Lee and Karin skated the big pond yesterday and had this good news to share:

“Great Pond ice is thick and safe for skating and iceboating. We didn’t see any sketchy ice besides pressure ridges on a long skating tour today. We went from the boat ramp out between Hoyt and Long Point. There is some refrozen snow ice and old frozen snow drifts in this section. There was an active pressure ridge between Hoyt and Long Point but we crossed it on skates today. We toured down the lake and around Oak Island. There is a significant pressure ridge from Oak running west to the shore. We crossed at Oak Island. The southern bay was big grey smooth ice as far as you could see. We crossed another pressure ridge on the NW corner of Oak that ran to the NE probably all the way to shore.
There was significant old funky rough refrozen snow ice, unskateable north of Oak so we went back west and up to the south end of Hoyt. There is a pressure ridge then a huge plate of unbroken black ice from shore to shore up to Indian Island. The ice goes back to grey here and then around me the top of Hoyt. We skated down the West side of Hoyt. A big pressure ridge part way down goes from Hoyt across to main shore. In this area is a big plate of black ice. Heading south towards the boat ramp is more frozen crud and some old frozen drift ice. Close to Hoyt on that west side is a big plate of black ice to avoid the bad stuff.
There is a variety of ice and some big pressure ridges. There are also really big plates of great ice. All the black ice patches we saw, big and little, were at least 5″ thick. The ice is tight to shore. I think it would be well worth iceboating.”

Looking north to Indian Island, east side of Hoyt.

One can almost close their eyes while reading this and do the great tour in their virtual iceboat. Excellent report, Lee, Thanks so much.

Sadly, snow is threatening. It’s been flurrying on and off all day in Camden, and tomorrow doesn’t look much safer. Forecasts are mixed about the snow, but they are unified in promising wind and sun for the weekend. The one saving grace is the cold snow and big winds Saturday. It might blow off. If you’re lucky you’ll be tearing away off the wind riding on a magic carpet of blowing snow, the ice below slowly revealing itself. We’ve been there before and it’s a fabulous sensation.