I was recently walking along the trail by the river a day after heavy rains had drenched the knee-high snow on the ground. When I walked through it, I felt like I was walking through a slushy. The snow was saturated with water. The rain and warm temperature had also created large green-brown-tinged meltwaters in low areas by the trail.

The next day, the temperature had plummeted and the sublimated snow had shrunk down below a thin glassy layer of ice perched above it, leaving a cavity of cold frigid air. This is the kind of ice that, when you step on it, shatters into many glassy shards in a loud chorus of tinkling. Because there was a significant space between the thin glassy ice layer and the snow that had shrunk beneath it, I knew what I would find; I’d seen it before: ice trees!

Sure enough, when I picked up a thin brittle ice shard that was smooth like an ice rink on top, and turned it over to see the underside, what I revealed was spectacular: a hidden rough topography of ice formations. Ice flowers, ice ferns, and gnarly ice trees had grown from the thin ice sheet down toward the ground.

I marvelled at the beautiful ice landscape hidden beneath the burnished ice sheet above. As we walk the trail, most of us see a burnished ice sheet, smooth and shining in the sun. What we don’t see is that hidden treasure, enclosed by ice and snow; a world of beautiful miniature ice sculptures that glitter like jewels.