Upper Valley scouting
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Chris Boone
Mar 24, 2023, 7:39:17 PM3/24/23
to VT Nordic Skating, NH Nordic Skating
Hi friends.
We checked out a few ponds and lakes today. Nothing was great, all variations on semi frozen but very flimsy snow ice on top of harder, older ice. Will it be cold enough for long enough tonight to make a decent surface in the morning?
Lake Morey was decent looking, but very insubstantial. The snow ice by the town beach held my weight around 1:30 pm, but was easy to get through and the harder ice beneath wasn’t very thick.
Lake Fairlee seemed the best. The surface looked pretty good as far as I could see (photo attached). The area around the boat launch was messy, so I went down the road to test the ice. There was about five inches of one poke snow ice on top of many inches of hard ice. I couldn’t get through it, even with my longest ice screw.
Crystal Lake, in Enfield, was about half snow covered, lots of machine and sled tracks.
Mascoma has a lot of water along the edges, some gray ice, some snowy patches.
Grafton Pond was patchy. The area by the boat launch was shell ice.
Smith Pond looked good, but the surface ice disintegrated into water under my feet. Fragile soup dumpling ice. (Photo attached, so you can more easily picture my wet cold feet.)
Anyone have any other reports or thoughts about the forecast?
Fingers crossed,
Chris
We checked out a few ponds and lakes today. Nothing was great, all variations on semi frozen but very flimsy snow ice on top of harder, older ice. Will it be cold enough for long enough tonight to make a decent surface in the morning?
Lake Morey was decent looking, but very insubstantial. The snow ice by the town beach held my weight around 1:30 pm, but was easy to get through and the harder ice beneath wasn’t very thick.
Lake Fairlee seemed the best. The surface looked pretty good as far as I could see (photo attached). The area around the boat launch was messy, so I went down the road to test the ice. There was about five inches of one poke snow ice on top of many inches of hard ice. I couldn’t get through it, even with my longest ice screw.
Crystal Lake, in Enfield, was about half snow covered, lots of machine and sled tracks.
Mascoma has a lot of water along the edges, some gray ice, some snowy patches.
Grafton Pond was patchy. The area by the boat launch was shell ice.
Smith Pond looked good, but the surface ice disintegrated into water under my feet. Fragile soup dumpling ice. (Photo attached, so you can more easily picture my wet cold feet.)
Anyone have any other reports or thoughts about the forecast?
Fingers crossed,
Chris
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