This article is one entry in the Traversing Terrains series of articles. Below you will find 33 read-aloud descriptions that can be used while traveling through arctic terrain.
A wall of wintry white nearly completely obscures the distant silhouettes of snow-shrouded mountains and peaking glaciers.
Towering snowdrifts spire between two larger boulders, the lower quarter suspends over a crevice gully providing a makeshift shelter.
Squalling winds drown out the sounds of crunching snow underfoot and explosively snapping frozen tree limbs in the distance.
An icy ravine clutches what, in warmer months, is a shallow creek. The water has since frozen over to create a natural roadway of ice.
A lone dead pine, branches stripped of needles, rises from an expanse of seemingly endless snow as violent winds sway its narrow trunk.
Deep wind-carved ruts cut across the snow packed landscape lending a layered wavelike appearance to the endless white.
Sharp winds cut at the snow-laden ground, spinning up small vortexes of wintery hoarfrost and glittering ice particulates.
A trio of knolls rise from an otherwise flat expanse of white. Atop the small hills are rooted a spattering of stout nival-cloaked pines.
In the distance a dark patch materializes through the nearly blinding wall of snow. A closer approach reveals to be the frozen carcass of a black bear.
The gale whines loudly as snow and ice are drawn across a packed snow plane in undulating patterns that transition from shadow to bright.
The fury of the ongoing blizzard calms momentarily, revealing a featureless landscape of white fading into an undiscernible grey horizon.
Sleet and snow plummet down from the low clouds that churn violently overhead. Sharp, cutting winds cast the pellets like stones from a sling.
A layer of ice encrusts a suspended layer of snow over a recess in the ground causing each step to precariously plummet deep into the snow pack.
Ice-shrouded boulders litter a white tundra expanse, blistering the pristine white veil that covers the landscape.
Frigid winds scour down a large boulder and have stripped a patch of earth clean of snow, in its place a thick sheet of glistening ice remains.
The barren landscape seems unending beneath the sheets of sleet and ice that rain down across the gale-whipped wintry white.
An unending revival of pristine white washes away every trace or trail, leaving the land to masquerade as virgin snowfall.
The freezing grip of winter clutches an island of towering pines, their branches drooping low, sheathed in glistening ice.
A biting hibernal wind rushes down the faceted peaks of a massive icy glacier pouring into a roaring gale that plows across the frozen landscape.
Where two gigantic glaciers intercede, a narrow valley of ice forms. Slick though it may be, the ravine provides protection from the freezing winds.
Pale radiance haloes from the snow blanketed ground as silent lightning flashes overhead, spidering across drab, grey clouds.
A stepped trail of crags rise from the tundra like rocky talons, with descending elevation the landmarks eventually resubmerge into deep snow.
A spiraling wind parts the thick icy fog to reveal a momentary pristine view of a nearby snow-crowned mountain cloaked in shifting wintry clouds.
Wind-hewn snowdrifts form icy embankments that have been naturally sculped to create aimless wandering paths flanked by walls of snow.
A massive chasm opens into the icy earth, its steep walls enshrouded with puffy white hoarfrost. The crevice descends into frozen darkness below.
A furiously swirling miasma of frosty mist spirals around a series of columns comprised of layered verglas-lacquered hoarfrost.
Through the veil of a relentless blizzard, the facade of a nearby mountain is dimly visible as an imposing shadowy silhouette.
A deep chasm bears into the permafrost hoisting massive sheets of unstable ice misted in pale, wispy frost.
Chaotic snow and ice dance across the gloomy snow pack, weaving intricate patterns of riotous rime that stratify in unusual patterns.
Ahead looms a massive skeletal formation, bits of sinew and matted fur clinging to bone framed by two gigantic curled ivory tusks.
A lone coniferous shrub clings desperately to a crevice in a rocky outcropping capped with thick snow pack, the gale threatening to uproot the lone survivor.
Visibility diminishes momentarily behind a fog of cascading snowfall, but soon parts to reveal a glimpse of a polychromatic aurora lingering high above.
The dark sheen of a distant frozen lake spills over the endless expanse of white, almost appearing as the void of a massive shadowy doline.