Anchorage Ice Skating
The Anchorage Parks Department monitors ice thickness and then authorizes hop mopping and maintenance in skating zones at five lakes and one skate pond.
For the classic city ice skating experience where hundreds of people might spend the afternoon careening along smooth, winding paths or warming themselves at burn barrels, try out Westchester Lagoon. Other lakes include Goose Lake, Cheney Lake, Delong Lake, Jewell Lake, Cuddy Family Midtown Park
Best Places for Adventure Skating Near Anchorage
- Potter Marsh — 12 miles from downtown. If ice skating around frozen channels and ponds inside a wildlife refuge sounds fun, try exploring the wild ice of Potter Marsh along the Seward Highway in South Anchorage. After a hard freeze-up, the marsh morphs from bird-nesting habitat into an intriguing maze, with miles of twisty routes leading to unexpected rinks. Very popular with families.
- Eklutna Lake — 37 miles out. Freeze-up turns this seven-mile long fresh-water fiord in Chugach State Park into a multi-mode travel corridor for ice skaters, hikers, skiers and bikers.
- Rabbit Slough / Wasilla Creek — 38 miles out. These frozen channels wind for miles across the Palmer Hay Flats State Game Refuge off the Glenn Highway in the mouth of the Matanuska and Knik valleys.
- Portage Lake — 50 miles out. Once this glacier lake in Portage Valley at the head of Turnagain Arm freezes solid, people flock across ice on skates, skis, bikes and foot.
- Nancy Lake State Recreation Area canoe trail — 72 miles out. A premier paddling destination in summer, this eight-mile loop through 14 lakes can be skated after freeze-up and before significant snowfall.
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Ice Skating
For an otherworldly encounter with a famous glacier you can’t easily approach or even glimpse during summer, lead the family across frozen Portage Lake to a fantastic wall of jumbled, blue ice. Once the lake surface has frozen solid, people flock across on foot, ice skates, skis and bikes. 50 miles from Anchorage.
A premier paddling destination in summer, the eight-mile loop canoe trail through 14 lakes can be skated after freeze-up and before significant snowfall. People often cruise the entire route in one long day, or skate out a few lakes and return. Be prepared to hike portages up to a half-mile between lakes. 71 miles north of Anchorage.
For the classic city ice skating experience where hundreds of people might spend the afternoon careening along smooth, winding paths or warming themselves at burn barrels, try out Westchester Lagoon at the west end of the Chester Creek greenbelt off the L Street / Minnesota Drive corridor.
Freeze-up turns this seven-mile long fresh-water fiord in Chugach State Park into a multi-mode travel corridor for ice skaters, hikers, skiers and bikers. Adventure skating can be good before snow gets too deep, or after mid-winter thaws or wind rehabs the surface.
These frozen channels wind for miles across the Palmer Hay Flats State Game Refuge off the Glenn Highway in the mouth of the Matanuska and Knik river valleys, just 35 miles north of Anchorage. Either travel the streams or explore extensive pond networks on the flats.
Explore the wild ice of Potter Marsh along the Seward Highway in South Anchorage. After a hard freeze-up, the marsh morphs from bird-nesting habitat into an intriguing maze, with miles of twisty routes leading to unexpected rinks. Very popular with families.