Alpine Skating
Jeremy skates around on the side of the lake with the smooth ice.
I first learned to skate when I was a little kid on a pond by my house. We would go a couple times a winter when it was cold and frozen. I was an okay skater, but it never really took up much of my time. I then grew out of my skates and never replaced them and went years without skating. I moved to Utah, where it wasn't really an option due to lack of nearby ponds and lakes, but it never crossed my mind as something to do.
Upon moving to Canada, I really wanted to relearn how to skate. I pretty much immediately bought a pair of used skates and would go to the local rink on open skate nights, and the lakes when cold enough temperatures allowed. It wasn't long before I remember how to do it and was long before I was flying around the ice, even if I am out of control at some points.
Since then, I have wanted to find an alpine lake backdropped by mountains to skate on. While there are plenty of lakes that meet that criteria around me, timing it perfectly is also crucial. You need the combination of cold weather, so the lake quickly freezes so it's smooth, but also lack of snow, so it stays fresh. These conditions don't often line up as we regularly start getting snow very early in the alpine.
I was keeping a moderately close eye on the weather and saw a day that might work. I called some buddies, and we decided to give it a go. We weren't confident that it would be successful. Upon getting out of the truck to start the hike, it was warm, but we decided to give it a go. We questioned ourselves the entire way to the lake, but upon seeing the ice were pleasantly surprised.
Most of the lake had a light dusting of snow, so the ice was a bit rougher, but one corner had perfectly smooth ice. We ended up skating around for hours before calling it quits and heading home. This hardly satisfies the desire for skating in the alpine, just makes me want to explore different areas with my skates on.
