Simon Beck's Snow Quilts

We dodged the bullet last night and didn't get the snow the weatherman predicted.  Instead of waking up to snow and slush we finally had a lovely sunny day.   While looking for something to post and thinking about snow, I ran across photos of snow quilts by Simon Beck, a wonderful artist who draws designs in the snow in the Alps on a scale I can't even imagine.  Exercise and art all rolled up into one.  

Simon Beck

Simon Beck:  The main reason for making them was because I can no longer run properly due to problems with my feet, so plodding about on level snow is the least painful way of getting exercise. Gradually, the reason has become photographing them, and I am considering buying a better camera.

I looked for information about Simon's quilts and learned:  

"Each final piece is typically the size of three soccer fields, if not more. His main focus is on mathematical geometric forms which create stunning 3D like effects when viewed from high altitudes. As you might have guessed, the survival of his work solely depends on the weather. Beck tries to redesigns the patterns as new snow falls. Sometime luck does not go his way and he is often unable to finish a piece. But that doesn’t get him down, the main reason of his art is exercise:

It typically takes about 8-10 hours for Beck to create his breathtaking snow art.  Beck wears snowshoes to trek through the icy terrain on foot.

Since his perspective is from the ground, Beck is armed with a handheld compass and uses measuring tape or good ol' fashioned pace counting to determine his distance. He then anchors clothes lines to create the curves."