Charlie Fineran’s Photo of the Week is ice cold!

With the advent of cold weather and the official beginning of Winter just around the corner, Dec. 21^st,  our photo of the week, serves as a heads up to those hardy ice fisherman, get your fishing and cold weather gear ready!! Fishing has always been a popular Winter activity at Allamuchy Pond.  This Family has chosen a site just off the backyard of Rutherfurd Hall. 

Allamuchy Pond is interesting to observe during the Winter.  The pond always presents different scenarios for the ice fisherman.  There have been years when the whole pond is completely frozen over AND there have been years when half the pond is frozen and the other half is open water!!  One year I checked with a fisherman, inquiring about safety.  I’m looking at his ice tent about ten feet from the edge of the ice and then open water!!  He advised he had drilled his way out, checking on ice thickness, where his tent was located was atop 10 inches of ice.  The pond has multiple sources of water.  The southern end by the high reeds has a stream entering the pond, that entire area is a wetland with many little rivulets of water winding through the reeds into the pond.  There are also springs located beneath the pond, feeding water up through the muddy bottom.  The wooded ridge along the east shore has several brooks which feed into the pond.  The east shore gets runoff from CR517.  I visited the old boat launch area below the opening in the guard rail and observed little springs pumping water into pools adjacent to the pond.

The other side of the story for our Photo of the Week is showing other activities within Allamuchy Mountain State Park.  Several photos show volunteers doing projects over the years improving sites and the rest show visitors enjoying this wonderful and beautiful Park.  Allamuchy’s Mountain Villa School is located along the Northshore of the Pond and the school considers both the pond and Parklands as classrooms.  You will see some of the school’s activities when viewing my Flickr album

Please visit my Flickr site for photos – https://www.flickr.com/photos/charliefineran/albums/72157626084774647

Enjoy Your Open Space, Charlie Fineran