Candlestick Ice: Summer's Bizarre Natural Phenomenon

Like the majority of Americans, skiers look to summer as a time for rest and relaxation.

The powder panic has subsided, temperatures are pleasant, and we remember that joy can be found in activities other than sliding on snow.

Professional skier Owen Leeper is slightly less willing to give up on skiing than most, and regularly ventures into high-altitude terrain throughout the summer in search of snow, water, and sunshine.

Take a quick scroll through Leeper's social media pages and you'll learn he's no stranger to skimming across partially frozen ponds and plunging headfirst into the frigid alpine waters of Colorado, Wyoming, and abroad.

Despite Leeper's frequent alpine lake adventures, he had never encountered one of nature's most perplexing phenomenons, until now, that is. Watch the video below as Leeper observes a rare form of 'rotten ice' known as 'candle ice' or 'candlestick ice'.

Leeper filmed the video on June 8th, 2024 at roughly 12,000 feet above sea level near Red Mountain Pass, Colorado. He explained that the ice, "felt like glass breaking apart when you tried to pick it up", in a short message exchange with POWDER.

Like most folks, Leeper had only seen viral videos of candlestick ice from high-alpine lakes in Canada. To see and feel it in person was surely a memorable experience.

According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado Boulder, candlestick ice forms when solar radiation and water start to melt a slab of ice.

The weakest points of an ice slab are where individual ice crystals meet. Through gradual warming and melting, the sun begins to weaken these bonds in vertical columns that are honeycomb shaped.

The ice will continue to melt as temperatures increase, but there's a small window of time where these cylindrical crystals or 'candlesticks' can be observed.

In short, Owen Leeper unintentionally visited this particular body of water at the perfect time to observe the phenomenon. Well done, Owen, well done.

Related: Teton Pass is Closed- How Does it Affect the 'Wydaho' Community?

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