"I slowly gained elevation up the low grade of the glacier. Strange ice and snow features, sculpted by wind, rain, and summer sun, occasionally caught my eye. The ice I walked on was frequently transparent. My crampons bit into what appeared to be a thick pane of irregular glass, beneath it clouds and galactic tendrils of black ash and white bubbles swirled, trapped in the ice...Some bubbles were a spray of soda fizz, others were large, lonely balloons...There were contorted blue and green swaths, painters’ brushstrokes, some long and lazy, others mere jabs. All appeared to writhe if I was moving, but when I stopped and sat like a child to examine them, they were motionless in the ice. Even here, the glacier was hundreds of feet thick, and I couldn’t tell how far down I was seeing. Irregular drapes of aqua-colored ice seemed to be sandwiched between masses of something that was nearly transparent, but still caught some of the starlight and redistributed it in random waves and flourishes. When melt water flowed half an inch thick across the ice, the strange spectacle rippled and squirmed. It was a surreal painting, drunk at having discovered motion.The effects were hypnotic. Already the ice was enchanting me, molding my actions. It had already brought me to my knees in wonder. And now, if I tilted my head a little, or scanned slowly from left to right, the leaps and oozes of the deep ice-light swirls were a spell indeed. I swayed gently, like a snake before the flute, to keep the lights in motion. It was easy to imagine that some Icelandic sorcerer of old had set a cold fire into the ice to trap lonely wanderers. It took an effort to get up and keep moving."
1 comment:
...entrancing...
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