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Walking on water in Natick
By adamg on Mon, 02/16/2009 - 4:03pm
On Saturday, the kidlet and I went out for a drive. We wound up at the boat ramp at Cochituate State Park and were surprised to see a bunch of people out on the lake, including what looked like two families just having a grand old time out in the middle of the lake skating and ice fishing and just sitting around the grill (of course they had a grill).
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Comments
Was that a smart thing to do?
I mean, the next town over, someone fell into an icy pond and drowned Sunday morning.
Let's just say ...
Nancy was not at all happy when she head I let the kidlet onto the ice, although fortunately I have the photos to prove she never got far enough out to be in any real danger even if they ice did crack right under her
But I'm thinking a lake is a bit different than a brook. No running water, for one thing (although there is something of a current in Lake Cochituate, and it was interesting to see how much open water there was just past the Rte. 30 bridge on the Wayland side).
I have the photos to prove
umh, photos don't prove where she was walking when you weren't chronicling her whereabouts with your camera but as long as Nancy bought it, right?
lake dependent
I certainly wouldn't risk it. But if people had been on the lake for a month and have been keeping track of depth, maybe.
That being said, it was about this time of year that I drove my car over the Ottawa river between Oka and Hudson.
Problem is we just had a
Problem is we just had a long warm spell, Id be very concerned
MadMax, You Missed the Bread Guy!
Driving across the ice at Oka means no ferry! And no ferry means no bread guy selling some of the most amazing bread ever!
We had the two loaves we bought on the ferry ripped to pieces by the time we got to Ottawa.
(Minor nitpick: it isn't the Ottawa river there ... it is the Lake of Two Mountains)
Hudson-Oka Ice Bridge opens for first time in two years
deux montagnes
Hmm. I'd better curtail my offhand Canadian references.
I've been caught napping here several times.
How many times do newspapers
How many times do newspapers report that someone went out on ice and did not break through?
Depth Matters
When there is clear and relatively thick ice, we skate on some of the ponds in the fells, and on the big pond in the Brooks Estate.
If we go through the ice, we get wet skates, maybe wet legs. Not comfy, but not tragic. These ponds are really not very deep at all. More of a swampy zone, really.
The reservoir in Arlington is a similar story - at least the "swimming area", which ices over, but is drained down in the winter.
I'm too chicken
By the time I was 12, I'd
(a) seen The Dead Zone, which dramatized a kids-fall-through-ice-and-drown scene... with an underwater shot, naturally
(b) read 97 biographies of Harry Houdini, who used to train under frozen rivers for his escapes - and who once had to swim under water a few *minutes* after escaping, because the current had pulled him away from the hole in the ice
You ain't getting me on a frozen bathtub.
what's the rule of thumb?
is it a week of sub-freezing temps and 6 inches of ice thickness? I can never remember.
On the surface, incredibly stupid and dangerous
But please ask a cop or fire official in Natick whether this was safe, on that day at that time. I'm just curious. Please report back to us. Lake Cochituate is no wading pond; it's deep. Lakes are also not static, they can have currents from underground springs, and water temps and ice depth can fluctuate widely. Not only are these adults probably putting children at risk in a week where we had temps in the low 50s, they are doubling that risk by using a grill, for god's sake. lord, protect the ignorant.....because they need all the help they can get.
Why don't you ask, eh?
Why don't you ask, eh?