Amazing day on Moore Reservoir, thanks to Evan for the prompt update this morning. I believe a number of folks on this list took advantage of it.

Following Evan’s on-ice advice, I followed the north shore upstream (yellow arrows). His emailed description from earlier today was completely accurate: almost all the ice was fantastic, some of it was just perfect, and there very occasional areas of shell-on-water. (The big ones I found are marked with yellow circles.) There were some messy spots along the north shore (orange circles), the south shore seemed less exciting from what I saw of it. There were a few significant pressure ridges (yellow lines), but they were all nicely frozen up and easily passable. Obviously there are more hazards out there than I’ve marked, but this is what I found.

I mostly checked the ice thickness with my pole, and it was too thick for me to get through. Towards the upstream end of the reservoir, where the ice was blacker and smoother and thinner, I checked a few times with my ice screws. It went from 5” to 4” to 3” (marked on the map), at which point I turned around. Many others continued to the end of the ice without incident.

Then I returned downstream and downwind along the center of the ice (purple arrows), which was fantastic.

See attached map for details, plus attached photos.

Happy skating!

— Christopher Boone