Snowmobiling on the 1.5 feet of ice covering most of Flagstaff Lake 🏞 from Eustis 🏔 Maine 🌲

Snowmobiling on the 1.5 feet of ice covering most of the 20,300 acres of Flagstaff Lake 🏞 from Eustis 🏔 Maine 🌲 to almost halfway across the lake and back. GPS telemetry map shows the location at any given moment along the exploration expedition. About 1.5 feet of ice on Flagstaff Lake (and its shores now at low water level) have opened up over 20,300 acres (31.72 square miles, or 82.15 square kilometers) of area to explore, if done so with caution and common sense. ⚠️ Lots of boulders are poking up through the ice so the biggest concern is looking where you are going and checking it out at a slower speed before opening her up too much. Ice rifts ⚠️ sticking up a foot or more would not be good to hit at any speed, let alone the 1 to 4 foot trenches ⚠️ where streams flow into the lake. Since making this video on February 18, 2024, the ice should be at least as thick or thicker as temperatures have been well below freezing before the light snow today, February 23, when temperatures reached about 39° F (+4°C). It will be at or below freezing this weekend (15°F Saturday and 32° Sunday). Flagstaff Lake has ⚠️ open water in a few locations (for example, I point it out where the 2 guys were ice fishing near the underwater town of Flagstaff). I went out to measure the ice, but given its thickness I decided to enjoy checking out the western half of the lake. At 44:28 as I was on pure ice circling a boulder to mark it on my map I started to drift and caught an edge on the snow and got tossed off the machine 😮. No damage to me or the sled fortunately. And I was being fairly cautious. A studded track would have been nice, but not at all necessary. It is fun to move along the shores where you know there is ground underneath the ice... a fairly unique feature of Flagstaff Lake due to the water level dropping so much in winter. I included a secondary map in a smaller circle that shows the path ahead & behind, and where the land and water are so you can tell when I was over water at summer water levels and when over land for sure. ⚪️ The little white mark circling the smaller circular map shows the current bearing like a compass... if on top of the circle then I was heading north... on the right means east, bottom - south, left side - west. 🗺 I put the latitude and longitude on the bottom center of the video frame so you can know the exact coordinates at any point in the video. I like to make these videos so you can use them as a reference to see what is out there at any given map location. 📍 00:00 Riding through the woods 🌲🌲 🐇🦌 to get to the Interconnected Trail System (ITS 89) 📍 0:45 Mapping and gauges telemetry starts on the video at Arkie's Airfield 🛩 on the ITS 89 📍 2:50 Park & Ride location on the left at Caldwell Road provided by the Arnold Trail Snowmobile Club https://arnoldtrailsnowmobileclub.com 📍 5:00 Pahtridge at lahge 📍 12:10 Ducking under downed tree 🪵 📍 14:10 Enter onto Flagstaff Lake 🏞 🕳🕳🕳🕳🕳🕳 📍 15:25 First drill hole 🕳 to get ice thickness with brand new ice auger 📍 17:16 Second drill hole 🕳 to get ice thickness 📍 21:27 Some conclusions about the ice conditions and thicknesses observed 🧐 📍 24:15 Sixth drill hole 🕳 to get ice thickness in the west end of the north section of Flagstaff Lake 🕳🕳🕳🕳🕳🕳 📍 34:20 Stream trench ice thickness drilling - final hole 🕳 📍 37:45 Two guys ice fishing 🐟🎣 📍 44:25 Tossed off my machine 😮 📍 50:08 Arrive at one of the two docks I found with the drone in late December 2023 at Savage Beach. Here is the drone flight:   / 922435962780378   and here is a link to the first drone flight for the first dock found:    • Drone Trek: The Search for (Jim's) Dock   📍 52:35 Myers Beach 📍 1:02:10 Entrance to the lake from the Hyde property trail on the right 📍 1:11:00 Flagstaff Lake crossing location to Pines Market 📍 1:11:50 Exit lake at Flagstaff Bridge onto Flagstaff Road 🎥 GoPro Hero10 Black on top of my helmet recording 5K resolution video at 29.97 frames per second with the Lens set to Linear with HyperSmooth set to medium. YouTube channel:    / kevin207photography   Instagram & IGTV:   / kevin207photography   TikTok:   / kevinmaine   FaceBook:   / kevin207photography   Website: http://Kevin207Photography.com