With residents waking up to temperatures in the mid-40s on the first day of February, some may be wondering if this winter will ever produce the snow and cold needed for skiing, snowmobiling and other winter activities.
"We're feeling the crunch," said Linda McGovern, co-owner of The Inn at Speculator with her husband, Neil, who also is the Lake Pleasant supervisor.
"The weather is just awful," she said. "It's raining here today and it's just sloppy and messy and depressing. There are no snowmobilers, so local restaurants including ours are suffering. It's just dismal."
McGovern said a scheduled snowmobile poker run for Feb. 11 and an ice-fishing contest planned for the end of February are in jeopardy unless some colder weather comes to the region soon.
Tim Best of Vrooman's Hotel in Caroga agreed with the poor outlook.
"There is no winter," he said Wednesday. "This is the worst I've seen it in the 40 years we've been here."
Best said a snowmobile poker run scheduled for Bleecker this weekend has been postponed for two weeks. One planned for next weekend in Caroga by the Nick Stoner snowmobile group also was postponed to Feb. 25.
"It's terrible," he said. "We had one weekend the week before last where we had some snowmobile activity. That's it. It's been a strange winter. Hopefully, we'll get a big storm and a freeze will come with it."
The week before the Fourth Annual Walleye Challenge Ice Fishing Derby on the Great Sacandaga Lake on Saturday, Fulton County Chamber of Commerce & Industry Interim President Terry A. Swierzowski said organizer Lou Stutzke drilled several holes at the lake to be sure the ice was thick enough.
At the time, Stutzke said, "With from 9 to 12 inches everywhere, it's safe for four-wheelers and snowmobiles."
Swierzowski said rain on Friday added some standing water over the ice, but the mild weather, low wind and sunlight made for a beautiful day of fishing with record numbers caught.
"I don't know if it was the reduced ice pressure or what," Stutzke said. "But this year we had more fish caught by noon than any other complete day's catch in the past."
The higher temperatures may have actually boosted the Walleye Challenge turnout. Chamber member Glen Henry said he had spoken to some fishermen from Canandaigua who said they came to fish in Mayfield because there wasn't enough ice on the lakes in their area.
Meteorologist Brian Frugis of the National Weather Service in Albany said average temperatures monitored at their weather station were 6 degrees above normal for January.
"The average temperature was 28.6 [degrees] for the month," Frugis said. "That wasn't quite in the top 10 warmest."
The warmest average January temperature since 1820 was 36 degrees in 1932, he said.
Frugis said January's snowfall of 7.5 inches wasn't quite in the top 10 either, but it was well below the normal of 17.6 inches. The least snowy January was in 1913, when only a trace was recorded.
Ann Hirvonen, co-owner of Lapland Lake Nordic Vacation Center in Benson, said the center didn't get to open cross-country skiing trails until Jan. 12. Missing the holiday weekend was tough, she said, "but it's happened before and it'll happen again."
She said there was about a foot of snow on ski trails in the woods for the "several hundred" skiers who have been coming out on weekends. Business has been steady on weekdays, she said.
"We've had pent-up cross-country skiers come who are tired of waiting," she said. "But we look forward to better conditions ahead."
Trails are open at Royal Mountain in Caroga and Oak Mountain in Speculator. Both ski areas have snowmaking equipment.
Swierzowski said some outdoor enthusiasts have been needlessly avoiding the area.
"Just because you don't see snow out your window down in the valleys doesn't mean there isn't snow with trails open farther north and higher in elevation," she said.
She said the hardest-hit snow-related business likely is snowmobiling. The numbers of vehicles towing snowmobiles north through Mayfield on Route 30 is conspicuous by their absence.
Former Speculater Mayor Munro Smith said the general consensus for winter activities in the area is not good.
"It's been a bad year," Smith said. "We got off to a late start last year as well."
Smith said there has been active snowmobiling on the lakes, but local trails don't have enough snow to cover rocks.
"The only saving grace is that it isn't good anywhere else in the state either," she said.
Richard Nilsen can be reached at ruralnews@leaderherald.com.
