Winnipesaukee is where most of this pack's traffic is. It runs 45,344 acres, big enough that the wind at one end of it is not the wind you have at the other, and the good part of a day there is threading the islands at a speed that lets you read what is under you. Squam sits next door at 6,746 acres and gives you a completely different day on the water. Go north and the pack runs into the Rangeley chain and reaches Memphremagog, 23,500 acres of long narrow water. This is granite country. The bottom comes up in places the shoreline gives you no warning about, and the boats that get hurt are almost always the ones crossing a cove they have never crossed before.
The pack carries 2,123 charted water bodies. Of those, 1,619 are named, and 144 are named lakes larger than a square kilometer, which works out to about 247 acres. The outlines come from the National Hydrography Dataset and the depth under them is built from state elevation surveys. That is why a lake here arrives with contours and a depth number on the water rather than a name floating on a blue shape, and why a draft you enter once has something to be read against.
Of the 2,123 charted water bodies in the pack, 1,619 carry a name. That is just over three quarters, and it puts this pack sixteenth of the 48 state lake packs for named water. On lakes larger than a square kilometer it stands fifteenth, with 144 of them.
The named count is the one you feel at the ramp, because a name is how you find water you have never launched on. You type Winnisquam and you are on Winnisquam, instead of panning a map looking for a shape you half recognize. The size count says something different. There are 144 pieces of water inside this box big enough to be worth hooking up the trailer for, and the other 1,475 named ones come in at a square kilometer or under, which is water you can cross in a few minutes.
| Lake | Charted surface area |
|---|---|
| Lake Winnipesaukee | 184 km² (45,344 acres) |
| Lake Memphremagog | 95 km² (23,500 acres) |
| Mooselookmeguntic Lake | 55 km² (13,566 acres) |
| Umbagog Lake | 31 km² (7,586 acres) |
| Aziscohos Lake | 28 km² (6,870 acres) |
| Squam Lake | 27 km² (6,746 acres) |
| Rangeley Lake | 25 km² (6,252 acres) |
| Upper Richardson Lake | 19 km² (4,621 acres) |
| Lac Massawippi | 18 km² (4,571 acres) |
| Newfound Lake | 18 km² (4,423 acres) |
| Lake Winnisquam | 17 km² (4,176 acres) |
| Sunapee Lake | 17 km² (4,102 acres) |
The twelve largest named lakes the New Hampshire pack carries, by charted surface area, measured from the chart polygon itself. The pack carries 2,123 charted water bodies in all, 1,619 of them named, and 144 named lakes larger than one square kilometer.
There is no NOAA chart for a reservoir. The official charts cover the coast, the intracoastal and navigable rivers, and past that a lake is an outline. Inland depth in Helm is built from state elevation surveys instead, with the water bodies themselves coming out of the National Hydrography Dataset. That pairing is the whole reason a lake in this pack is water you can plan a route across against your own draft. Each reading also carries the date its survey was taken, which is worth a look before you lean on a tight number.
A reservoir sits at whatever level somebody is holding it at. Moore Reservoir is 3,262 acres in this pack and First Connecticut Lake is 3,039, and both are impoundments. The survey behind their contours measured a surface standing at some elevation on the day it was taken. When the pool is down two feet from that, every depth on the lake is two feet less, all of it together, and the shape of the bottom has not moved at all. The contour still shows you where the old channel runs and where the shoulder comes up on either side of it. You carry the level in your head and the lines keep working.
Winnipesaukee is 183.5 square kilometers off the chart polygon, or 45,344 acres. That is more than the next three in the pack put together: Memphremagog at 95.1, Mooselookmeguntic at 54.9 and Umbagog at 30.7 come to 180.7 between them. Squam, which gets run because it is right there over the hill, is 6,746 acres, so Winnipesaukee is close to seven times the size of it.
Under the top few, the lakes bunch up hard. Newfound is 4,423 acres, Winnisquam 4,176, Sunapee 4,102 and Ossipee 4,003. All four fit inside 420 acres of one another, which means that on a list they read as the same lake four times and on the water they are nothing alike. Lake Wentworth and Lower Richardson land on the identical figure, 3,089 acres each, measured the same way off their own polygons.
The twenty largest named lakes the pack carries, by the area of the charted polygon:
Chart packs are cut to a rectangle rather than to a state boundary, so water sitting near a border ends up in more than one of them. This one carries the Rangeley chain: Mooselookmeguntic at 13,566 acres, Umbagog at 7,586, Aziscohos at 6,870, Rangeley at 6,252, Upper Richardson at 4,621, Lower Richardson at 3,089 and Cupsuptic at 2,693. It reaches north far enough to take in Memphremagog at 23,500 acres, with Lac Massawippi at 4,571 and Lac Magog at 2,595. Download it for a long weekend on Winnipesaukee and all of that comes down in the same file.
The Maine, Vermont and Massachusetts packs cover their own boxes and overlap this one along the edges, so a lake near a line is in whichever of them you happen to have on the phone. There is no guessing involved and nothing to reconcile.
Once the pack is downloaded it wants no signal from there on. That is the reason to pull it at home on wifi rather than find out about it in the parking lot at First Connecticut Lake with the boat already off the trailer.
Inland lake depth comes from state elevation surveys rather than from nautical charts, and a reservoir sits at whatever level it is being held at that week. Treat the shape and the depth as a guide, keep a lookout, and verify locally.
183.5 square kilometers, or 45,344 acres, measured off the charted polygon in the New Hampshire pack. That is larger than the next three lakes the pack carries added together: Memphremagog at 95.1 square kilometers, Mooselookmeguntic at 54.9 and Umbagog at 30.7 total 180.7. Depth on it is built from state elevation surveys, so the water has contours and a depth number rather than just an outline.
No. The packs are cut to a box, so this one also carries the Rangeley chain, including Mooselookmeguntic at 13,566 acres, Umbagog at 7,586, Aziscohos at 6,870 and Rangeley at 6,252, and it reaches north to Memphremagog at 23,500 acres. The Maine, Vermont and Massachusetts packs cover the same border water from their own side, so a lake near a line sits in more than one pack.
Newfound, by 247 acres. Newfound measures 17.9 square kilometers, or 4,423 acres, and Winnisquam measures 16.9 square kilometers, or 4,176 acres. Sunapee at 4,102 acres and Ossipee at 4,003 sit right below them, which puts all four inside 420 acres of one another.
Helm Boating