Skating report

[Matt Steinberg]

Good Morning Everyone,

It seems to be a tradition when almost everyone else has transitioned to cycling or spring cleaning and the skates have been stowed away to next season, a few of us more obsessed individuals are still out hunting for ice in all of the remote recesses of New England.  Early April is apparently the time when I need to put forward a best effort to establish myself as the least mentally stable of our ice skating community with a series of follies and this year is no different with a particularly stirring entry. 

Tuesday afternoon around 430 pm after vacillating for 2 days and watching my local lake ice disappear in dramatic fashion, I made the snap decision to drive up to Greenville, Maine with the consolation of hiking Mount Kineo, a beautiful little mountain "island" in the middle of the lake accessible only by water or ice. I called my friend up and gave her less than 30 minutes notice and we met in Hooksett, NH for the additional 5 hour drive. It snowed inconsequentially most of the way as we drove along happily. Outside of Athens, Maine while crossing a slighly higher elevation on route 16, we encountered 12 miles of unplowed, very hilly roads with an icy base layer, 6 inches of snow, and no hope of seeing another car. My Honda Civic with studded snow tires powered through although if I had had to stop or lost momentum, the possibility of a night in the car was quite real. Anyway, we arrived in Greenville an hour later with basically no new snow on the ground.

Thanks to the fantastic scouting of Richard Behr and Courtney Keep—two people truly devoted to finding ice at nearly all costs and kindred spirits, the suggestion was made to try Indian Pond, a remote impoundment of the Kennebec River. This was accessed by a true quagmire of a logging road with tire deep mud and extreme ruts and water bars. It was 5 miles down this road. At 17 degrees the drive in was 4wd, but feasible. Once we arrived, we found a magnificent display of mid winter ice with the slightest skiff of powder covering a vast expanse of mostly quite smooth grey ice on the northern half of the lake with a  few bumps and some dry shell sparsely mixed in. The slight snow covering protected and insulated the ice and kept it hard all morning even in the above freezing temps and bright sun. I skated 22 miles of high speed, effortless skating in an exceptionally wild, remote, and undeveloped area. Around noon we departed, fearing the road may be unpassable. 30 minutes of white knuckle mudbogging later, we safely arrived back at the paved road. Whew!

The next phase of the plan was then activated as we drove north to Rockwood to walk across the ice on Moosehead Lake to Mount Kineo. Its a 1.25 mile walk out across the ice, which under the extensive dry shell layer, was still very thick and hard large crystal ice. We arrived at the island and had a beautiful, direct hike scrambling our way up the icy rocks to the top of the cliff. We climbed the firetower at the top and surveyed the vast, wild expanse of Moosehead's 76,000 frozen acres, all still locked in shore to shore and glittering in the bright sunshine. On the way down we decided to take a less rocky trail down the north side. The initial steepest section was covered in thick, hard water flow ice covering the rocks and a member of our pary took a fall and slid about 50 feet until being able to stop himself luckily without injury. The ice was so hard and extensive, it was not descendable even with microspikes. Luckily I had a coil of about 75 feet of climbing rope in my pack and was able to set up a rappel for each person to desecnd down a total of three seperate pitches until we got to softer snow covered terrain and were able to hike back down safely and back across the ice to our cars. 

Lastly my friend and I began what should have been our 5.5 hour drive back but were lucky enough to have a tire blowout on the interstate in Fairfield, Maine at 9 pm, so one tire change later and 216 miles at 55mph on a donut spare and three studded snow tires I happily arrived home and got in bed at 3 am. Quite a 33 hours and quite a journey for skating but it all seems a small price to pay for 22 miles of excellent mid winter quality skating and a beautiful icy hike above Maine's largest lake on April 8. What do you think, qualify as crazy or just crazy enough? Hopefully this is not the end but just might be. If so, I finish the season with 58 days of skating on 35 different bodies of water for a total of 1,164 miles in 5 states and 2 countries and somehow still maintained my 9 to 5 job and did not get fired despite my best efforts.

I hope you all have a great summer. I'm sad I cannot attend the SK802 event this weekend but I look forward to seeing Everyone out next winter.

[lora colten]

Thanks Matt for the excellent scouting reports ALL season !....and laughs (with accounts of some of the EPIC trips - like this latest post)

Who says adventure isnt right out our doors?.... 

and yes,.. you are a bit on the WILD side.. Never give in to mediocracy - a good motto that you embody

Rock On to All You fair and fearless skaters... We will meet again on a frozen body of water sometime ahead

Lora