DALLAS PLANTATION — They came, they saw — and most got wet.

That was largely the point of it, as about 70 snowboard riders and skiers hurled themselves straight down a short slope and then, with varying amounts of grace, tried to skim across a giant puddle of water at Saddleback Mountain on Saturday.

Saddleback’s Kevin Donahue, who was starting the contestants, said Saturday’s draw of about 70 was smaller than 2010’s group but that the temperature was about 20 degrees cooler.

“Last year, it was like a summer day out here,” Donahue said.

For resorts around Maine, the pond-skimming event marks the end of winter, celebrates spring weather and serves as a reminder that for the most part, the snow is melting.

Some made it across the man-made pond on Saturday, spraying water on bystanders and photographers. Others sunk into the chilly water, only to be helped out cold and wet but hardly dispirited.

“Come on in; the pool is open,” Wayne Arsenault said as he stood in the pond wearing a deep-water dive suit. Arsenault, a volunteer ski patroller at Saddleback, is a diver who volunteers to help pull out those who don’t make it from the drink.

He also, on occasion, made the course more challenging as he sprayed contestants he knew with a snow-making hose that was being used to keep the pond full.

“I hope I don’t go swimming,” Kenny Jellerson of Sanford said as he prepared to make his attempt. “I don’t have any extra clothes.”

Fortunately for him, Jellerson made it. Some, like Jared Spiller of Rangeley, had such a good time they went back for seconds.

“It’s so much fun, just the satisfaction of knowing you can do it, that you can skim over a black pool of water,” he said.

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