Still at least a couple weeks to go waiting for river trail, Forks manager says

The man in charge of getting the river trail at The Forks up and running this year says Winnipeggerscould be able to hit the ice in a couple of weeks depending on how expected snowfall impacts ice growth.

Dave Pancoe, manager of special projects at The Forks, said the city considers ice safe to walk on at around 10 centimetres thick. The port area of the trail hadabout 43 centimetres of ice as of Thursday afternoon,and should be ready to skate on in around two weeks, he said.

After a slow start to the winter, Pancoe said a December cold snap helped thicken the ice before heavy snowfall slowed the process down.

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Now the ice trail prep team has to play the waiting game to make sure the ice is safe.

"Before we make it smooth to skate on, we always check to see how thick it is to make sure that no one's going to fall through, or the crew," Pancoe said.

"First we test using an ice auger and then we just sort of cut some holes into the ice and then we just measure the thickness of the ice. We also look at the colour and there's a whole sort of formula that you follow to make sure that it's safe to walk on and get our machinery on."

Once that happens, Pancoe said the team begins clearing the ice with shovels and snowblowers before moving on to heavier equipment.

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Pancoe says there's no word yet on how long the trail will be this year.

"We can't even guess right now. The only thing we are certain of is that the river trail's different every year," he said.

"I think we've just got to watch the weather conditions and as we test the ice in different locations then we'll have a good indication of where we're going to bring the trail."