Opportunities to relish all that winter has to offer are available across Naperville, just as long as the conditions are right. And lately — for the first time this season — they have been, Naperville Park District officials say.
Over the past week, the district has been able to open all four of its outdoor skating rinks, according to Director of Parks Tim Quigley. This weekend marked the first time there was enough packed snow for the district to officially open its sled hills as well, Quigley said.
When and whether rinks and hills stay open is at the will of how much snow and how cold Naperville gets. But Quigley assured that “our staff will be out there every day checking both the sled hills and ice rinks so visitors are able to get updates on the status of each of those locations.”
Many of the district’s outdoor winter sports facilities must meet specific criteria in order to be open, officials say. Its natural outdoor ice rinks, for instance, are able to open after a stretch of consistently cold temperatures of 15 degrees or below.
When conditions allow, the district has three lighted ice rinks that are open until 10 p.m. They are located at Centennial Park, 500 W. Jackson Ave.; Nike Sports Complex, 288 W. Diehl Road; and Wolf’s Crossing Community Park, 3253 Wolf’s Crossing Road.
The district also has one rink without lights at Gartner Park, 524 W. Gartner Road, which closes an hour past sunset.
To let visitors know if rinks are open to skate, the district updates their status daily at www.napervilleparks.org/cancellations. It also posts a green or red flag at each location, indicating whether ice is safe or not to skate on.
For this season, the district opened its rink at Wolf’s Crossing on Jan. 6, followed by Gartner Park on Jan. 8, Niles Park on Jan. 10 and Centennial Park on Monday, according to Quigley.
How long the district is able to sustain rinks every season is “hard to generalize,” he said. Ten years ago, the district could keep rinks open for as long as 45 days. In recent years, however, the duration hasn’t been as long, he said. Last year, the district was only able to keep rinks open safely for about seven days. The winter before, rinks lasted three days.
“It’s truly season by season,” Quigley said, adding that over the past decade, “we’ve seen a pretty steady decline in the number of days that we’ve been able to keep them open.”
The goal each season is that “we’re able to keep them open as long as possible,” Quigley said. That’s certainly the case this week. Following a cold start, temperatures are expected to rise after Wednesday, climbing to a high of 35 degrees Thursday and up to 40 degrees by Friday, according to the National Weather Service.
Over the weekend into early next week, though, temperatures are expected to drop again, with Monday struggling to get out of the single digits, said Todd Kluber, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Romeoville.
With the expected bout of warmer temperatures, the hope is that “we have good depth to the ice and we’ll be able to keep (rinks) open,” Quigley said.
Frozen retention ponds in parks and neighborhoods might be attractive to skaters and sledders, but they can present a safety hazard that people should stay away from, park district officials said. Even though they may appear solid, thin or weak areas are dangerous and unpredictable, they said.
Meanwhile, hills for sledding and snowboarding are open when there is more than two inches of snow, the soil is frozen and no visible grass is showing.
Rotary Hill, 443 Aurora Ave., has lights and is open until 10 p.m.
Other hills do not have lights and close an hour after sunset. They are: Arrowhead Park, 711 Iroquois Ave.; Brook Crossings, 1015 95th St.; Country Lakes Park, 1835 N. Aurora Road; Gartner Park, 524 W. Gartner Road; Weigand Riverfront Park, 2436 S. Washington St.; May Watts Park, 804 S. Whispering Hills Drive; and Wolf’s Crossing Community Park, 3253 Wolf’s Crossing Road.
The district starts to prepare its sled hills for the winter starting about the week of Thanksgiving, Quigley said.
“We just want to have them up and ready as soon as we see that kind of extended cold snap,” he said.
So far this winter, the National Weather Service estimates Naperville has received between 7 to 10 inches of snow. For the Chicago area, snow seasons are tracked from July through the following June. Right now the area is averaging “a little bit below normal” in expected snow totals, Kluber said.
“Normally, at this point of the season, on average we’re somewhere in that 10- to 14-inch range, so we’re maybe running three inches below normal, maybe up to four,” he said. Still, he added, “we’re just slightly below normal for this time of year.”
For more information and updates about winter recreation offered through the Naperville Park District, go to www.napervilleparks.org.
