In the depths of winter, the forests of the Zao Mountain Range transform into something almost surreal. The trees no longer resemble trees. They rise in bulky, twisted shapes, layered in thick white ice, standing silently against the wind. Visitors call them Japan’s “snow monsters.” In Japanese, they are known as juhyo, literally, “ice trees.”
At first glance, they look mythical. In reality, they are the result of a precise and fragile atmospheric process. And scientists warn that the conditions required to create them are becoming harder to sustain.
