Lake Skating

Stone dogs disappearing in November!

Winter started early this year with a snowy November. We were excited! When you live (by choice) somewhere where there are four distinct seasons, the changes are welcome. In November we dug out our sleds and skis, ready to play, and then came December, cold and dry, ending up with frigid rain. Noooooooooooooooooo!

Then the word filtered out. A December miracle. It was our trusty UPS driver Frank who first alerted me that Squam Lake was completely frozen and the ice was black. Ominous? On a road surface, yes, but on a lake? No! Absolutely perfect. I dug out my ice skates (which sadly I didn’t use once last winter) and met the rest of the town down at the beach.

Ice is black when it’s free of air bubbles while its forming. Snow and slush freeze into a white bubble-filled surface. So the black ice is actually clear, reflecting the colors below. In shallow water, you can see plant growth beneath the ice, and recently a friend of a friend shot a video of a Muskrat swimming below the ice. Zowie!

I looked and looked for signs of our Squamazon castles beneath the ice in Sandwich Bay. Last summer, the “outpost” castle was outfitted with an orange-tipped snorkel that I hoped to locate, but no luck. (The snorkel, of course was recovered from the lake floor — the only way any object makes it into a Squamazon castle.) I skated our swim in about three minutes. Great fun! Black ice is so smooth that when you’re skating over it, it feels like you’re flying.

Nordic skates are all the rage this winter. Their long steel blades help even out any bumps in the ice, and they sport bindings on their aluminum platforms that take nordic ski boots — much more comfortable than traditional ice skates. Like with nordic bindings, the heel of the boot is free, so it takes some adjusting to get the hang of nordic skating (how do you stop?!).

kite skating

I’m holding off, being an inveterate slow adopter of all trends (I’m about ready to turn in my flip phone for a Blackberry), and then there’s the matter of cost. A lot of cost. But to be honest, I’m more concerned about this old dog learning new tricks. There was the time I tried a snowboard after decades of alpine skiing. Lets just say that it’s a lot harder than it looks. Oh, Lord, no, no, no.

I will say, though, that nordic skaters using kites to propel them up to 45 miles-per-hour are a kick to watch. (That may be a nordic skiing pun. Just a thought.) Throw in some ice hockey players, young children being pulled on sleds, and non-skaters walking with grippers on their boots, and Squam Lake is a true winter playground.

For a couple of weeks, the black ice held with only a skiff or two of snow interfering, and we skated often, usually at sunset, which is the prettiest time at the west-facing town beach, no matter the season.

Pickup trucks were pulled right up to the water’s edge (ice skating tailgating!), and I put on my skates sitting on a rock that we swim off of in the summer. We skated the mile out to Fore Point many times, stopping to admire (and skate quickly away from) the giant fissure in the ice that separated Sandwich Bay from the main lake.

The only thing that gave me the willies was the deep groaning sound that the lake made from time to time. It conjured up images of the dog sled breaking through the ice in Jack London’s Call of the Wild. (Do not go there, mind!) A very sensible and trustworthy friend explained to me that the groaning was merely the lake making ice. As the ice plates form and expand, pressing into each other, they make that groaning, moaning noise. As long as there’s someone there of hear it, of course. Right? Still creepy.

I do know from experience that water expands as it freezes. Remember that can of soda that was left in the car last winter? The new car? The car that was splattered with dark spots that resembled the outcome of a paintball battle? (Oh, yah. That was my new car, not yours.) Chalk it up to a science experiment. An ill-advised one.

Now it’s January and it’s snowing again. That infernal “wintery mix” keeps rearing its ugly head (bad metaphor), but we’ve gotten the skis out again, ever hopeful. And we can always dream about that black ice on our magical lake. The sentiment I heard most often while skating was: “This is incredible. We are so lucky.” Yes, we are blessed.