Penitentes, or nieves penitentes (Spanish for “penitent-shaped snows”), are a snow formation found at high altitudes. They take the form of tall thin blades of hardened snow or ice, closely spaced with the blades oriented towards the general direction of the sun.

Sgt. William Olas Bee, a U.S. Marine from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, has a close call after Taliban fighters opened fire near Garmsir in Helmand Province of Afghanistan, May 18, 2008. (Photo by Goran Tomasevic/Reuters)

An Emirati man sits outside an old house at the Heritage Village in Dubai, UAE March 13, 2016. The Heritage Village was created in 1997 in Al Shindagha Historical Neighborhood in Dubai, close to the Diving Village, to embrace the heritage events and to display a live image of the old traditional life in UAE. It represents the components of wild, marine, and mountain life, where the visitor can identify closely the old traditional customs of the country and the special characteristics of old houses, handicrafts, patterns, and forms of living. It is owned and managed by Dubai Culture & Arts Authority. (Photo by Ahmed Jadallah/Reuters)

An armed man herds his cattle close to the village of Nimini in northern South Sudan, February 8, 2017. In the chaos of South Sudan's civil war, it took three years for Nyagonga Machul to find her lost children. Machul had traveled from her village to the capital when President Salva Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, fired his deputy Riek Machar, a Nuer, in 2013. (Photo by Siegfried Modola/Reuters)

A street cleaner demonstrates his martial arts skills in front of a closed shop near Beijing's Tiananmen Square September 2, 2015 as the capital prepares for tomorrow's parade. (Photo by Damir Sagolj/Reuters)

Waves triggered by Typhoon Hato are seen in Hong Kong, China on August 23, 2017. A powerful typhoon barreled into Hong Kong on Wednesday, forcing offices and schools to close and leaving flooded streets, shattered windows and hundreds of canceled flights in its wake. Typhoon Hato came within 60 kilometers (37 miles) of Hong Kong, close enough to be considered a direct hit under Hong Kong's storm warning system. It was headed toward the western side of mainland China's Pearl River Delta. (Photo by Tyrone Siu/Reuters)

A migrant labourer gets a shave besides a closed shop in a market area in the old quarters of the walled city, Delhi during an ongoing state-wide weekend curfew imposed by the directive of the Delhi government to curb the spread of the Covid-19 coronavirus in New Delhi on January 9, 2022. (Photo by Money Sharma/AFP Photo)

A stray dog is pictured besides a graffiti made on a shutter of a closed shop at a market area during an ongoing state-wide weekend curfew imposed by the directive of the Delhi government to curb the spread of the Covid-19 coronavirus in New Delhi on January 9, 2022. (Photo by Sajjad Hussain/AFP Photo)