Has ice skating on a pond during the Winter ever crossed your mind? Are you too afraid to skate on it? Ice skating is one of the most popular and exciting activities you can do during the Winter season. However, it should come with lots of precaution and stability. Whether you pay money to skate on one of the local ice rinks, or you find a local pond and take your skates there. You can enjoy a fun and affordable day with your family!
Although skating on ponds is a ton of fun, you should be extremely careful and always check the ice before proceeding to skate. A safe way to check the ice is by drilling several holes and using a tape measure to measure the thickness of the ice. When the ice is two inches or less in thickness, it is not safe to leave the shore. This is very unsafe, and you can easily fall through. You should never go skating on the pond alone; in case of emergency, and you need somebody else’s assistance.
Three inches should be your bare minimum for ice thickness, but give it another cold day or two and it will be safe to skate on. It is still not safe to skate on only being 3 inches, but once it hits the 4-inch mark (or more) it is recommended for walking, skating, and ice skating on foot. Junior at RHS student, James DeChristifano, has had the opportunity to ice skate on a pond. When speaking about this experience, he says “Yes, the first time I went ice skating on the pond near my house, I kept falling and it was hard to stay on my feet. Nonetheless, I loved it and I thought it was the best in the world. Nothing beats pond skating.”
Believe it or not, people make their own rinks in the comfort of their backyard. This is a nice way to skate during the winter when you don’t want to travel to a pond or do not have a pond that you can get to. If you are interested in making your own pond for skating, you should remove any debris from the surface and around edges, then shovel the surface using a flat nose shovel. This is so you shovel the snow from side to side in the middle of the rink and then from the middle of the edges. Finally, pile snow to create backstops at both ends of the rink and enjoy a nice skate on your own rink or pond!
