Connecticut River north thetford vt 1/18

[Evan Perkins]

 The river was skated from North Thetford boat launch south to Gilman island (south of Hanover bridge) and back. The river right now requires advanced ice reading skills in addition to full safety gear and experience. 

    Hard to describe it all but the river is a menagerie of ice patterns and shapes ,truly stunning. It was the kind of day where you just stop taking pictures and accept that this work of art is best experienced in its fullness. 

    The river has lots of open holes big and small ,as well as thin areas which are hard to read . This will continue for the foreseeable future as the wind is holding areas open. Some will close tonight but probably not all,making new hazards for the morning.

     There are ice flows,large sections of perfect 2” black ice ,1/3/4” black ice ,3” marble countertop grey ice,3”orange peel side walks ,3” grey glass smooth sidewalks and many more surfaces.lots of route finding through thin ice and ice flows but it could be skated at speed once the patterns were learned.

       I also skated 21/2 miles south of the orford boat launch and back a few times,black ice between ice flows. I stoped at a river wide ice flow that could not be skated through (this may change in coming days as the river level goes up and down and creates sidewalks among the ice flow) from the car I saw lots of black ice and at least another one of these big river wide ice flows above the north that Ford boat launch. Incoming days if we don’t get snow, there are also possibilities above the fairlee bridge  Heading up to Bradford, lots of open water up there, but also lots of black ice, which looked thinner than what I was on .

      Again, do not venture on this river right now, unless you are experienced and prepared, but if you do avoid any snow, covered ice or ice where there are large piles of ice flows both of these areas were very thin underneath due to the insulation effect. The black ice that I was skating on should be a bit thicker by morning, but there will be also new thin ice out there. 

[Sandra Owens]

Skaters

I skated on the freshly iced in Sunset Lake today. It is a 255 acre lake in lower Champlain valley.

It was spectacular! Gorgeous, smooth ice. I stayed off the center and black ice areas as this lake was totally open water 3 days ago.

I believe I could have skated the entire perimeter but wanted to reopen my swim hole before dark so I turned around.

Not a huge lake but great ice! Sorry, no phone today so no pics. I will take some tomorrow when I go back.

Sandra Owens

Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 18, 2024, at 6:55 PM, Evan Perkins <evanwpe...@gmail.com> wrote:

 The river was skated from North Thetford boat launch south to Gilman island (south of Hanover bridge) and back. The river right now requires advanced ice reading skills in addition to full safety gear and experience. 

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