There it was, the first tangible sign of things to come in the form of a thick, white, glittering frost on the deck railing and floor, the bird feeder and the two empty plant stands that not that long ago supported pots of marigolds and nasturtiums. I quickly made the mental adjustment from summer lushness to late autumn barrenness and left it at that.
Frost is interesting in that it takes many forms. It can be a few gems sparkling on a twig, a silver sheen across grass, a thick coating on a car windshield or a whimsical, free-form design on a storm door or window. It can also take the form of hoar frost, crystals that develop on surfaces and tree branches when the humidity is high and the temperature low. Rime ice, a much thicker coating, is a layer of super-cooled water droplets in thick fog that solidify when the temperature falls below the freezing point. When the droplets come into contact with a surface such as buildings, trees, railings, rocky ledges and even people and animals, they freeze into different patterns based on whichever way the wind is blowing. It can appear feathery or hard and pebbly, and unlike clear ice, is milky and gray.
I had a chance to see rime ice up close and personal on a trip to the White Mountains with my late partner back in the fall of 2000. I remember debating for a while whether we wanted to commit my little Chevy S10 pickup truck to the demanding journey along the winding and challenging road up Mount Washington. But as it turned out, it was one of those what-have-we-got-to-lose moments that decided itself, and the truck seemed to have a mind of its own as it transported us slowly but surely toward the ticket booth at the foot of the mountain where we took our place in line.
It was a balmy 55 degrees and sunny on the ground, but, as the booth attendant quickly informed us, it was only 25 degrees on top of the mountain with almost zero visibility and 60 mph winds. We’d gone up the mountain a few years earlier on the Cog Railway on a bright, clear September day, but my partner had never experienced the singular thrill of using the auto road.
The going was good, and the view was just as I’d remembered it from other trips, with endless vistas spreading away to infinity and lush vegetation clinging to sharply sloping terrain that, in spots, is just inches away from a vehicle’s tires. On we went with my partner gripping the steering wheel tightly and not taking his eyes off the road for a single second, ever mindful of all the other vehicles, when suddenly, we began seeing cars headed back down the mountain that were covered with a thin coating of ice.
At the tree line, the ticket attendant’s warnings were confirmed, and we found ourselves entering a strange, new world ”“ the likes of which neither of us had ever experienced. The sun disappeared, and there we were, inching along in a thick fog soup that created the illusion that we were on flat ground instead of on the side of a mountain. Once we reached the summit, the thin jacket I had on turned from just right to totally unsuitable, and we had to hang on to each other and to whatever railings we could get a purchase on to remain upright. After spending an hour or so in the observatory, we headed back down the stairs to the truck, and that’s when I noticed the thick ice clinging to everything, but particularly to the rocks that created a backdrop along the lower parking level.
It was unlike any ice I’d ever seen, a dense impenetrable gray like the fog and opaque. In the short time it took us to walk from the observatory to the truck, some of it had formed on us as well as most of the other more-seasoned hikers who strolled easily through that gale as though nothing was amiss. We scraped what we could off the truck windshield and wordlessly agreed to head back down to civilization.
Unless I go back up that mountain again someday, which seems highly unlikely at this point in time, I will probably never see rime ice again and will have to content myself with the shim of delicate frozen water that greets me as I part my door curtains on cold mornings. It was on such mornings long ago when my mother woke us with the words, “Jack Frost was here last night,” words that, even now, knowing what I know about winter hardship, still elicit some measure of awe from me.
— Rachel Lovejoy, a freelance writer living in Lyman, who enjoys exploring the woods of southern Maine, can be reached via email at rachell1950@yahoo.com.
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