf-like structure of the frost sticking to the branches (dig that vibrant blue sky! We don’t see that very often around here!):
And then I went all macro:
It really is both beautiful and fascinating.
This was the view across the lake. See how all the trees along the right side of the picture are covered, while the trees on the left side are only covered halfway down? The frost never got that low on the left side:
When I got home, this was the view in the backyard:
The frost doesn’t cling to the evergreens the way it does to the deciduous trees; I’m not sure why.
I had to drive off to our neighborhood crossing of the Little Lady river, to see what it looked like in this fairy frosting:
You can see how the sunlight only hits part of the view; that’s because the sun doesn’t get high enough in the sky to light up the whole area, since it’s in a little dip.
So: This was the post that was supposed to get done yesterday. Hah. The broken nose makes me realize just how mobile my face is; I am constantly lifting an eyebrow or twitching my nose, and each time I do that, it hurts. It doesn’t look like much, really—I am not sporting the advertised raccoon eyes, which surprises me. All I have is a few scrapes and the swollenness, but even that isn’t much compared to what it could be. The part that hurts the most, actually, is my neck and shoulders—I plowed in face first, so jammed my head. Call it “face plant whiplash”!
Many thanks for all the readerly sympathy! 
