I think we were the only people in the park, that day. Winter was still wrapped around every surface, the layers of snow packed down by trampling feet, but far underneath a steady dripping sound indicated the coming of spring...

As we ascended on wooden ladders and stairs the dripping became a slow trickle, then a rushing of moving waters, heard from beneath every waterfall...

At a certain point, after a particularly difficult climb up a waterfall and over an icy lip, through an opening in the stone, above a 200 foot drop, we realised there was no turning back... We were lost in a land of impossible beauty.

A WINTER WONDERLAND

...where magic and science are one and the same...

Sticks lined all along the edges of the rock walls, bare boned ribs of some wooden creature, neatly arranged by unseen hands...

- (pushed there by the flow of the river.)

Leaves and other treasures encased in glass, like curiosities of autumn...

- (revealed by the melting of the ice, they lay in small puddles.)

Glass waterfalls, that spill from nowhere, down into the icy river...

- (water frozen in middair, emerging from a small crevasse in the rock.)

Patterns on logs: symbols and characters, the hyroglyphics of an ancient society, etched into the top layers of rotting wood...

- (the work of small insects, that eat away at the tree under bark, aiding in its eventual decomposition.)

Up, up, up, we went
Walking on hard water, and soft, crumbling wood.
Then up the ladders, chilled fingers on cold steel, holding on so tightly,
My breath in my throat as I look down past my feet...

Up to discover:

The Most Fascinating Wonder of All...

We came across a cave, out of which spilled a waterfall. Looking in, I spied something glinting at the back of the cave: what looked like worms of ice, reaching up from below... They reminded me of childhood stories, an image came to mind from the Moomintroll Books, of rows and rows of 'Hattifatteners,' small ghost-like, wiggling white worms. I half expect these ice creatures to move.

- (formed as a rare, natural phenomenon, these kind of ice spikes, or stalagmites, are still being studied. Their formation requires a perfect combination of many variables: water quality, surface temperatures, timing and the expansion of water through small frozen pockets to create the spike.)