SO I flooded my rink a couple weeks ago and it froze good last week. Then we got hammered with 2feet of snow. Over the past few days the temps have hovered around 0F and below 0 at night. Today got up to 17 but currently its 8. I figured the rink was good and frozen and started shoveling. I got about 1/4 of the rink shoveled and started hitting slush. There's about 9 inches on the surface right now. I'm assuming what I was successful shoveling is just packed frozen snow. I can't get to 3/4 of my rink without breaking through the surface. What do I do? This weekend its supposed to get up to 40F here, then drop back down To high 20s next week. Should i shovel what I can then flood tonight? Should I wait till the weekend and hope the snow melts down to a smooth layer? We have a 20% chance of snow over the next few dates and supposed to rain Sunday.

Just screwing around until I can get a reply, I'm finding the edges of the rink show my original water level, and then I hit hard packed or even frozen snow. And this isn't the type of frozen snow you move. Its mended to my original ice. My West And East walls right next to the boards are frozen solid. My north wall, which is my high end of the rink, impartially frozen. There's solid ice under the snow. My south side, which is my deep end is deep slush and a solid layer of ice under that slush. I have about 8 inches left in my deep end of board to add more water, although they're already bowing, if my solution is flood a lot more, ill probably need a trip to pick up some rebar to add more board support. Please let me know if I should be doing something tonight or if 40F over a day with forecast of sun will melt the snow down and create a nice smooth layer once it re-freezes. If I don't need to be shoveling tonight, I might save my back!

So pictured below is where I got last night. I basically shoveled all the snow I could get off into this nice large pile, then threw it over the edge and cleaned it up. I got a hose out and started spraying and noticed that it wasn't really collecting in any one area because there's so many bumps and divots from the hard-packed snow left over. So I stopped flooding and just went inside. Here's my thoughts on what's going to happen over the next 10 days. In my area the weather will be as such: Fri - Rain 39F, Sat - Rain 39F, Sun - 38F, Mon 36F, Tue 36F, then Wed-Sat it'll get back down to 20's. My thoughts are that the snow will melt, and flow where it wants to, filling in all divots and creating a nice smooth layer. Anyone agree that will be the likely outcome? Other ideas of what I should do going forward from today?

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I don't know as this is my first year doing a rink but man that is a lot of snow. My favorite part is you haven't lost your focus which is that there is still a cold beer sitting in the middle of the rink. Good luck and I sure hope it all works out.

Deke

First of all, I love the beer bottle in the middle because that would have been a **** load of work.

So your water wasn't completely frozen and the weight of the snow caused the water to seep through and soak the snow, damn gravity. Typically when this happens you have two choices: (a) leave it and let the slush under the snow freeze or (b) remove snow and slush down to the original ice before it starts freezing.

Here's what I would do if I was in your predicament: Leave it until it starts to warm up and begins to rain. If it isn't back down to the a glistening pool by Monday when the rain ends, slap on some rubber boots and grab another beer along with your hose and flood it until the crap is gone.

Where are you located? How big is the rink? Sorry I wasn't online last night to help out with your questions, but I was out on my rink grabbing a skate before it hits +8'C on Saturday and trying out my new twig. :-)

Thanks for the replies guys. I would have slushed it down last night like you suggest, but it was -6F here which is -21C where you're at. I had to drink that beer in 10 minutes, or it was frozen solid. As soon as I broke through some slush and got the snow off, it was frozen within a few minutes. I live in the very bottom left corner of Michigan. We got about 2-3 feet of snow this past weekend, then Monday and Tuesday the temps plummeted to around -15F and the winds picked up, causing drifts about 6 feet high in certain areas, mostly on my rink. The rink is 30 feet by 50 feet. With my slope, I had planned on the water being just a little over halfway up my boards a full load. However, with this snow, that has almost doubled and my boards are bowing like crazy. So I'm off to lowes tonight to pick up rebar and hopefully I can get the bar in before a blow out. Thanks again for all the help and suggestions. Lets hope this rain smooths it out, melts the snow, and gets me back on the ice next week. Luckily, I have a tournament this weekend with 4 games, 2 games on Monday, and a game on Tuesday. And I won't give up on this rink till it's 60 out. I've only skated on it once this year and I'll do whatever it takes to get it frozen again as long as the temperature cooperates.

Put your beer in a snow bank when you aren't drinking it. The snow will insulate it and it won't turn to slush nearly as fast as it would sitting out in the open in -6F temperatures.

Yeah, I did that too, still froze pretty quickly. So I just started drinking it faster and put it out where my jobsite was at! A few years ago I used to go out to a buddies pond and we'd take a case of molson out there, throw it all in the snow, and not get off the ice until it was gone. Brings me back to my college days.

Yeah, you are probably drinking American beer so it'll freeze faster with all that extra water in there. :-P

Haha yeah! I brew my own beer, but I save that for non-freezing conditions. That's usually best room temp or a little colder.