
We finally received a measurable snow and with it came some rather bitter temperatures. What you are seeing here is not snow but Hoarfrost. Hoarfrost Needs certain conditions to develop and these include brutal cold down in the single digits, very little if any wind and water vapor to freeze on objects already cold. I headed out this morning before sunrise and as I started my Jeep the temperature read 14 degrees and I thought to myself that’s not as cold as they had predicted? A mile down the road it had dropped to 9 degrees and I realized 14 degrees was in my garage! So I traversed the back roads looking near creeks and streams and only found very light Hoarfrost. I kept driving and thinking about spots in low lying valleys and this location came to mind. It was 10 miles away but I decided to see if by chance it might and boy was I happy when I came down the hill and all around the creek was coated in a thick layer of hoarfrost and no wind at all to destroy the beauty! I crawled under an electric fence and was waiting for the Amish farmer to yell at me to get out of his pasture but I think he knew I was just trying to capture this unique opportunity plus I kept shaking my frozen hands trying not to scream at the intense pain I was in, so he may have been enjoying my misery from his warm living room. I plan to give them a large print for being understanding. Oh and by the way when I got back in my Jeep I noticed two things, one the temperature was now minus 7 and when I went to put the vehicle in drive, it was already in drive! In my excitement I had pulled off the road, left the Jeep running for the heat when I was done and I never put it in park! Thank goodness I had pulled into a small pile of snow which held everything in place while I was preoccupied shooting for at least a half hour! The crazy thing is if it would have started rolling it was pointed directly at the creek embankment which dropped off 20-30 feet to the creek below.




