As many others have reported, Waterbury Reservoir’s in good shape. Very consistent gray ice, ranging from very smooth to citrus peel to lightly scalloped. Some snow cover, and today, with an air temperature of 40º F when we started mid afternoon, that was mostly soft and not great to skate on / through. Occasional small areas were soft enough to slice down into with our blades, firm 1 cm slush. Once it all refreezes it should be even better.

I only did a few spot checks of ice thickness with my ice screw. It was 5 or 6” everywhere, even in the backwater coves, except at the very far upstream end, where it was 2-4” / 1-2 pokes.

The reason for sending this report, though, is to point out that there’s a large snow covered area part way upstream that’s worth pressing around. The sidewalks on both shores were reasonable today, probably will be better in colder weather, and the ice opens back up into very skateable past the snow.

We put in at the Blush Hill Boat Launch.

Map attached with our track and a few notes. The snowy area is highlighted white. Circumnavigating pretty much the whole reservoir was about 14 miles.

— Christopher Boone