Today we took our snowmobiles to various places around the southern end of the lake. We stayed east of Diamond Island to avoid any open water.
The ice from the northwestern tip of Rattlesnake Island down to Alton Bay appears very solid. We did not encounter any dampness or areas that looked questionable in that entire area. (The ice along the northern side of Rattlesnake was solid as well when we were on that side of the island last Sunday.)
However, there are dangerous ice pressure ridges everywhere. The expanding and moving ice has created these ridges, and it’s done a great deal of dock damage as well.
When we went out last Sunday there was a relatively small ice ridge between Rattlesnake Island and Diamond Island, but we were able to find a spot close to Rattlesnake to travel over it. Today, that ridge is much higher than last Sunday and we could not find a place to safely cross it. So we turned around and went along the southern side of Rattlesnake and headed over toward Jockey Cove in Wolfeboro. Much of the ice out in that area is bare now, as a lot of the 12” inches of light fluffy snow we got last weekend has blown away. There were still enough areas of snow on the ice to keep the snowmobiles cool, however.
Just west of Jockey Cove, a large pressure ridge runs from the mainland all the way over to Little Barndoor Island. As with the ridge between Rattlesnake and Diamond Islands, we could not find a suitable spot for crossing. This ridge pretty much cuts Wolfeboro Bay off from the rest of the lake for safe snowmobile travel. We didn’t try going around Barndoor Island to get to Wolfeboro Bay, but it appeared that unless there’s another ice ridge over that way, that would currently be the only way to get to the Wolfeboro Bay area from the main part of the lake.
We then rode to Clay Point, around Chestnut Cove, over to Black Point, and down Alton Bay to the bandstand. Other than some relatively small pressure ridges running across the Bay in several places, the ice there is solid. However, the ice has done damage in Alton Bay as well. Here’s a picture of a dock we encountered along the east side of the Bay:
