[upthesaukee]

Pilots will fly in from near and far. They will fly in and land from New York, Vermont, Ct, PA, NH, and other locations as well.

On President's Day Weekend, many planes will come in and land. Several years ago, it was reported to have over 50 airplanes on the ice at one time. I believe that in recent years, there have been days where there were 100 or more landings, although not all the planes were on the ground at the same time.

Alton's ice runway is the only FAA sanctioned ice runway in the country. It has its own airport designator (B18), and is maintained by volunteers here in Alton. Before any airplanes can land, an FAA inspector comes out and checks out the runway to make sure it is in accordance with the FAA guidelines for this airport.

Typically, airplanes land to the north, coming in over Parker Marine and Gillan Marine. They depart the same direction. After landing, often times the planes will have to turn around and taxi back to park between the bandstand in the bay and Gillen's.

And as final note, it is also a seaplane runway in the summer, or at least with no ice on the bay. Occasionally, a seaplane will land, but traffic in the bay gets a little interesting.

The businesses in the bay get quite a bit of business from the pilots and their passengers, and they are always willing to talk to you about where they came from and what it is like to land on ice.

There are UTube videos...search Alton Bay Ice Runway..

Thanks for your interest.