On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Eclectic is the word for On the Road this week. Something new and different from Albatrossity. Glacier National Park with realbtl, and Sandstone Peak with BillinGlendale. Then ema takes us on a trip to exotic New Jersey, and Elma brings us home on Friday to her very own Mr. Frog.
After that, we have only enough On the Road submissions for just one more week. And then nada. So if you’ve been thinking about submitting something, this is a great time to do it.
Albatrossity
Fire and Ice
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
~Robert Frost
A change of pace from birds this week.
On the night of Dec 10-11, 2007, there was an ice storm that basically hammered the entire state of Kansas. It is considered to be the most damaging ice storm in the recorded history of the state, with ice accumulations of 1-2 inches in much of the state and 4-5 inches in some spots. Power lines were snapped, power poles were brought down, and lots of people were without power for the next few days and even weeks.
The power in our house was only off for 8 hours or so (pro-tip: in regions prone to ice storms, buy a house on the same substation grid that powers the local hospital or medical clinic), but the sound of tree limbs snapping echoed like rifle shots through the neighborhood for the next couple of days. The Manhattan Christmas Bird Count was scheduled for Saturday Dec 15 that year, and it was a bit treacherous to get out and count birds that day, but we took extra caution and completed the count as scheduled.
The next day dawned clear and bright, so I went out and slid around some country roads to get pictures of ice-covered trees and plants, five days after the storm itself. Ice is treacherous, but it can also be spectacularly beautiful.
So here are some images, in no particular order, from that day. I’ll add no captions, because it was hard to ID the plants under their icy blankets, but feel free to chime in with plant information in the comments!
Benw
Unreal! It looks like SFX of an alien takeover.
I had a similar experience when Sandy hit NY: we got power back within 48 hours while folks just a block down the road who weren’t on the main power grid took weeks!
lowtechcyclist
I remember my first ice storm, Hartford CT, December 1973. The ice storm itself had been during the late night, iIRC, and the sun came up that morning and everything was spectacularly beautiful.
Then the nearly nonstop sound of tree limbs breaking under the load.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Oh wow. What amazing pictures. They make me see what I probably would have walked right by
eclare
Wow that is a lot of ice! I think a quarter inch can break a tree branch, I cannot imagine one to two inches.
Beautiful photos. Surreal.
Rusty
Having lived through a number of ice storms in New England and the northeast, that is one serious amount of ice. The devastation of the trees even with a half inch of ice is severe, I can imagine inches of ice.
The close up shots of the buds and what I think is thistle, are beautiful. Thank you for sharing them with us.
Reboot
What a great eye you have–these capture the other-worldly quality of ice.
evodevo
The Great Ice Storm in KY was in 2003 – Lexington took a big hit. It had a tree-filled older part that looked like it had been bombed. For some reason our rural area 20 miles north didn’t get the brunt, and we did alright (until the next one in Dec.2004 when we got socked).
JPL
Wow! The pictures are amazing and thank you for submitting them.
Steve from Mendocino
Lovely. Thank you.
Gravenstone
Quarter to half inch ice accumulations were a somewhat common experience from my childhood in NW Ohio. I can’t really imagine a multi-inch accumulation.
Godlesssailor
I remember that ice storm! that I was finishing my undergrad at FHSU and living in Hays at the time.
Cathie from Canada
Outstanding! Such beautiful photos.
Munira
Nice photos. I missed the 1998 ice storm in Quebec because I flew out of Montreal for Seattle the day it started. Other than the plane being severely delayed, I was gone for the rest of it. I did come back to downed power lines, etc. but the ice was gone. A few years ago, we had one at Christmas time that lasted a couple of days. My power was out for 60 hours. Fortunately, I had plenty of firewood and a big jug of water, but I had to take everything out of my freezer and put it in my car for the last day. The temperature by then had fallen to around -20. When it was over, I had to run my car for hours just to melt the foot of ice on top of it enough to push it off. Good times.
Leumas
That was the same storm that hit the state just to the south where I live. We were so
fortunate never to lose power, but a tree did fall on our house causing damage.