More Photos Below!Gallery
OK, we’re in the midst of our January Thaw right now. It’s dragging out. We lost our sweet skiing snow. But now it’s cold all over again. Yet we can’t ski. Ugh. What to do?
GO WILD ICE SKATING!
The lake ice had gotten bad, what with the mixed weather of the last month, but after the big melt the lakes got all smooth. Now it’s cold again and PRESTO — time to skate!
The wild ice is good!
Here’s a YouTube of some of our local action:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=nu6KVghDZtc
Each year there’s usually a midwinter week or two where the black ice comes back on the lakes after getting bad from earlier heavy wet snowfalls and such. Now’s the time! Heck, if it keeps up a few more days the RIVER might even get good! That’s the BEST. …To skate down the curves of a little local river.
Also, there’s not much snow and it’s been fluffy so you can either skate right thru it or easily shovel it off with a few passes.
Don’t try to shovel a whole rink — unless you just gotta — it’s a tonna work. Shovel a loop 6-feet wide instead. Make wide corners for cross-overs, do laps, have races! Make a figure-8.
Of course, you can always hit the rink. It’s a dandy sociable time. You can get in a bit of a workout and work on some moves, too — hockeys are better than speeders there, unless you can get some emptier ice time — like maybe at the first and last of the public open session. Well, whatever’s closer! For me it’s the river and the lake.
I’ve never been much of a hockey type but I bet it’s good fun to get in some pond action — in that case, shovel your rink! (I’m getting my first pair of hockeys, soon — more fun with kids — and we have a stick around here somewhere. And a puck, too…)
If it’s too cold for lacing skates, get a set of Nordic Skates and just walk out and clip into them. You wear your XC ski boots and treat em like skis. More at nordicskater.com
Of course, chop and hole before skating and check that it’s at least 4″ thick of good, fresh ice (for one-person safety). Bring a rope and spare clothes in case. Carry an ice-spike combo-stick on cord over neck. Having long sticks around is a good idea. Our typical ice is over water only a couple feet deep. More on ice safety: www.wikihow.com/Know-When-Ice-is-Safe , www.dnr.state.mn.us/safety/ice/index.html
A huge muskrat house.
Where the figures come from in figure skating…
Figures in the snow are a fun part of skating.
I shoveled off a quarter mile of twisting, intersecting tracks on the swamp in the Van Atta Woods behind my brother’s house. What fun! The girls love it. It’s big enough for highpower crossover cornering with hockeyskates. On the even-bigger bog next door I skated over all sorts of animal tracks in a half-mile loop around the perimeter. After skating the girls go sledding on my brother’s hill. Can’t beat it!
This pic was supposed to be of Henry and I, instead of just the photo-hog, but he got cold and then went for the camera, which we had forgotten. He had a great time skating around Rose Lake with poles. The poles really helped him as a newbie. We were flying! But his young fingers just don’t have the circulation built up in them yet. Palms white, fingers red—poor thing! But he was fine while out skating. It’s a great way to go when it’s cold but low snow. The evening had a dramatic sunset for a grand finale. Tomorrow: Rose Lake Swamp! (I just ordered a set of $30 Nordic blades for my ski boots. No more lacing up in the wind! Review soon.) Next pics: a wild ice outing with the girls!
One evening Lucy and I went to the Rose Lake Impoundment and both skied and ice-skated a mile of its little bays and inlets. Even as it got dark Lucy didn’t want to go in.
The figures of a speed skate.
My brother Tim, on his old speeders. He’s usually behind the camera. He manages of the MSU Bikes program — this smooth section of river ice runs by the front of his shop.
Skating on the Red Cedar on the MSU Campus. Lots of students watched from the bridges as my bro and I blazed up and down the river. (Ice is thick enough where we were skating.)
