An icy beaver pond

woodjin

woodjin

Piney
Nov 8, 2004
4,344
334
Near Mt. Misery
Gabe (pineland paddler) and I got out for a few hours today to revisit a remote beaver pond. I posted about this pond in the past but I can't locate the link to that thread right now.

There was some discussion as to whether this pond was completely natural (the work or beavers) or if there was any human intervention. Gabe noticed a dike in the 1930 aireal photos that indicates human intervention at one time. In our trip today we could see evidence of that. But mostly the pond is maintained by beavers. Photos pertaining to the beaver activity were covered in my old thread so here some photos of the pond from today.

The ice was thick all over the woods. here the pond has a very thick layer.
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Gabe, going for a swim

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Gabe going for a walk

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And then a climb

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A lonely, dead pine in a savanna. A lightening scar leaves little to the imagination as to how it met it's demise.

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Jeff
 
jburd641

jburd641

Explorer
Jan 16, 2008
410
22
Port Charlotte, Fl.
Wow, nice pond.
We were walking the Batona today and when we got to Pakim Pond, it had a nice sheet on it also. My buddy wanted to take a shortcut across it but about halfway across, it started some serious cracking and he thought better of it.
Makes me wish I was as brave (and as light) as I was as a kid. I would have been out there sliding all over it.
Great pics.
 
LongIslandPiney

LongIslandPiney

Explorer
Jan 11, 2006
484
0
Yeah winter has arrived and the ponds are frozen, I dont really walk on them though. One thing that's fun is throwing a rock across and seeing how far you can get it to slide.
 
Teegate

Teegate

Administrator
Site Administrator
Sep 17, 2002
25,966
8,710
Gabe looks like he is prepared if the ice breaks. :) Nice place!

Guy
 
MarkBNJ

MarkBNJ

Piney
Jun 17, 2007
1,875
73
Long Valley, NJ
www.markbetz.net
woodjin said:
He is wearing an extra pair I brought.

The ice was thick but at a few points we heard the subtle cracking sound, natures way of saying, "hey, you're pushing your luck". So we proceeded with caution.

Jeff
Click to expand...

After a boyhood spent skating on the river behind our house in Indiana, back when it was _always_ cold enough to freeze solid, I can tell you that you never stop hearing that sound. In fact the thicker the ice is the more it groans and growls. We'd be flitting along, a crowd of maybe ten or fifteen youngsters, and you'd hear a crack like a gunshot followed by rippling waves of disturbing sound shooting across the surface in all directions. You never saw kids get off the ice so fast. It never broke, though. Just stress relieving itself.

The good news is: unless there are channels of moving water, springs, or some other disturbance, the ice will be of uniform thickness across the whole area. In a shallow pond like that I think once you're over 4-6 inches it is 100% safe.
 
pinelandpaddler

pinelandpaddler

Piney
Apr 6, 2004
3,620
564
Galloway
I first stumbled across this pond several years ago after fighting my way up a tight and unkempt Mechescatauxin. Jeff had discovered the pond on his own as well, and we had independently concluded that the pond was held in place by what we thought was the longest beaver dam either one of us had ever seen in the Pines. This conclusion was reinforced when I looked for the pond in the 1930 aerial photographs and saw that it was not there.

A couple of weeks ago, Scott (Rednek350) told me that the pond was in fact held in place by a man-made dyke. I then looked at the 1930 photos again and could see that there certainly was a dyke that was clearly part of a bog system. The pond must have vanished when the dam was breached sometime prior to 1930. While hiking along the dyke, sand could be seen in abundance just downstream from the pond, suggesting that much of the original dyke had washed out. The beavers, those clever critters, had rebuilt the dyke along most of its length.

Guy, could these bogs have neen part of Wescoat's operation?
 
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