Future Perfect

Came across one of the strangest ice formations that I've ever seen while walking near the Dead Creek Wildlife Refuge yesterday--parallel sinuous ridges forming a canyon some four inches deep in the ditch by one of the management area's access roads. For context, about a week ago we had an inch of rain followed swiftly by a thirty-degree drop on the thermometer, slowly inching back up to the relatively-balmy 55°F temperature yesterday. My friend conjectured that we were seeing the recorded interplay of rushing flash-runoff, air trapped under the now-departed skin of ice atop that runoff, and subsequent erosion by meltwater, which seems plausible to me. It reminds me of the archetypical canyons of the Southwest--meandering, flat-topped and stepped escarpments with the occasional isolated mesa.