Well, it's official--ice fishing season is here at Joe's Pond! Diane Rossi reported this morning there is a shanty in the cove near the fishing access, and soon after her report, I heard from Henretta Splain that there are fishermen out on the ice in the cove between Clubhouse Circle and Channel Drive. We wish them good fishing and safety. 
     While the ice in those coves may be thick enough to support fishing, I expect that isn't the case for the whole pond. There were spots towards the middle and along the east shore that didn't freeze over as quickly as other areas, so I expect the ice there is thinner. It would be a bad idea to go out there with a snowmobile, I think, but if these cold nights prevail, it won't be long before there's plenty of ice.
     Here's an interesting bit of news I found in this week's Hardwick Gazette. There us a stockpile of old bridges the state had removed because they were aging and no longer safe for heavy road traffic. One of these truss bridges has been stored in a storage facility in Montpelier for 20 years, but now may be "recycled" and used in Stannard to connect the St. Johnsbury to West Danville section of the Lamoille Valley Rail Trail (LVRT) with the Hardwick section. 
     The report said there will be partnership between LVRT and the UVM engineering school to do assessments of the abutments and landings before the bridge can be installed. The truss was moved to the site on December 8th, but the actual installation, if everything works out, will not be until 2021. There are no funds for this project, which will require both construction and engineering analyses and extensive project design by UVM. 
     Two parts of the trail are complete--the St. Johnsbury to West Danville section, and a section beginning at the intersection of Vermont 15A and 15 in Morristown north to Cambridge.  The Greensboro section that runs through Walden, Stannard, East Hardwick and Greensboro to Hardwick where it crosses the Lamoille and continues to Morristown. This 30.4 mile section is expected to be completed in 2020-21.
     Vermont Agency of Transportation (AOT) has about a dozen bridge like this one that can be available for the rail trail, but the funding is not yet available to utilize them. This seems like a perfect pairing--those bridges that are no longer safe for motorized vehicles on Vermont highways will be perfectly safe for the hiking and biking trails and snomobiles in the winter. Great way to use them. I would think partnering with the university would be a mutually beneficial arrangement and the university might donate the site analysis and design by engineering students. Surely this would be an exceptional hands-on opportunity for the students to experience in field work. I'm sure they will work it out and there will be more cooperation throughout the region to get the trail finished. Once done, it will be new England's longest trail, 93 miles. 
     The trail follows the route of the St. Johnsbury and Lamoille County Railroad, constructed in the 1870s, with the first train operating from St. Johnsbury to Swanton on July 2, 1877. For many years, trains were the life blood of the communities it touched along this route. Gradually, maintenance and operating costs outweighed the benefits of continuing use. The line was damaged severely by flooding in 1995 and again in 1997, and closed after that. Track was removed in 2002, and construction of the recreational trail was begun.