Needle ice and ice discs on the Eno

E and I did our annual January Long Hike today. Instead of the 22.5-mile ATT (the length of which apparently I've only blogged about once, although we've now walked it in one fell swoop for two different January Long Hikes) in favor of ~10.5 miles along the Eno, from the Pleasant Green access to West Point on the Eno. E and I have both hiked this route before, although today was the first time we did so together.

The first amazing thing about this adventure was that when I said "hey E, want to go on a 10.5 mile hike with me tomorrow," he said "sure." The second amazing thing--thanks to a cold front that blew in quickly last night--was the variety of ice.

Puddles: after the surface froze, water underneath either soaked into the ground or partially drained away, leaving delicate ice formations with air underneath.

This fallen tree had large icicles draining from its roots:

Ice discs!

E pierced one of the discs with a stick. They were very thin in the middle and broke easily.

This tributary had frozen over and was remarkably flat on top, while the water underneath flowed down through the dam of sticks and leaves.

Needle ice!

The Eno River was impressively full; we've had a lot of rain in the past several months. This is a view looking east from what Schoolhouse of Wonder calls "the secret beach."

This is what the water level more typically looks like, from a warmer time of year:

JMM 2019

I'm delighted that this Klein bottle representation* found an appreciative audience at the 2019 Joint Mathematical Meetings (the American Mathematical Society and the Mathematical Association of America) in Baltimore, where it won an award for "best textile, sculpture, or other medium." Hooray for clay! The gallery of exhibited art is here.

(*Since a Klein bottle has only one side, it can't actually have holes; those come from the artistic license of living in 3D.)