Ice out means start of spring, sort of

We have a tradition up here in northern New England called "Ice Out" that is more a harbinger of spring than the equinox.

It's when the M/S Mount Washington cruise ship can navigate Lake Winnipesaukee safely between her New Hampshire ports, unimpeded by ice. "Ice Out" has an official declarer, aviator Dave Emerson who flies over the route regularly until he sees that indeed the ice is out of the lake.

For 2009, he declared "Ice Out" this past Sunday the 12th at noon.

Spring had begun ... well, maybe not yet.

My winter in southern New Hampshire was just a little longer than the winter up there a couple of hours on the lake.

For my own purposes, "Ice Out" is when the ice is totally clear of my driveway. And that didn't happen until Tuesday, April 14, at 1:45 p.m.

Granted, there's still lots of snow in certain areas. Heck, if you feel like it you can still ski late into spring and early summer, depending on the snow pack in Tuckerman Ravine (pictured here on Monday courtesy of the Mount Washington Avalanche Center). The ravine with its incredibly steep headwall is a natural bowl near the peak of Mount Washington that collects feet and feet of snow.

So, if snow and ice are the measure of winter you can find it up here for a while yet.

But now that the ice is out of my driveway my spring has sprung.

The shovels are stored in the garage and I swept a winter's worth of sand from the driveway. I took the ski rack off the roof of the car and I put the golf bag and the golf gear in the trunk. With spring in New England you never know when a golf game might break out. I've learned that you have to take it when you can get it because the golf season passes oh so quickly.

The surfboard rack will go up on the car's roof soon enough. I'm a fair weather surfer, so I need the ocean temperature to get up somewhere in the 50s before I venture in.

Right now the water temp is 42 degrees.

Trust me, it still feels like winter in the ocean and frankly it rarely feels like summer in the waters off northern New England. But we'll take what we can get.