Waterbury Reservoir, VT

[Dr Jo]

Not ready where we looked this afternoon. . 

Tried to get on at the Reservoir Road access but a gate blocks the road some distance from the water.

From the boat launch on Blush Hill Road we could not get on. The picture makes it look like it might be possible but much one poke ice right at the edge and looking further out  you can see likely unsupportable, still forming ice which extends to the points in both directions.  

[Chris Boone]

When I skated Waterbury on 12/23, in a window of black ice that was so ephemeral I didn’t report it, the only good access was from the Little River State Park beach / boat launch. I suspect that, if there is any ice to be skated, it’s still on the western side of the reservoir. You can’t drive to the water on that side either. (You can at the dam boat launch, and that might come in before the eastern reaches, but it wasn’t safe even when the ice to its north was.)

The latest satellite image, from 1/2, looks in line with that. Possibly there’s perfect black ice over there, but likely it’s very thin. You might be able to get on a small but decent plate from the end of the Little River State Park peninsula. (Image below.)

Also, since the water level is still high at all these reservoirs, they’re probably releasing out of the dams. Be extra cautious.

Chris

catamounthardware.com

[Skoda Werks]

"Also, since the water level is still high at all these reservoirs, they’re probably releasing out of the dams. Be extra cautious."

Are you just saying to not go anywhere near the outflows?

[Chris Boone]

> "Also, since the water level is still high at all these reservoirs, they’re probably releasing out of the dams. Be extra cautious."

>
> Are you just saying to not go anywhere near the outflows?

Good question! I’ll share my thoughts, and I’d love to hear other people’s.

The main point is that conditions can change faster than they would naturally, whether due to changes in water level or increased erosion due to more current than normal or more complex temperature mixing of the water. Etc.

Definitely keep an eye on outflows and inflows, as always. Though often with dammed reservoirs the area near the dam, but not immediately adjacent to it, is the most stable in terms of water level, and can have very stable ice as a result. There can be significant cracking along the very edge of the dam, as u noticed on Wrightsville the other day (like a glacier / snow field bergschrund).

The safe ice is always supported by water. So even if a reservoir drops enough that the level changes, the ice away from the edges shouldn’t be significantly impacted. But the ice along the ices can change dramatically, and if you can’t easily tell where it stops being supported by water you can move from safe to unsafe (unsupported) ice without realizing. 3” ice on water can be plenty strong; 3” ice on air will collapse under your weight.

The other main point is that breaking through ice into still water is very different from breaking through ice into moving water. The former is fairly easy to recover from; the latter can be impossible. So knowing that a reservoir is dumping water just adds potential danger.

In other words, there’s both slightly increased likelihood of an accident (due to unexpected and possibly unobservable changes in the ice) and possibly significantly increased consequences (meaning that if something does happen, it might end up much worse than normal).

I’m fairly paranoid about these things, so YMMV.

Does that all make sense? Other thoughts from people more experienced than me?

Chris

[Chris Boone]

Size of the reservoir matters quite a bit here as well. Of the ones we’ve been discussing recently, Moore is probably the biggest, and so even if it’s releasing at full throttle, the percentage change in volume is tiny, so you’re only going to see changes around the very edges and way upstream. Wrightsville, on the other hand, is much smaller, so the percentage change can therefore be larger. For example.