Range Ponds State Park

I recently went snow-shoeing
at Range Ponds State Park.
Range Ponds State Park is located
in Poland, Maine, which is just outside
Lewiston and Auburn, Maine.

I had a lovely lovely time.

While my sister cross-country
skied, I snow-shoed. We entered
the park from the main entrance
on one of the last days of December.

She was on skis and I was on foot
starting out. This is a very very
popular place to cross-country ski
as there are miles of trails.

After walking past the little booth
where people pay a fee in summer, we
found a trail that veers off to the
left. I've forgotten but I think this
trail is maybe a few hundred feet after
the little booth that sits in the middle
of the road.

As soon as I found this trail, I put my
snow-shoes on. Prior to this, I had been
on foot as the main entrance appears to be
plowed in winter.

I snow-shoed this trail until I saw water
perhaps 50 yards away. I then followed
the small side-path that led directly to
the water.

After this, I followed the shoreline by walking
on ice. I had been at the park just a few
days before when the ice was not solid enough
to walk on. There were 2 guys in the middle
of the pond ice-fishing. I thought I'd give
the ice a try.

I jumped up and down on it to see if it was
going to give way. I did this in the shallows
of the shoreline. I'd then go a few inches or
feet and hop up and down again. I really wasn't
hopping very much. Just enough to listen for
cracking sounds.

Gradually it became clear to me that the ice was
not going to break. However, not wishing to take
any chances, I went back into the woods and
snow-shoed my way to the beach which was just
down the shoreline a few hundred yards.

Once I got to the beach, I started walking the
shoreline again to see if I could walk back to
the place where I had first tested the ice. The
reason I wanted to come at this particular spot
from a different direction is that the shore
had a slow seep with running water. I wanted
to be sure the ice would not give way.

As I kept testing the ice by hopping up and down
as I went along, I realized that all the ice was
very very solid. With experience, I was gaining
confidence in this ice.

I went around a point and gradually came back to
the point where I had found a seep and running
water. Running water can be very very dangerous
as the ice tends to be much thinner where there
is a water inlet.

I really had only a few feet to cross over to
see if the ice would hold as I made my way back
to where I had started out on the ice. As it
turns out, it was very very solid. I could
hop up and down all I wanted to with no effect.

By now, the sun was setting and it was time to
meet my sister back at the car. I did not have
a watch on but I could tell by the length of my
shadow that the day was almost done.

I ended up back at the car before my sister by
a small margin.

The day's lesson? There's always a way to test
a premise prior to committing yourself to some
fool-hardy act. You just have to figure out a
way.

I found that taking little hops and testing the
ice where the water was very very shallow seemed
to work very very well. I'm not an expert but
it seems to me that if you can hop up and down
on ice and it makes no cracking sounds then the
ice is probably OK.

Ed Abbott