A magical ice toboggan tradition makes a triumphant return in rural Pennsylvania
It’s been 11 years since Eagles Mere built its historic toboggan slide. It’s back.
![Volunteers work on the ice toboggan slide in Eagles Mere, Pa.](https://www.inquirer.com/resizer/v2/AXVJ4NXRDVELZE3HYHVVENDNLM.jpg?auth=a672909d370caadd7355dd754ab091b4b3eebaddc436a150033a611932965182&width=760&height=507&smart=true)
EAGLES MERE, Pa. — On a recent bluebird Saturday morning here, when the mercury didn’t push north of 9 degrees, the sound of chain saws carried far and wide over the hard, flat surface of Eagles Mere Lake.
Those chain saws were like church bells, calling worshippers to Mass.
‘It’s perfect,” said Louise Klotz Middleton , president of Eagles Mere’s borough council. “The ice is perfect.”
It’s been 11 years since Eagles Mere, about 160 miles northwest of Philadelphia, in Sullivan County, built its historic ice toboggan. The toboggan slide is made up of thick blocks of ice — each weighing 300 pounds — that are cut from the lake and stacked behind one another, block after block, up a steep street.
For a decade now, it hasn’t been cold enough to get the ice thick enough: 10 inches would work, but 12 would be ideal.
Some began to worry whether that childhood rush would remain a memory, whether they’d ever hear that clackety sound of antique wood racing down smoothed blocks of ice again. Even worse, would anyone remember how to build it? Written notes are spare. It’s been a generational tradition, passed from volunteer to volunteer since the first run in 1904 when the slide was built with handsaws and horses.
But then, this winter, the cold returned.
“It’s all still up here,” resident Brian Smith said that morning, pointing to his head. “There’s still a bunch of us who know what we’re doing and today, we’re passing some of that knowledge down. It’s good to see younger volunteers too.”
Every year, when the last leaves fall in Eagles Mere, and summer residents drain their pipes and throw old sheets over the living room furniture, this bucolic resort town in the middle of nowhere essentially hibernates until spring. By summer, Eagles Mere is downright bustling, with about 3,000 people returning like bees to a field of wildflowers. They swim, sail, fish, and socialize there, all summer long.
The longtime, permanent residents, vacation homeowners, businesses, and most other people here in deeply rural Sullivan County pray for ice, hoping winter’s bony hands conjure up a deep freeze.
Smith, a resident and president of the Eagles Mere Toboggan Slide Association, led a small army of volunteers from dawn to dusk Saturday, most of them layered deep with camouflage, Carhartt overalls, and thermal underwear.
One group set up far down the lake, sawing large blocks of ice and floating them toward a flume-like conveyor like loggers of yesteryear. The ice flume was made of wood and chains, powered by a smoking tractor that one volunteer shoveled snow on to keep it cool.
“What am I doing? Oh, I’m just an old fart standing here trying to be useful,” said Scott Lee, 77.
From the conveyor, the 300-pound blocks were transported over the lake via ATVs and UTVs, about a quarter mile away to Lake Avenue, a street that rises from the water to the heart of Eagles Mere.
On Lake Avenue, another crew set the blocks in place, one by one. The slide took shape and slowly rose up the street as the morning turned into late afternoon, and the wind sent icy dust devils dancing across the frozen lake.
“Is it swinging out a little, to the left?” said Michael Scott, a former deputy game warden for the Pennsylvania Game Commission who was volunteering. “Do we have a level?”
Some of the tools volunteers used, like the massive, iron ice tongs, were standard in turn-of-the-century America before refrigeration was ubiquitous. Other tools looked like beefier garden hoes or metal hockey sticks.
“This thing? I don’t know what it is. Brian says you can stick underneath the ice and slide it around,” said a volunteer holding what looked like an iron frog spear that had been bent.
After the slide was built, volunteers spent most of Sunday carving a groove down the middle with another homemade contraption that made natural rails and helps keep the toboggans from veering off into disaster. All told, there would be 850 ice blocks, laid out approximately 1,200 feet from the top of the street down onto the lake, a steep run that puts some cold wind in your face.
“State police have clocked it at 45 mph,” Smith said.
The Eagles Mere Ice Toboggan is not just a quaint little throwback to a simpler time. It’s a major fundraiser for local fire departments and an unexpected boon for local businesses in town, and along all the empty, mountainous roads that lead to it.
“Oh, we’ll be making gallons of hot chocolate for sure,” said Melissa Rooker, manager of the Sweet Shop up the street.
In 2014, for the last slide, an estimated 7,200 people came to town. This year, there could be more, and that rush is enough for the historic Eagles Mere Inn to turn the water back on, fire up the heat, and get the soup and chicken wings cooking. Hotels in nearby towns and the county’s slew of Airbnbs are also expecting a rush.
“We’re normally closed until April but, yes, it’s that big of a deal here,” said Tammy Gephart, manager of the Eagles Mere Inn. “Every time I check the site, we’re getting fuller by the day.”
The slide officially opens Friday at 6:30 p.m. and runs through 6 p.m. on Sunday and, possibly, more weekends to come, depending on the ice and weather. The ice slide’s official website is updated daily.
It costs $40 per hour to rent a large, wooden toboggan at the ice slide (cash only) and you can’t bring your own. Renters are guaranteed two rides per hour. The toboggans, built and served by the slide association, can fit up to five adults and kids can’t ride unsupervised. No pets allowed.
“No throwing snowballs,” the website warns.
Locals and homeowners gathered to take photos on Lake Avenue, and many pitched in to help, along with their grandkids. For many children, it would be their first experience on the toboggan. Klotz Middleton, 72, can’t recall how many times she rode the slide over the decades. On Sunday afternoon, she sat backward.
“Yes, it was just as exciting as it was when I was a little girl,” she said.
Most volunteers and visitors milling around the slide Saturday said they couldn’t remember a gap so large in the ice toboggan tradition. Winters used to be consistently cold, they said, the ice a constant. According to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s Climate Change page, statewide temperatures increased 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit in the last century and are expected to rise another 5.9 F by 2050.
“It used to be maybe, one out of every 10 years we wouldn’t be able to have it,” said Lee. “Now it feels like once every 10 years we can.”
Historical records show the average temperature in Sullivan County in January 1904 was 12.20 F. In 2014, it was 16.20 F. This winter, shortly after Christmas, things began to feel different, locals said.
“There was a lot of buzz in the fall because the weather people were predicting a cold winter but people were skeptical,” said Klotz Middleton. “I wasn’t personally skeptical, but maybe more of a realist about it.”
Shortly after the new year, when bone-chilling temperatures began settling over the area, ice slide volunteers began checking the thickness, updating the website and a local Facebook page regularly with much fanfare.
“With nine inches of ice already formed and just a few more inches needed to begin construction, the dream of soaring down the historic slide is closer than ever,” the association announced on Jan. 20.
Now that it’s built, the slide can survive brief temperature swings. Rain would hurt, Smith said, and fog would be worse. Either way, it won’t last long.
This year has been a lesson in living in the moment, some said at the slide, for counting the blessings of the rare, bitter cold they’ve long hoped for. There’s no sense in thinking about next year.
“I rode it as a kid, then I brought my kids up and they rode it,” said volunteer Rick Faux, 61. “I hope my grandkids can ride it but you can only hope for ice.”