In Focus: Semi-Rare ‘Hair Ice’ Photographed Near Napavine

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Chronicle staffer Sarah Burdick captured these photos of semi-rare "hair ice," also known as ice wool or frost beard, during a walk near Napavine on Sunday morning. 

"Fungus shapes a strangely wondrous kind of ice called hair ice that is found only on rotting logs ... To see hair ice, one’s best chance is to hike into a broadleaf forest between the latitudes of between 45° and 55° N on a cold morning. There, amid patches of snow and frost, a keen eye might spot delicate crystals extending from wood in filaments about 0.01 millimeters thick — about the diameter of a human hair. But as soon as the sun rises, the fragile sculpture will melt away," Smithsonian Magazine wrote. 



To submit photos to The Chronicle for potential publication, email news@chronline.com.