It’s going to be a classic winter weekend, and conditions for skating outdoors are nearly ideal.
Declan Murray was skating and playing hockey Friday at Turner Pond in Walpole for the first time this season with his grandfather.
“I like to score,” the 4-year-old said.
Dan Ryan heads the volunteer group that manages Turner Pond where the thickness of the ice is now 6 inches.
“The state says you can skate with 4. We like to wait until it’s 5 inches,” Ryan said. “It’s important to know the operation that we run here the ice is safe behind the building. We don’t test the entire pond.”
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The Charles River doesn’t need to be tested — currents and salt water have prevented a deep freeze, creating lots of thin ice and open water.
“It’s been two weeks of bitter cold, so we saw the ice develop relatively quickly, but again on the river, it’s a different story,” said Cambridge Fire Chief Thomas Cahill.
Firefighters in Cambridge train regularly for ice rescues. They caution against going out on ice alone.
Cahill gave some advice on what to do if you fall in.
“Keep your elbows on the ice, and just kick with your feet, and do the best you can to get back up on that ice, and when you’re on the ice, don’t stand up — roll your way back to shore,” he said.
Ryan says the thickness of the ice is checked constantly at Turner Pond. That’s important to Ron Harrington.
“You don’t come out here unless you know it’s safe, especially when I bring my grandson out here,” Harrington said.
They have had more than a foot of ice at Turner Pond, but that hasn’t happened in a while.
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