Two feet of black ice (fisherman report and hole observation) with the same 6 inches of slush on top as last week except now the top 2 inches are frozen into snow ice to form a “slushwich”. Will the slushwich ever freeze solid with the 2-6 inches of snow on top. It has been zero every night for at least a week and around 10 during the day. The R value of snow is very high.

The rough surface and breaking waves of drifts has changed to hard wind packed drifts, often rounded and intervening choppy soft ripples. The wind has been howling for days. It has to get warmer, it has to rain sometime unless Karaktoa blows up again to give us 12 months of frost and drive people out of Maine again.

Foot Note: LL Bean toe warmers are better than the competition. They show placement either under the toes OR ON TOP of toes. I have noticed that they don’t seem very warm under the toes, they do indeed work much better on top in recent days of snow shoeing. Very likely they get more oxygen on top, oxygen is needed to support the oxidation (rusting) of the powdered iron, catalysed by salt, that makes them warm. My toes stay warmer than the rest of the foot, wonderful. Beans sells them, and hand warmers, in bulk boxes.

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