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This gives you some ideas of the conditions, but not really. The wind was so powerful I gave up on my plan to paddle north into it a long way before crossing the lake back at a narrower point and returning downwind. Instead I hung around this spot rockhunting a while to see if the gale would diminish -- nope -- and watching thunderstorms in the distance -- which fortunately stayed away.

Eventually I gave up, put on the skirt, took a deep breath, and crossed the lake. The wind had shifted somewhat so I was 45 degrees into the waves again, and I swear there were some three foot swells out in the middle. Without the skirt I would have been swamped. As it was, the crossing of about a mile took 28 white-knuckle minutes of intense and careful paddling.

0527J_EastAcrossAbiquiu.jpg (429 Kb) (under photos/16/0525-30_NewMexicoVan/0527_PosiAndAbiquiu/)

By Alan Silverstein, ajs@frii.com (page updated Sun Mar 9 14:33:54 MDT 2025)