A sculptor walks past ice sculptures at the Snow and Ice Sculpture Festival “Eiswelt Mainz” in Mainz, Germany, November 22, 2016. (Photo by Ralph Orlowski/Reuters)

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.

A Syrian youth Khaled from Raqqa walks on snow wearing slippers in the Bekaa Valley refugee camp in Lebanon after the first heavy snow storm hit Lebanon, January 3, 2016. (Photo by Jamal Saidi/Reuters)

An old locomotive train that was used for transporting coal is preserved as a monument at Ny-Alesund, in Svalbard, Norway, October 11, 2015. A Norwegian chain of islands just 1,200 km (750 miles) from the North Pole is trying to promote new technologies, tourism and scientific research in a shift from high-polluting coal mining that has been a backbone of the remote economy for decades. (Photo by Anna Filipova/Reuters)

Ice sculptures based on the caracters by Walt Disney are shown at the snow and ice sculpture festival on December 15, 2011 in Brugge, Belgium. (Photo by Mark Renders/Getty Images)

Workers carve ice art works at Harbin Ice and Snow World one day before the 32th Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival in Harbin city, China's northern Heilongjiang province, 04 January 2016. The festival will run from 05 January to 05 February. (Photo by Wu Hong/EPA)

A man sledges on Primrose Hill with his daughter and their dog on February 5, 2012 in London, England. The United Kingdom is experiencing heavy snowfall with many areas affected. (Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)