Half Moon Pond earns its name from the crescent shoreline that curves through 200 acres of hardwood and conifer forest. Unlike the vast, sometimes choppy expanses of Lake Champlain visible from nearby shores, this glacial pond offers calm, tea-colored water stained by tannic acid from surrounding hemlocks. By mid-June the shallows reach a comfortable seventy degrees, inviting you to wade in over a sandy bottom that gives way to smooth stones.
“A rare swimming pond that warms weeks before Lake Champlain, ringed by lean-to shelters that let families camp steps from the waterline.”
Credit: UnsplashWhite cliffs over a desert beach
The beach itself is modest—a narrow strip of coarse sand where lifeguards watch over swimmers during summer months. Bring a blanket to claim your spot on the grass above the waterline, where picnic tables dot the shaded areas and the smell of sunscreen mingles with pine sap. Children build castles in the damp sand while older kids paddle stand-up boards toward the pond's far end, where beaver lodges rise like haystacks along the marshy edges.
Come evening, the pond turns glassy. You'll hear the plunk of bass breaking the surface and watch dragonflies skim the water as sunset light filters through the canopy. The nearby lean-tos and cabin rentals fill with families who return year after year, their beach towels drying on railings, their coolers stocked with local cheddar and maple creemees from the farm stand down Route 4.
