Saturday, December 12, 2009

In Which Pygalgia and I Compare the Size of Our Icicles

Blogger buddy Pygalgia took umbrage at my describing the li'l bitty things hanging off the awning this morning as "icicles." He's quite right... I mostly posted them because I thought they were so cute. But comparing them to real icicles is like comparing kittens to tigers. Here's what I grew up with, in terms of icicles:
These photos were taken in Hocking Hills, Ohio, not too far from Athens, where three of my favorite parks were Ash Cave, Cedar Falls, and Old Man's Cave. (The above was taken at Rockbridge) I'm actually really pleased this came up; otherwise I would have never found this page of beautiful wintertime photos from the area. It could be harsh to go out there in the winter, but I never regretted it. I also never had the nerve to get this close. Those suckers could, and often did, collapse without warning.

Below are a pair of pictures taken a couple of hours away at Multnomah Falls, from here.And here's an old post card:A more contemporary shot from nearly the same spot, but a bit wider angle:To give this some sense of scale, the upper falls is 542 feet tall... nearly a tenth of a mile. So these won't just impale you, they'll crush you. And your SUV. And the reinforced concrete garage it's parked in.

Yeah, I know the difference between cute icicles and dangerous ones. I try to stay away from the dangerous ones. Take care, Pygalgia.