Perpetual snow

“ The gale had hardly been blowing for ten or fifteen minutes, when the snow began to whirl down. It came in the tiniest possible flakes, consisting this time of short needles that looked like miniature spindles, strung with the smallest imaginable globules of ice—no six-armed crystals that I could find so far. Many a snowstorm begins that way with us. And there was even here, in the chasm of the road, a swing and dance to the flakes that bespoke the force of the wind above. ”

“ One winter only had passed since the convulsion that disrupted it, and already the snow was beginning to build up its gaps and chasms. All the summer through, for many hours on clear days, the sun will melt those snows and the frost at night will glaze them into ice. The more conformable ice-blocks will gradually be cemented together, while the fierce winds that beat upon the ridge will wear away the supports of the more egregious and unstable blocks, and one by one they will topple into the abyss on this side or on that. ”

“ They gravely bade farewell to all, and the little crowd cheered lustily against the whine of the blizzard as, with cracking whip and hoarse shouts, they were wrapped in the cloudy winding sheet of snow.
Arctic storms have an even sameness; the intense cold, the heartless wind which augments tenfold the chill of the temperature, the air thick and dark with stinging flakes rushing by in an endless cloud. A drifting, freezing, shifting eternity of snow, driven by a ravening gale which sweeps the desolate, bald wastes of the Northland. ”

“ The thaw seemed to have ceased and an icy wind got up, moaning dismally in the tree-tops. The river, which had been always rather narrow, widened out within a sort of gorge of rocks and brushwood. The bed of it began to slope slightly in a long series of what would be rapids when the water was flowing, and then, on a turn, they came to the rocky dip of a high waterfall. Frozen it was still, of course. One mass of ice and snow. Rather a terrible place in the strange stillness of its hold-up. And everywhere rocks--rocks and steep, difficult places blending with the forest. ”

“ Suddenly it tears up a few hundred thousand cubic feet of this snow, and whirls it up high into the air, leaving it to the mercy of the upper current, to fall to the ground again in the form of the thickest snow-storm, or to be dispersed at will like glittering ice-crystals. At times the wind sweeps up large tracts of the dry ice-dust, and pours them down upon a deep-lying valley amid the mountains, or on to the summit of the passes, obliterating in a few seconds the laboriously excavated mountain road, at which a whole company of rutners have toiled for days. ”

“ Presently the storm broke forth into full snowy bloom, and the thronging crystals darkened the air. The wind swept past in hissing floods, grinding the snow into meal and sweeping down into the hollows in enormous drifts all the heavier particles, while the finer dust was sifted through the sky, increasing the icy gloom. ”

“ The frosts are severe at night, and the meadow grass turns dry and wan. The last lilac crocuses die upon the fields. Icicles, hanging from watercourse or mill-wheel, glitter in the noonday sunlight. The wind blows keenly from the north, and now the snow begins to fall and thaw and freeze, and fall and thaw again. The seasons are confused; wonderful days of flawless purity are intermingled with storm and gloom. At last the time comes when a great snowfall has to be expected. There is hard frost in the early morning, and at nine o'clock the thermometer stands at 2°. ”

“ On the smooth plain of the interior no rock waste relieves the snow's dazzling whiteness; no streams of running water are seen; the silence is broken only by howling storm winds and the rustle of the surface snow which they drive before them. Sounding with long poles, explorers find that below the powdery snow of the latest snowfall lie successive layers of earlier snows, which grow more and more compact downward, and at last have altered to impenetrable ice. The ice cap formed by the accumulated snows of uncounted centuries may well be more than a mile in depth. ”

“ Nothing, indeed, can be more fascinating than the new world revealed by frost. In shaded places of the valley you may walk through larches and leafless alder thickets by silent farms, all silvered over with hoar spangles—fairy forests, where the flowers and foliage are rime. The streams are flowing half-frozen over rocks sheeted with opaque green ice. Here it is strange to watch the swirl of water freeing itself from these frost-shackles, and to see it eddying beneath the overhanging eaves of frailest crystal-frosted snow. ”

