Coles pond Walden vt 11/24

[Evan Perkins]

I did some scouting today and found thick ice at coles pond in Walden Vermont. I did not have skates with me, but I was able to walk out on the ice. There was a little over an inch of over ice with maybe a half inch of water, and then it felt like several inches of older ice underneath. From the color of the pond, it appeared that the whole pond was similar to the ice that I checked but no guarantees. It was 19° there at 3:30 this afternoon probably going to be very cold there tonight so I assume this sandwich layer should  freeze through. unfortunately, there is no clear access to this pond. a couple hundred yards west on the other side of the road from the pond. There is a small parking area for the steam mill wildlife management area. There is also a car top boat access indicated on the gazetteer, but I did not see it particularly. A small bay of the pond does come right up to the public road so it’s probably reasonable to cross the guard rail and get on the pond there ,otherwise the whole south end is surrounded by camps. The north end is pretty wild, looking ,mostly wildlife management land. This pond is about 100 acres so pretty sizable and by my estimation has been frozen in quite some time similar to some of the mountain ponds like Lonesome lake that we have been skating . the ice surface was orange, peel and looked like pretty good Skating. Overall, it looked like it was unlikely there would be any tripping hazards. there is not room for a lot of people here and if you do choose to skate this pond, please be discreet and low-key.

[Ellen Gershun]

Thanks for this report about Coles pond, Evan. 

Public boat access to Coles Pond is at the south end of the pond, just before Eastern Avenue. 

It looks like you are driving on the grass to the right of a house, but this is where the public parking is for the pond. In the summer we launch our boats and park on the grass. In the winter I assume no parking area is plowed out when there is snow. 

I tried to mark the area on the attached screenshot. 

On Fri, Nov 24, 2023 at 6:34 PM Evan Perkins <evanwpe...@gmail.com> wrote:

I did some scouting today and found thick ice at coles pond in Walden Vermont. I did not have skates with me, but I was able to walk out on the ice. There was a little over an inch of over ice with maybe a half inch of water, and then it felt like several inches of older ice underneath. From the color of the pond, it appeared that the whole pond was similar to the ice that I checked but no guarantees. It was 19° there at 3:30 this afternoon probably going to be very cold there tonight so I assume this sandwich layer should  freeze through. unfortunately, there is no clear access to this pond. a couple hundred yards west on the other side of the road from the pond. There is a small parking area for the steam mill wildlife management area. There is also a car top boat access indicated on the gazetteer, but I did not see it particularly. A small bay of the pond does come right up to the public road so it’s probably reasonable to cross the guard rail and get on the pond there ,otherwise the whole south end is surrounded by camps. The north end is pretty wild, looking ,mostly wildlife management land. This pond is about 100 acres so pretty sizable and by my estimation has been frozen in quite some time similar to some of the mountain ponds like Lonesome lake that we have been skating . the ice surface was orange, peel and looked like pretty good Skating. Overall, it looked like it was unlikely there would be any tripping hazards. there is not room for a lot of people here and if you do choose to skate this pond, please be discreet and low-key.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "NHNordicSkating" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to nhnordicskati...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/nhnordicskating/CAGhmPWWaD_HTVTB%2B8HX8HkB59u_SNBVpYdWwT5OwcG3ahwaL-g%40mail.gmail.com.

[Evan Perkins]

Thanks Ellen, I saw that spot it’s easy to find based on your description.Evan 

[Evan Perkins]

Coles pond today