Because you're in Brian Abraham's "VMC bubble": You'll see the high ground well before getting dangerously close to it.
Not necessarily, due to the limitations of the Mk. 1 Mod 0, electromagnetic detector in the 790–400 terahertz range. In my one and only flight over the ice the limitation was made plain when at 18,000 in VMC conditions we could have flown into the proverbial brick wall without seeing it. The military practice the art of camouflage - seeing without seeing, if you get the drift. I don't know why you are so unwilling to accept evidence provided by very experienced ice people such as compressor stall and P-B. All detectors, whether they be radar, sonar or the human eyeball, have limitations and can be spoofed one way or the other. Training in the detectors limitations can surmount many of the problems, but not all - eg specialist photo interpreters searching for camouflaged equipment.