Northern flanks of Hohe Wand with a view into the Piesting valley

The temperaure stratification is so stable, that if a warm weather front with rain comes bringing not enough wind, it glides over the cold air and the rain is poured through and cooling down on its way through the mist.  However, if cooled water is not stirred a bit when falling, ice crystals are not formed - but form immediately when splashing on the ground, covering everything with glassy ice - nice to look at, but a devastating situation for traffic and even trees which sometimes break under the burden of heavy ice. Usually, this situation is resolved within a few hours or two days at maximum. See the related links on freezing rain for some good explanations and pictures.

The Rosalia mountains are coming up like islets in the sea of clouds

After a short detour a bit up the plateau of Hohe Wand, I returned back down to the valley, just to find out that the uppermost grassland on the foothills were now free of mist, giving a gorgeous view to the hoarfrosted mountains.

One week after, on December 27th, I repeated this walk. The mist, now having permeated for two weeks, had vastly increased the amount of ice everywhere, with needles in big clusters, up to 2 inches long.

You could not even see the branches which were hidden by the ice crystals.

The mist was a bit higher up this day, so no islands of mountains could be seen.

Two good, though short, walks, each about 2 hours with 400m of ascent.

You can see more photographs on Helmut's website:  first Hohewand walk 20/12/2007 and second Hohewand walk 27/12/2007.