Rime Ice – A Part Of The Bigger Landscape Picture At Yellowstone National Park

*Part of a rime-iced little tree along a trail at Upper Geyser Basin in Yellowstone National Park*

*A rime-iced tree among many other rime-iced trees along the Fountain Paint Pots Nature Trail in Yellowstone National Park*

*Very thick rime ice on a tree branch near Beryl Spring, Yellowstone National Park*

I find rime ice fascinating. I don’t see it very often where I live, except on rare occasions of freezing fog. I did see this quite a bit while in Yellowstone National Park this past February, so naturally, I photographed it as much as possible.

According to Wikipedia: rime ice is “a white ice that forms when the water droplets in fog freeze to the outer surfaces of objects. It is often seen on trees …”

In the case of the rime ice I saw on trees in Yellowstone, it was the result of heavy steam from geysers and hot springs freezing onto the nearby trees. It was, indeed, pure white in some areas, like at Beryl Spring, but in others, it took on a tinge of (IMO) whatever particulates were floating in the air from the geysers and hot springs. Sometimes it was a sort of pinkish tinge, and sometimes it was a yellowish tinge.

These images were captured at different areas of the park, and are nice reminders to look at the fine details of nature and not to forget to capture those small that interconnect to make up the Big Picture Landscape.