Snowprints.


From Ice Swimmer: These footprints in snow were on dry land and on the sea ice, or both in Helsinki, first four near the former Presidential Residence, Tamminiemi and the museum island Seurasaari and the last two near the Hietaranta beach and Hietaniemi cemetery. Click for full size!

© Ice Swimmer, all rights reserved.

Comments

  1. Ice Swimmer says

    Of these shown here, the first three are from places near Tamminiemi and Seurasaari and the last two are from places near Hietaranta and the Hietaniemi cemetery.

    The third was taken on the sea ice, I walked on paths where people had walked recently, not going near reeds sticking through the ice, rocks or shipping lanes and there were other people on the ice. Still, I’m not recommending other people to do the same, you have to be careful and know what you’re doing.

  2. Ice Swimmer says

    I’ve been having problems with Gmail eating attachments randomly, it took multiple tries to get all pictures through.

  3. Raucous Indignation says

    Snow tracks. The Northeast US is getting very heavy winter weather right now. Unfortunately, we’re on vacation in Austin Texas. We’re missing all the snow and wind.

  4. Ice Swimmer says

    Thank you, Caine, both for your efforts and the praise! Now the original post is the one that’s correct. When I was sending the pictures, I missed that the first got eaten three times by Gmail.

  5. says

    Hop hop! Hop hop bop skippy bippity yop!

    I was enjoying the tracks in my snow this winter and I got to a spot where an owl appears to have gotten a rabbit. Hop hop hop splat.

  6. says

    Busterggi:

    Pretty much the only redeeming value of snow.

    Word. There are four plows out right now, trying to get streets clear enough for people to be able to get out. Knee deep snow makes me fucking cranky.

  7. Raucous Indignation says

    Got that right. I already lost one choke cherry tree to heavy wet snow and wind before we left for Texas. I have no idea what we’re gonna find when we get home. There are power outages all over the Hudson Valley.

  8. Ice Swimmer says

    Raucous Indignation @ 9

    Sorry about the choke cherry.

    Re the snow:

    Snow has one further redeeming quality: It makes the darkness less dark. But yeah, wading in snow isn’t fun and shoveling and plowing it is a lot of work if you live in the countryside or suburbs. Here, with mostly moderate snowfall and living in a fairly urban environment, the slippery icy sidewalks are the biggest problem now. The wet snow that was there a few weeks ago froze into rock hard ice with the colder weather and now, it’s still below freezing but much less so, which makes the ice slippery as hell if there’s no gravel (there is mostly, but when there isn’t, going downhill gets “fun”).
    __

    The third, fifth and the sixth picture are taken from the shore, towards the frozen sea.

    The ice is now something like 20 cm/8 in thick and it could have been a bit less thick at the time I took the pictures, about two weeks ago. 15 -- 20 cm can be enough to carry a person, even when it’s sea ice, if the ice isn’t in the process of melting or otherwise weak. The salt in sea water makes the ice porous, there are minuscule pockets of concentrated brine in the ice, while the solid part is less salty.

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