What do You

mean with "pylons"?

Georg

Georg,

Try this URL:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pylon

The sense is "electric" pylon of course.

BTW, while we are on translation and explication, it belatedly occurred to me to ask: does the expression "Kuchenbacken" etc have any figurative significance that I may have missed?

The pylon is not electrified, but fixed to the ground.

It's not likely to have to do with electricity.

Pylons are made of steel or aluminum, which is not magnetic.

There could be any number of reasons why the ice pointed toward the pylon like shifting winds and turbulence. Too bad you didn't get a photo.

Bruce said: "The pylon is not electrified, but fixed to the ground.It's not likely to have to do with electricity...There could be any number of reasons why the ice pointed toward the pylon like shifting winds and turbulence. Too bad you didn't get a photo."

in general I agree with him. I do not know the answer, and have nothing to go on to develop any kind of sensible theory, so what ever I say is handwaving.

My guess is that the main factors were fluctuations in temperature near the bases of the pylons. The main effects would be to melt the snow in immediate contact, after which the behaviour of heat and humidity in the hollows around the bases could be markedly different at night and in windy weather, from conditions further away. In warm or windy conditions, larger crystals would survive while smaller crystals would melt, unite, or sublimate. In still, cold, modestly humid conditions, new ice would form, mainly on the larger particles remaining, and often in the form of hoarfrost. The effect would be a phalanx of needlelike crystals pointing largely at the pylons. If this is correct and there are other large metal poles, such as heavy fence posts in the neighbourhood, one might expect them to cause similar effects, but it is unlikely to be a single simple process, so I would not swear to it.