“ On both sides, and above us, lay the pure white snow; below us a huge abyss, into which the rocky ridge descended like a darkened stairway to the lower regions. The awful stillness was unbroken, save by the whistling of the wind among the rocks. Dark masses of clouds seemed to bear down upon us every now and then, opening up their trap-doors, and letting down a heavy fall of snow. The heat of our bodies melted the ice beneath us, and our clothes became saturated with ice-water. Although we were surrounded by snow and ice, we were suffering with a burning thirst. ”

“ Where the winters are long and cold and the storms are severe, immense drifts of snow collect in the hollows and cañons of the mountain slopes. Each summer all or a part of this snow melts. Upon the northern slopes the melting process is slower, and if there happens to be a large basin upon that side, an extensive field of snow remains until the winter storms come again. Each winter new snow is added to the surface, while the older snow, becoming hard and firm through repeated freezing and thawing, at last turns to ice. ”

“ And so out again into the snow wilderness, here and there cattle snuffing about on the desolate hill-sides, and snow-sheds—timber-covered ways to prevent the snow drifting on to the track—becoming more frequent, and the white desolation growing every mile more utter. And the moon got up to confuse the horizon of land with the background of the sky. And so to sleep, with dreams of the Arctic regions, and possibilities, the dreariest in the world, of being snowed up on the line.
Awakening with snow still all round us, and snow falling heavily as we reach Green River. ”

“ There is seldom any wind with first snows, more often rain, but later, when there is already a smooth foot or two over all the slopes, the drifts begin. The late snows are fine and dry, mere ice granules at the wind's will. Keen mornings after a storm they are blown out in wreaths and banners from the high ridges sifting into the canons.
Once in a year or so we have a "big snow." The cloud tents are widened out to shut in the valley and an outlying range or two and are drawn tight against the sun. ”

“ It now and then 438 happens that the winter is hurried off by a sudden increase of temperature, when the accumulated snows melt away simultaneously over the whole country, and the southeasterly wind, which then usually blows, brings along with it a continued fall of heavy rain, which, mingling with the dissolving snow, deluges the alluvial portions of the western country, filling up the rivulets, ravines, creeks, and small rivers. ”

“ The fresh fall of snow, which had come over night, was exceedingly slight. It had come down softly, floatingly, with all the winds of the prairies hushed, every flake consisting of one or two large, flat crystals only, which, on account of the nearly saturated air, had gone on growing by condensation till they touched the ground. Such a condition of the atmosphere never holds out in a prolonged snowfall, may it come down ever so soft-footedly; the first half hour exhausts the moisture content of the air. ”

“ Animal life hastens to the more genial south; the birds abandon the frozen wastes; the reindeer retires to the shelter of the forests; the fish desert the ice-bound streams; and a terrible silence reigns in the desolate wilderness, broken only by the harsh yelp of a fox or the melancholy hooting of a snow-owl. For some eight or nine months a deep shroud or pall of snow lies on the whitened plains. No cheerful sunbeams irradiate it with a rosy glow; the sky is dull and dark; and it seems as if Nature had been abandoned to eternal Night. ”

“ The time is seven o’clock; the round full moon has risen above the distant eastern hills—all over the square, and adown the broad street stretches an expanse of dazzling snow. The sleigh paths are yet almost as purely white as the untrodden snow on either side. Save where the steel-shod runners have left gleaming stripes, and the shadows of the snow banks fall, these tracks are hardly distinguishable. The deep snow fell only last night, and the roofs of the houses, the fences, and the dark fir trees in the front-door yards are yet covered with heavy, glittering, sparkling burdens. ”

