Ice Skating
Adirondack Ice Skating
From community-maintained outdoor rinks to Olympic-caliber ovals, nearly every community offers a family-friendly venue to enjoy the cold. Just lace up your skates and you'll find a welcoming spot to glide throughout the park. See below for all the possibilities.
Skating around the Park
Lake Champlain Region
The Lake Champlain Region provides abundant, accessible opportunities for community ice skating throughout the winter season. Nearly every town features a dedicated, volunteer-maintained rink, offering surfaces for figure skating, hockey, and recreational gliding. These rinks are often set within scenic community parks, such as one near Bicentennial Falls or another offering panoramic views of Lake Champlain, providing a perfect blend of natural beauty and classic winter tradition for all ages.
Lake Placid
Lake Placid offers an unparalleled skating experience built on its Olympic heritage, featuring multiple indoor Olympic rinks and the historic outdoor Speed Skating Oval where visitors can glide on the same ice as champions. During winter, the village creates a beautiful skating loop on Mirror Lake and clears several natural rinks for public enjoyment and pick-up hockey games. The town also hosts major figure skating competitions and exhibitions, drawing athletes year-round.
Adirondack Hub
The Adirondack Hub fully embraces winter with excellent options for ice skating, making it a fantastic activity for the whole family. Several towns, including Schroon Lake, Newcomb, and Minerva, offer maintained outdoor rinks, often located in pavilions or parks with outdoor lighting for night use. Additionally, visitors can experience the unique thrill of skating on "wild ice" on frozen lakes and ponds in the region, such as Schroon Lake and Minerva Lake, once conditions allow for safe public use.
Glide on Wild Ice
Skating on frozen lakes is a beloved pastime across the Adirondack Park. When wind sweeps off lakes and ponds, leaving nothing but glassy ice, it's hard not to grab your skates and stare in awe at the landscape around you. Popular places like Mirror Lake offer a step towards wild ice, with a lap around the perimeter being cleared as conditions permit. Wandering into the wild, folks often stop at spots like the Cascade Lakes just outside of Lake Placid to skate, among many other spots in the Park. Doing so presents inherent risks, so it's important to always be prepared, know safe ice depths, and never go alone.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, towns and villages will often convert pavilions into ice rinks in the winter, or have their own dedicated ice rink in recreation areas. Here are a few options.
- Minerva Ice Skating Rink
- Newcomb Ice Skating Rink
- Schroon Lake Ice Rink
- Inlet's Fern Park Pavilion
- Indian Lake Skating Rink
- Bicentennial Park in Ticonderoga
- Ballard Park in Westport
- Wilmington Youth Center
- Elizabethtown Skating Rink - Noble Terrace
Yes! Many of the communities across the Adirondacks host open skating hours for the public. Here are a few of them:
- Saranac Lake Civic Center
- Tupper Lake Memorial Civic Center
- Lake Placid Olympic Center
- Geiger Arena at the Fern Park Recreation Area in Long Lake