Sunday, February 18, 2007

Things I'll never do, Volumer 31, Number 97

The river in my town finally froze over a few weeks ago, and I was a little amazed at what I saw once it did. I drove past one particular spot one day and their was still a small gap of open water. I looked at it and wondered how long before their would be snowmobile tracks on the ice. I drove past that same spot the next day during a snowfall. The ice had closed up, but the spot that had been open was still wet and pretty rotten looking. There were fresh snowmobile tracks within ten feet of it. Further down river, some gaps in the ice took longer to freeze over and the ice there still looks ratty, but by now the river has become a super speedway of snowmobile tracks, tracks which at times come with feet of that fresh, rotten looking ice.

Now I'm no ice prude. I grew up in this state and I've spent plenty of time on lake ice. I've even fallen through ice before, although I and my uncle were able to drag ourselves out. But you couldn't pay me to play on river ice. It isn't as stable or as thick as lake ice, and once it is covered in snow, it gets tougher to tell what parts of ice are and are not safe. Yet many people go out and tempt fate on the river ice, often times snowmobiling right over very bad ice under bridges. I hope it is fun for everyone that does it, but you won't catch me out there.

No comments: