Making Ice Trails and Tunnels Through Snow

I have been building a rink for 5 years now, every winter. In this instructable, I will be covering how I made a trail that connects the building where we put on our skates to the rink. This allows us to skate to and from the ice. One area of this trail is prone to drifting over. I got tired of clearing three feet of snow off of it, and had the brilliant idea of building a tunnel to skate through.

You will need

-Abundant subzero temperatures

-1 ft or more of snow

-Water from a garden hose or similar

-A shovel

Optional

-A snow moving machine like a snowblower or a loader tractor

The first step is to decide where the trail will go. You should plan to make the trail about 4 feet wide, if possible. It's hard to skate down something much narrower than that, and if you will have a lot of traffic going both ways, 6 feet wide would be even better. Make any turns flowing curves if possible, instead of abrupt angles. Try to avoid steep hills. I have already built one on a brief 50% grade, but the flatter your trail is, the easier it will be to maintain the ice later, and the safer it will be to navigate.

When you have a good idea of where you want the trail, you need to build the base. When properly made, this serves as the foundation for our ice. It keeps the water from soaking into ground or running away, and since ice is basically clear, it serves as a nice white background to reflect the sun and keep the sun from melting your ice on warm days.

Start with a layer of snow that covers the grass, concrete, or whatever the trail is over. Ideally, you should have 6-12" of loose snow covering the length and width of the trail. I had to use my shovel and snowblower to do some distribution so my trail was evenly covered. Then pack it down tightly. There are a few ways to do this. In some areas I drove back and forth repeatedly with a car, I also found another human and pulled them around on a sled over the trail. Whatever works. If you have a skid-loader or tractor, you can put the bucket on the ground, then drag it over your trail in reverse. This is one of the best packing methods, and definitely the fastest, but it obviously requires heavy equipment. If it's within 2 degrees of freezing, above or below, the snow will generally pack very easily. If it's colder than that, the snow will be much more difficult to pack, but it still is possible. It just doesn't like to stick together as well. In this case, I like to pack it one day, then leave it overnight before trying to flood it with water. The normal overnight change in temperature makes it much firmer the next day.

Now you are ready to start making ice! This works best at about -10 to -20 Celsius, but as long as the temperature is below freezing, you'll be fine. The first coat of water must be delicately applied. Even hard packed snow is very porous, and water will quickly soak in. If you spray too much on, it will melt holes right through your carefully packed base. Take a garden hose with a spray nozzle and apply a fine, even mist to the entire trail. Give it a few minutes to freeze, then go over it again. If the temperature is very cold and the trail is fairly long, you might be able to start over as soon as you're done the first pass. The goal is to build up a glaze of ice over your snow base. As you keep applying coats, you will notice that the snow gets more and more waterproof, and the water starts forming puddles in the low spots. This is exactly what you want. You will also notice places where the water is running away and forming holes in your precious base. This is bad. Patch those by packing snow into those. I sometimes mix snow and water in a bucket, then pack that into the holes in my base using my boots.

Keep adding water periodically. If your base is sealed and waterproof, you can really pour it on. I often put up to an inch or two in the low spots, although if you do put it on that thick, you'll have to wait a few hours for it to freeze, even in very cold temperatures. The water will naturally flow to low spots, so as your ice gets thicker, it will also get smoother. once you have at least a half inch of ice everywhere, it should be ready for use.

You are ready to skate! Or maybe you want to take your trail to the next level and build it through a tunnel...

A word of warning before we get started. Ice trails are fairly safe. The biggest risk you face is wiping out and whacking your elbow or something. Tunnels, if not constructed properly, can be much more dangerous, especially if they are made through a man-made pile of snow (as opposed to a God-made snowdrift). An improperly built tunnel could collapse with you in it, and potentially trap, crush, and/or suffocate you. Proceed with caution! I will address the various dangers and how to avoid them as we go.

First, if you don't have temperatures consistently below -5 Celsius, don't construct a tunnel (I'm Canadian, hence the Celsius temperatures). In warmer weather, snow will gradually deform under stress. Even if your tunnel doesn't collapse, it will probably shrink and sag and settle until you don't fit through it. This was not a problem I faced. It was about -25 when I initially dug through. Brrr.

My goal was a big enough tunnel to skate through without crawling. For this, I needed a massive pile of snow. I hauled about half of it there with a scoop shovel, which probably took about 10 hours. Then when someone came to clear the yard, I went and asked him to add to my pile. He used his tractor bucket to add the other half of the snow I needed in about 10 minutes. You could also make the pile with a snowblower, which would probably make a very dense and structurally sound pile to dig through. I walked around on top to help break up some of the chunks and compact the snow a bit. Then it was time to let the pile rest.

It is very important to wait for a few days before starting the tunnel. The snow will settle, and the daily temperature fluctuations will cause it to firm up and will help any large chunks to stick together.

After the pile had sat for a bit, I started digging. My pile was about 40 feet long. I started from both ends, digging a small pilot tunnel just big enough for me to crawl through. I used a short handled metal spade to break chunks loose, then kicked them behind me. When the tunnel started getting full, I would crawl back out and use my large scoop to empty them out. I built a ramp to the top of my pile, and I hauled what I pulled out of the tunnel up there, being careful not to step directly on top of my excavations. It is good to observe the conditions of the snow as you dig, and if anything looks unstable, stop, and correct it before you move on. Also, don't dig alone! Have someone nearby who can check up on you, and if something were to happen, could shovel you out.

After about 5 hours of digging, I started hearing a bit of a hollow sound, and soon I was the entire way through. Then it was time to enlarge the tunnel and refine its shape. Note that the top of the tunnel is arched. This is very important. It keeps the tunnel strong by equally distributing the load on the snow and avoiding any stress points. Another thing you could do to increase strength is spray down the walls of the tunnel and ice them just like the base for the trail. I am planning to do this, but it's hardly necessary because already temperature fluctuation has hardened my tunnel to the point I can walk across the top, and I weigh over 200lb.

I hope this inspires you to go take advantage of the cold and snow in your life to do something cool!