Ice-out — when the water on Maine’s lakes and ponds becomes circumnavigable from one end of the water body to the other without ice blocking the path.

Rangeley Roots Salon is continuing the tradition of taking guesses of when customers think ice-out will fall this year. Owner Kerry Gardener takes the bets down on a loose-leaf sheet of notebook paper. Gardner doesn’t charge anything, though, and the person who guesses the closest day and time will win a free haircut.

Gardner said she got the idea from her father, Jim Gardner, who took bets in the 1980s and ’90s when he ran Oquossoc Grocery. Each year, businesses in Rangeley and Oquossoc will do the same.

“People would bet, like $1, and they’d put their bet in a big jar and write it on a piece of paper, Gardner said. “That’s what made me want to bring it back to my business.”

The safest date to list for Rangeley’s ice-out might be May 5, the average of the past 100 years. Guesses fall across a wide scope of dates, the earliest guess being April 20 and the latest being May 11.

Gardner said her lucky guesses are her father’s and sister’s birthdays, as they fall right in the middle of the average of past ice-out days.