Skating on ‘Wild’ Ice in Alaska

I’d been ready for months once I lastly obtained the decision from Alaska final March: Wild ice was on.

A roughly two-week high-pressure window of chilly and clear climate had frozen Portage Lake, the terminus of Portage Glacier, some 50 miles southeast of Anchorage, and it was stable sufficient to skate on its wild — or pure — ice.

“Skating A-grade ice below a glacier actually is a ‘take off work now and simply go to it’ kind of deal with, even for us Alaskans,” mentioned Paxson Woelber, who owns the Anchorage-based skate producer Ermine Skate.

A couple of months earlier, I had bought a pair of Ermine Nordic skates, lengthy blades much like pace skates that affix to the bindings of cross-country ski boots. The compatibility permits skiers to get to distant ice, then change into blades to skate with out altering boots and, as Mr. Woelber put it, “get you off the rink.”

Whereas determine and hockey skates are designed for maneuverability, together with directional modifications and tight turns, Nordic skates are designed for distance. The longer, sooner blades require much less effort to propel, and their stability makes them extra tolerant of pure situations like bumpy or weedy ice.

However the issue with Nordic skating or any sort of wild skating — which is outlined as open air and on naturally shaped ice, whatever the type of skate used — is discovering good ice. Wild-ice seekers extol late fall and generally spring for freezing situations with out snowfall, which degrades ice.

“That’s why it’s so magical: It’s fleeting,” mentioned Laura Kottlowski, a former aggressive determine skater primarily based in Golden, Colo., whom I known as in my seek for wild ice. TikTok and Instagram movies of her leaping and spinning on excessive alpine lakes have gone viral, and Ms. Kottlowski teaches her mixture of winter mountaineering and ice skating as Be taught to Skate Exterior.

Wild Ice 101

I’ve been skating exterior since childhood, totally on Midwestern lakes and ponds that I do know nicely. However the sort of wilderness that Ms. Kottlowski and Mr. Woelber discover requires next-level data of ice and security gear.

Getting ready to skate within the wildest spot of my life, I spent just a few hours watching movies in an internet class on wild ice ($149) made by Luc Mehl, a swift-water security teacher who grew up in Alaska and swapped backcountry snowboarding for skating a number of years in the past as a approach to keep away from avalanche dangers. Primarily based in Anchorage, he has turn into identified for his skate security coaching and beautiful social media movies of him and different skaters gliding on distant frozen lakes.

After I reached him by way of telephone to debate my skating plan, he was simply getting back from Tustumena Lake on the Kenai Peninsula, the place, on an in a single day journey, he had cross-country skied eight miles to succeed in the lake after which skated some 50 miles.

“A part of why skating is so rewarding is it’s not a assured factor,” Mr. Mehl mentioned. “Due to its rarity, it feels particular.”

He suggested me to provide my Ermine skates a take a look at run on Westchester Lagoon once I reached Anchorage. There, a couple of third of skaters wore Nordic blades to get across the massive ice oval that was cleared of snow with lengthy straightaways.

Accustomed to determine skates, I discovered the prolonged fashions quick however awkward. I mastered a skier’s snowplow approach to cease earlier than I tried high pace. Lengthy side-to-side strides despatched me flying down the pond, leaning onto the blades’ edges to nook in preparation for extra distant ice.

Skating to a glacier

“Indoor rinks have the atmosphere of a Costco,” mentioned Mr. Woelber as he, Mr. Mehl and I set off with Mr. Woelbler’s fluffy Samoyed canine, Taiga, from Ermine’s workshop in a modest workplace complicated in South Anchorage for Portage Lake the subsequent morning.

There was nothing Costco about Portage, a roughly five-mile-long lake ringed in snowcapped mountains separated by glacier-filled valleys within the Chugach Nationwide Forest. Within the vibrant solar, the clearest sections of ice mirrored the panorama with the addition of some skaters within the distance.

After rigorously climbing down a rocky slope and over some crusty ice close to the shore in my cross-country boots, I clicked into my blades. Luc lent me a set of plastic-sheathed ice picks to put on like a necklace, which — ought to I fall via the ice — I may deploy and use to stab it, making a grip to haul myself out. He additionally offered a pole with a pointy tip, often known as an ice probe, to check the ice as we went alongside.

“Two sturdy stabs from the elbow,” he demonstrated by jabbing the ice, “and I do know it’s going to maintain me.”

On an ice scale of A to F, we skated what my guides estimated was clear, black, A-grade ice with B-grade patches that had been the feel of an orange peel, and some C-grade sections of frozen snow. Cracks confirmed ice depths between seven and 9 inches; Mr. Mehl defined that 4 inches is secure. Within the middle of the lake, an iceberg was frozen in place, used as an ice slide by native kids.

We linked the smoothest stretches as we slalomed towards the glacier, linking unblemished patches of ice so exactly reflective of a close-by mountain that the lake seemed as if it had been surfaced by a Zamboni.

Edging proper round a thumb of land on the far finish of the lake, we confronted the looming Portage Glacier, suspended in large milky blue blocks that rose almost 10 tales above the frozen lake. After a lot gaping, we continued to its south face, gazing at a brand new shade of turquoise ice, shiny and dimpled by the solar.

As glaciers can calve in any season, we obtained no nearer than 200 ft from the face whereas nervously watching a hiker attain the ice fall, or terminus of the glacier, and snap a string of selfies.

On the way in which again, I attempted to cover from the sturdy headwinds behind a fleece gaiter and labored a lot tougher to stride. After I reached the shore, the parking zone was overflowing with skaters, fat-tire-bike riders and households with sleds.

Passing us, dozens of skaters had been now making their method out to the glacier, most on hockey skates, however a good 40 p.c on Nordics. One Nordic skate novice known as it “terrifying.” His companion had discovered a decade in the past from Norwegian pals who, she mentioned, “know find out how to winter,” calling it a “recreation changer” when it comes to pace, distance and ease.

“I by no means may do all of the turns,” she mentioned with fun.

Ice like glass

The following day we had one other, in skier’s phrases, powder day — which means excellent, hard-to-resist situations — prompting Mr. Mehl to recommend we take a look at out Kenai Lake, an extended, deep, zigzagging physique of water on the Kenai Peninsula about 100 miles south of Anchorage, which he had heard was newly frozen.

There, beneath a dangling glacier tucked right into a mountainside and past the moose tracks within the snow resulting in the shore, was ice graded A-plus: easy as a windless day on water, with surrounding peaks mirrored in a sea inexperienced, mirrorlike floor.

“Yesterday, we obtained views,” mentioned Mr. Mehl, equally thrilled by the situations. “Right this moment, ice!”

We may see open water about 100 yards out, however we stayed away from it, testing the ice at occasional cracks. In some areas, small waves seemed as if that they had frozen in movement. Others rippled gently like sand dunes. As we explored it on a peaceful, windless day, the lake started speaking again in burbles and aquatic belches that Mr. Mehl mentioned had been nonthreatening, indicating the pure enlargement and contraction of the ice. Different occasions, hairline cracks shot via the ice with a laserlike zing and no less than as soon as the lake mimicked a cow mooing, including aural surprise to our tour.

In October, Mr. Mehl started posting social media movies of skating on clear, wild ice on snow-free lakes round Anchorage. But when Kenai Lake was my final wild skate of 2023, no less than I slid into the sundown on peak ice.

Elaine Glusac is the Frugal Traveler columnist, specializing in budget-friendly ideas and journeys.

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