New London area adventures

[Matt Steinberg]

Hello Everyone,

Winter remains alive and well to some extent here in the Upper Valley of western NH. Yesterday I made the 2 mile hike up the Anderson Brook trail to the summit area of Mount Sunapee. This trail rises about 1400 feet in elevation and puts you at Lake Solitude above 2500 feet. This is a small but beautiful pond that I usually skate early in the season. With yesterday morning's temps in the teens, I decided to head up. Upon arrival, I found the lake frozen shore to shore. I was able to easily step onto the ice without any inflatable assistance even though I did bring it with me. The lake was mostly challenging ice that was not great to skate with lots of hidden holes but the shoreline wrapping around the southern end was a nice smooth sidewalk about 2/10 mile in length. On the NW end was another short section covered in about an inch of fluffy snow in the shade that provided a velvety 20 strides of powder skating. Between these two areas, I was able to find enough skateable ice to be able to do about a 6/10 mile loop altogether. There was even a 25 foot long section of barely supportable black ice that formed and thickened over the preceding 2 days. What a treat, clear black ice on April 9th. The lake is beautiful and the trees were frosted with new fluff from Tues night's light snow, so I did not mind looping the area for about 9 miles, enjoying the crisp spring sunshine. 

This morning I skated 11 miles on Pleasant Lake in New London, NH with Jamie. For those of you not familiar, Pleasant seems to be a bit of an anomaly holding ice significantly longer than surrounding lakes of similar size and altitude. In fact, I saw people on Jet skis on the wide open Mascoma 2 days ago while Jamie and I were on 7 poke ice this am. The surface was pretty glorious, mostly light orange peel. A large lead that was previously opened wide but had come back together overnight with thin ice all around it prevented our progress to the north side but a large area of the south was available. Around 830 the lake started cracking a little and was very active and starting to wet out all over by the time I got off at 9. What a treat to skate on the smoothest ice Pleasant has had all year on April 10. This may be the curtain call as there is more rain and snow in the forecast and temps barely going below freezing the next few days.