We will ice skate on Lake Bde Maka Ska (Formerly known as Lake Calhoun) and the connecting city lakes.
You can recognize me by my bright green coat.
Take advantage of this rare combination of thick, smooth ice and warm air temperatures!! Skating has been great!!
Bring:
Ice skates
Blade guards to walk on short stretches of pavement near two of the canal bridges
Cross country ski poles, if you like to use them
Foam pad if you want something warm to sit on the ice when you put on your skates.
Thermos of something warm to drink, if you want.
This will be a fun/social skate, not a hard training skate. After skating for a while on Bde Maka Ska, we can decide as a group whether to skate through the channels to any of the other connected lakes, or stay on Bde Maka Ska. On Sunday 2/4 and Tuesday 2/6 we skated through the whole chain of lakes to Brownie and it was a lot of fun!
There is no warming house, so wear warm clothes!
I have skated 51 miles in the past eight days on Lake Nokomis, Lake Harriet, Bde Maka Ska, Lake of the Isles, Cedar Lake, Brownie Lake, and Bush Lake. The ice is PLENTY thick to be safe…11-12” on Bde Maka Ska, 6” on Cedar Lake, and somewhere in between for the rest of the lakes. The smoothest ice Sunday & Tuesday was on the northwest quadrant of Bde Maka Ska. But it was skateable almost everywhere else, including the channels between lakes.
I’ve been using my new Nordic skate blades attached to my skate ski boots and they’ve been great. But I saw lots of other people having fun with hockey skates and figure skates. I’ve been using my cross country ski poles for more efficiency and to go faster at times. Poles also make it a little easier to push through occasional short stretches of bumpier ice, but they’re not necessary.
There is a porta potty at the parking lot, and indoor public bathrooms on the east side of the Pimento Jamaican Kitchen building.
FFI-Craig Wiklund, captain.craigw@gmail.com