Ice and snow

Isn’t it a strange winter so far? It’s very warm for this time of the year and there were storms. Well, actually we always have a “Föhn”-storm (Föhn = name of a warm wind from the south) before or during Christmas time, but this time it was very strong. But anyways, there is less snow here around. I took some pictures of a rare snowy landscape, you can see them under the cut.

When I was a child we always had a white winter with a lot of snow. It was a gorgeous time! But Switzerland can’t escape from the global warming, sadly. The ground of the valleys and the lowlands are often green in winter, you have to look after the snow in the mountain areas. Okey, then we go to Unterschächen. That’s a small place in my home canton, surrounded by high mountains. My dad uses to say “shadow hole”, because there isn’t a lot of sun in winter.

The woods here are all avalanche forest. When I was there a small avalanche came down with a thunder. Even it was a small avalanche the sound and the echo of it was loud. It was creepy. Once I saw a big avalanche from far away and the thunder and the noise were incredibly loud. When you see such an avalanche once, you will feel small and meaningless compared to the power of nature.

In Unterschächen the animals know that the hunters aren’t allow to shoot here (you know – loud noise can cause an avalanche very easily). So if you are lucky you can see chamois! This time I wasn’t lucky, so I show you some older pictures of them.

Heh, every year a kind person decorates a fir tree. It looks so lovely.

There is enough snow for skiing or sledding, but in other years there was a lot more snow though. This is an older picture of 2010. A rock face is covered with ice. It looks like a waterfall but it isn’t. Melted snow froze over several nights and built that scene. Do you see the tiny red spot in the right corner? That’s a backpack.

When I was home again I was looking for deer tracks on the river. But I only found old ones, so it wasn’t interesting all that much. Some paddles of the river were frozen so I took pictures of them instead.

I won’t complain about the snowless winter, but I hope that we will get some more snow in February. But I don’t want the snow in springtime anymore. It was wet and far too cold last year, so a lot of my plants died. I see forward to a warm and sunny springtime. I hope my wish comes true.