I was rummaging through some images from last winter, and came across some I took just outside my backyard. I thought these snow skirts that formed around the trees were rather odd. I am not quite sure how these form – a few internet searches turned up nothing. I didn’t feel the ground suddenly drop, we didn’t have an earthquake, but I did somewhat expect these trees to start doing some belly dancing.
Funky! Reminds me of trees at Dufferin Islands (near Niagara Falls.) When they took root, there were mounds & humps in the ground. Since then, however, the mounds & humps have worn away. As a result, it looks like the trees are all standing on tippy-toes.
Hehe, sure looks like the trees are in motion… with the skirts all trailing them in the same direction!
A few years ago we had flooding in the autumn, then the water froze and water levels dropped. What was left was an icy skirt around the trees, and conical icy hats on the mounds.
Maybe something similar was going on here?
Hi Mark,
this looks really funny. Was there some strong wind when the snow came down? I could imagine that some little branch or any uneven patch on the trees caused a couple of flakes to freeze there on the spot and with a heavy snowfall and wind this could have been accumulated into those “skirts” as these are all leading into one direction.
Reminds me somehow of the building of dunes.
fun post and shots.. hope all is well. just wandering by.. lost you on my sidebar, gotta fix that
Very unusual! I’ve never seen anything like it before. Have you noticed these “tree skirts” since then?
These are cool Mark, kinda puts me in the mind of fungus growing off a tree, neat work
Back yard? What a sight/site so nearby. Great photos.
beautiful images…i think they do bellydance when no one’s around
Wonderful shots Mark! I was thinking along the same lines as Minna – maybe the water level was higher, these formed and froze to the trees, then the water dropped again?
I haven’t seen this since – yes – quite strange! The water level going down seems like the best explanation, but it was all pretty frozen, and it was quite a drop. I normally don’t see that much of a change. But I don’t have a good time comparison of when it looked “normal” versus having the skirts – so maybe this did occur over some time.
Beautiful photos….even without the skirts. Isn’t it amazing that sometimes we can make great shots without really going anywhere special……
Howard, I just wished unique situations like this happened more often right outside my backdoor!
Thanks for stopping by.