Ice Update

This afternoon, Joanna and I took a ride up the 325 road north to see what shape the road and the lakes were in so we could give an accurate update of the ice situation.  The road is thawed, but has some fairly deep muddy spots in several places.  There were also three places where water is running over the road, one which looks like it could do some damage to the road.  The MNR is aware of it and monitoring it. 

I stopped at Square Lake to take a picture and was surprised to see the lake still had patchy white ice on it.  I had hoped to get to Arethusa Lake to take some pictures, but just before I could get to the parking lot, we came across a very deep muddy spot which I did not want to try to navigate through even though I was using four wheel drive. 

Then before coming back to camp, we went down the road to Heathwalt just for a mile to see what Hearsey Lake.  That is a fairly shallow lake.  Half of the lake is open and the wind was pushing the ice to the boat landing side.  The road was soft in spots and really shouldn't be driven on yet. 

Though I believe Barrel Lake is open enough to fish on, I don't think the road is ready to be driven on.  I plan to run over there on Thursday with the four wheeler to check it out. 

Picture #1 is Square Lake.  As you can see, it is still quite frozen over with open water on the edges.  Picture # 2 is the Square Lake road.  It is good except for one little snowy spot.
Pictures # 3 and 4 are a swampy area on the way to Arethusa.
Picture 5 is a muddy spot on the way to Arethusa
Picture 6 is Hearsey Lake just a mile up the Heathwalt Lake road.  I thought surely that one would be open, but as you can see, it is not.  

Our weather forecast is still quite cold for lows with 30 degrees for Wed., Thurs and Fri. nights.  The temps will be going up dramatically on Sun. and Mon. with highs of 66 degrees both days.  That will help with the ice for sure, but I do not recommend anyone coming before this Saturday, May 17th because I honestly don't know where you would fish, except for our river up to the lake. 

Indian Lake will hopefully be open by May 31st.  We'll keep you posted with updates every two to three days. 

The good news is that we have running water to all the cabins now, so they are ready to inhabit.