“ Far away the splendour gleams, hanging like a plume of ostrich-feathers from the roof of rock, waving to the wind, or stooping down to touch the water of the mountain stream that dashes it with dew. The snow at evening, glowing with a sunset flush, is not more rosy-pure than this cascade of pendent blossoms. It loves to be alone—inaccessible ledges, chasms where winds combat, or moist caverns overarched near thundering falls, are the places that it seeks. ”

“ And yet this dry, hard snow is extremely susceptible to the slightest shock, and may be set in motion by a very trifling disturbance of the air. The flight of a bird, the cracking of a whip, the tinkling of bells, even the conversation of persons going along sometimes suffices to shake and loosen it from the vertical face of the cliffs to which it is clinging; and it runs down like grains of sand, growing as it falls, by drawing down with it other beds of snow. It is like a torrent, a snowy waterfall, bursting out suddenly from the side of the mountain ”

“ With southerly winds, near the borders of the ice, or in situations where humid air, blowing from the sea, assimilates with a gelid breeze from the ice, the heaviest falls of snow occur. In this case, a depth of two or three inches is sometimes deposited in an hour. The thickest precipitations also frequently precede sudden storms. The form of the particles of snow presents an endless variety. When the temperature of the air is within a degree or two of the freezing point, much snow falls, frequently consisting of large irregular flakes, such as are common in Britain. ”

“ It frequently happens that a powerful thaw sets in after a long period of frost, and the snow which had been months in accumulating is dissolved and carried off in a few hours. When the snow is deep, it, to use a popular expression, "takes the frost out of the ground" in the woods, and, if it lies long enough, in the fields also. But the heaviest snows usually fall after midwinter, and are succeeded by warm rains or sunshine, which dissolve the snow on the cleared land before it has had time to act upon the frost-bound soil beneath it. ”

“ As the snow began to fall, the death-like stillness of the air was broken, and a beeeze arose, which speedily increased to a gale, and by about three o’clock had become a violent tempest, drifting the thickly-falling snow from the north-west horizontally, so as almost to blind the driver and the horses, and wreathing it here and there so as completely to obliterate the track. ”

“ The augmented snowdrift moves down the valley—birth of the glacier.—In still lower air temperatures the drifts enlarge with each succeeding year until they endure throughout the summer season. From this stage on, an increment of snow is left from each succeeding season. No longer entirely wasted by melting, the time soon comes when the upper snow layers will by their weight compress the lower into ice, and the mass will begin to creep down the slope along the course of the inherited valley. The enlarged snowdrift which feeds this ice stream is called the névé or firn. ”

“ As soon as the sun declined towards the west, the wind increased and rose to a storm, the bank of clouds from the east began to ascend, and the dark streaks to put themselves in motion against the wind. The snow was violently driven about by partial whirlwinds, both on the ice and from off the peaks of the high mountains, and filled the air. At the same time, the ground-swell had increased so much, that its effects upon the ice became very extraordinary and alarming. ”

“ By-and-by the snow-flakes pile more leisurely: they grow large and scattered, and come more slowly than before. The hills, that were brown, heave into sight—great, rounded billows of white. The gray woods look shrunken to half their height, and stand waving in the storm. The wind freshens, and scatters the light flakes that crown the burden of the snow; and as the day droops, a clear, bright sky of steel color cleaves the land and clouds, and sends down a chilling wind to bank the walls and to freeze the storm. ”

“ Sometimes, when the snow is drifting up the pass, and the world is blank behind, before, and all around, it seems like plunging into chaos. The muffled pines loom fantastically through the drift as we rush past them, and the wind, ever and anon, detaches great masses of snow in clouds from their bent branches. ”

“ Slowly it surges on, like a deep groan of rage long controlled only to break out all the more fearfully in raving, annihilating fury. The snow-storm, the first of the year, sweeps down from the Grossortler over the bare trembling heath--a mighty, moving mass rolls on before it that breaks incessantly into powder, and is incessantly renewed--as if the winds had torn the eternal mantle of snow from the shoulders of the numberless glaciers, and were flinging it down from the heights. ”