Eastern Ontario 2025

[ennismaple]

Starting the discussion on Eastern Ontario maple updates. The 14 day forecast is quite cold so no urgency to tap quite yet... but I do know of a few local producers who've started to tap already.

We'll likely start tapping the Family Day long weekend and get at it hard the Feb 22-23 weekend. We have about 12" of light fluffy snow in the woods right now, with no crust in the snowpack and no ice on the bottom.

At least the cold weather means lots of ice on the lake for the hard water anglers!

[limestone]

Thanks for “firing up” the 25 thread ennismaple.

Snow load here in Battersea is around 10” of powder with no base like you are seeing. The difference to last year is the frost set in December's and should have good penetration to help the run last.
Been working on deer a squirrel damage and dropline change out after year 3 on our little hobby setup. It’s not hard to get a shugarbush tan on the good sunshine days.

[jungmaria]

Happy 2025 season all.
Hard to believe when the thermometer reads -24, but forecast looks like I’ll be tapping this weekend. Strapped on the snowshoes and went to check on a line earlier this week. Tough slogging in the woods. Was sinking down to mid-calf every step in the snowshoes.
Ennismaple you been out tapping this week?

[ennismaple]

We got about a thousand in last Saturday, will be back at it this weekend. Snowshoes are useless in this snow - you sink to the bottom anyways so might as well slog through without them. Until we get a bit of a thaw and some body to the snow it's going to be a really tough time in the woods. It barely gets above freezing for a couple of days over the next 2 weeks so it's looking like a "late" start relative to what we've been seeing for the last decade.

[jungmaria]

Good luck this weekend. A lot nicer out there than last. Out tapping today too, a lot fewer than 1000 though! Tried it without snowshoes but going through above my knees. Strapped on the snowshoes and was pleasantly surprised to be only going ankle deep, so it was much easier slogging than I expected. I’m quite ‘vertically challenged’ so that likely makes a difference.
Doubt we’ll collect much, but hoping to get enough of a run this week to flush the lines, so when it does start up again we’re ready to go.

[ennismaple]

The going was pretty tough on the weekend - we are close to half tapped but we can only get half as many taps in per day due to slow walking and you simply can't wade through that snow all day. The snow pack has settled quite a bit the last few days so I expect we'll have easier going this weekend, even if it is on snowshoes. I don't expect we'll miss much this week. It takes a long time for the tree to thaw out (they are still a frozen wood-sicle) and there's so much frost in the ground the trees won't have much biological activity yet.