WEST DANVILLE, Vt. (AP) – At Joe’s Pond, they put a 65-pound cinder block on the ice and tie it to an old-fashioned alarm clock on the deck of Homer Fitts’ cottage, 200 feet away. When the block falls through, the string tugs on the clock and stops it.

A dollar buys you a chance to guess the exact date and time it happens. But you will have plenty of competition: More than 10,000 entries are expected this year, for a potential jackpot of perhaps $5,000.

From Schoodic Lake, Maine, to Nenana, Alaska, and some chilly points in between, it is “ice out” season, with folks wagering on when frozen ponds, lakes and rivers will melt.

Born of cabin fever, the guessing games are cherished rites of spring that attract contestants far from the frozen shores, in part because of the advent of the Web.

“After a long cold winter, where you’ve had quite a few feet of snow on the ground, you get to the point where it’s enough, you want to look forward to spring,” said Anne Swenson, publisher of the Ely (Minn.) Echo newspaper, which runs a free contest on Shagawa Lake. “It’s silly. You need some silliness at this time of year.”

Some places track ice-out dates as a matter of local interest, with no contest or guessing involved. Others hold betting pools in which official observers determine when the water is officially ice-free. The contests that end with snowmobiles or other objects taking a plunge generate the most interest.

Black’s Cliff Resort in Hazelhurst, Wis., puts a stuffed dummy named Cliff in a beach chair on Lower Kaubashine Lake and charges $5 to guess the day he gets dunked.

Resort manager Jenny Gibson said the contest is a source of entertainment for her summer guests, “who are sitting behind their desks anywhere from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., wondering what’s going on in the woods.”

The granddaddy of them all is the Nenana Ice Classic, held in Alaska. People pay $2.50 to guess when a wooden tripod on the ice-covered Tanana River will take the plunge. Last year, the $270,500 jackpot was split by eight people who correctly predicted May 2 at 5:29 p.m.

Money isn’t always the lure. In the Ely, Minn., ice out, early winners got a package of Polish sausage; now, they compete for a $100 gift certificate to a resort hotel.

At Joe’s Pond in northern Vermont, the cinder block is put on the ice in late March or early April, with a red flag sticking up so snowmobilers don’t crash into it.

As spectator sports go, it’s not exactly riveting. But in 1988, the first year the contest was held, 421 tickets were sold. Last year, 8,386 tickets were sold to people in 41 states and two foreign countries. The ice went out April 16 at 3:20 p.m., the earliest ever. The deadline for entering the 20th annual contest is Sunday.

The contest does not violate Vermont laws against gambling because it is run by a nonprofit community organization. Half the proceeds go to the winner; the other half go toward the local Fourth of July fireworks show.

Many contestants will be following the action on the Web only.

Bruce Molinaroli, an investment manager in New York who vacations at Joe’s Pond, buys 200 tickets every year and gives them away to family, friends and co-workers.

“People at the office start asking me in January or February, “When do we get our tickets?”‘ he said.

One year, a baby who was yet to be born won. His parents entered the contest on his behalf and correctly picked the date and time of the ice out.

“The odd things you come up with in the northwoods,” said Gibson, who runs the Wisconsin contest.

In other New England contests:

-The Moosehead Lake (Maine) Region Chamber of Commerce holds an ice-out contest. In the past, it charged $1 per entry as a fund-raiser, but now it’s free. The winner gets an outdoor grill donated by a local business.

Ice-out on Maine’s largest lake is the moment it becomes clear for its entire 43-mile length, as certified by a pilot who flies overhead to check if the ice is gone.

The Moosehead Riders snowmobile club used to hold an ice-out contest in East Cove, but it died out about six or seven years ago. In it, the device was a yellow snowmobile connected to a battery-operated clock.

-Predicting ice-out on New Hampshire’s largest lake, Winnipesaukee, has been a local passion and occasion for celebration for more than a century.

Emerson Aviation in Laconia, N.H., declares ice-out on the 72-acre lake when the MS Mt. Washington cruise ship can reach all its ports of call. Records have been kept since 1887 (ice-out May 7) and range from March to May. Ice-out was declared last year at 2:47 p.m. on April 3.

The Web site www.winnipesaukee.com offers modest prizes such as charts and T-shirts to whoever makes the three closest guesses on the site during February. More than 300 people entered.

The earliest recorded ice-out there was March 28, 1921; the latest was May 12, 1888. Webmaster Don Zimmer said sun, rising water and wind are the key ingredients in determining when the ice goes out.

“My best guess would be about April 20,” he said Friday.

AP-ES-03-30-07 1513EDT

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