No snowflake watcher's tour would be complete without a visit to the Snowflake Bentley Museum in Jericho, Vermont.  Wilson Bentley lived on a farm near Jericho, where he photographed snowflakes for some forty years.  The location has considerable snowflake history, as well as a reputation for producing beautiful snowflakes.  And on the latter point I was not disappointed during my visit.

   One thing you have to watch out for is that you visit the correct Jericho -- there are actually two towns with this name in Vermont.  The Bentley Museum is near the Jericho just east of Burlington, shown by the star on the map at right.

   The Old Red Mill is the site of the Bentley Museum, along with a gift shop with all sorts of snowflake crafts and other unusual items.  I don't think Mr. Bentley would approve, however, of that eight-sided snowflake you can see in the red banner in front of the building.  (Yes, I admit it; I'm a snowflake snob.  Real snowflakes are never eight-sided.)
 

   Inside the Museum one can see Bentley's original photo-microscope he use for snowflake photography.  Unlike modern times with constant hardware upgrades, Bentley used the same camera for four decades.

   During my stay around Burlington and Jericho I managed to photograph some extraordinary snowflakes, such as the one at right.  It appears that the local climate just east of Lake Champlain (see the map above) is well suited for making great crystals.  The unfrozen lake provides an ample source of water vapor, and the temperatures can be cold enough to make sharply faceted specimens.

   We ran across an interesting quarry during our travels around Vermont.  The pictures at left show a couple frozen waterfalls that fed the pit, which was itself filled with a large flat bed of ice.

   After visiting Vermont we spend a few days in New York City and found Saks Fifth Avenue afire with snowflakes, just in time for Christmas.  (Okay, there are a couple five-sided snowflakes there too, which again are not possible in nature.)