Copyright Anchorage Daily News
PALMER — As a construction crew worked nearby, the two skaters got on the ice of Knik Lake on Monday afternoon. At first, they stayed near the shore of the lake south of Wasilla. Then they ventured a little over 100 yards out, to where the water deepens — and plunged into the frigid lake, according to accounts from a crew member and the owner of the Knik Bar and Grill, located nearby. The pair went completely under, bar owner Doug Massie said Tuesday. Massie, a former Alaska Wildlife Trooper, said the ice probably wasn’t even 2 inches thick. Despite a recent cold snap, the lake ice just isn’t safe yet, he said. Most safety guidelines recommend at least 4 inches of clear ice for safe skating. Anchorage parks and recreation officials have not yet started maintaining lake ice, which requires at least a foot of “good-quality ice,” according to a municipal ice and trails status website. Construction crew members who watched Monday’s incident unfold on Knik Lake said the pair strapped on skates in the bar parking lot before heading to the ice. They seemed fine as they skated near the shore, but the crew mobilized right away — “everybody dropped tool belts and ran,“ one said — when the skaters punched through after venturing out. The company, RayCo LLC, is working on a new event venue, Massie said. The crew could see the people in the water grabbing at ice to pull themselves out, only to have the ice break under their weight. RayCo owner Jacob Ray passed his phone to an employee on Tuesday when asked what happened next. The whole thing took maybe three minutes, the crew member said. They extended a long piece of lumber to the pair to pull them out and then placed a wider, 48-foot-long joist onto the ice to allow the pair to get back to shore, he said. The crew put the skaters in a heated trailer to warm up. They stayed for about an hour. They were grateful, he said. Matanuska-Susitna Borough emergency officials said they haven’t had any ice rescue calls yet this winter and weren’t called out for Monday’s. The bar will not allow lake access this early in the season, Massie said. “We’re getting more (ice) every day but it just hasn’t been cold enough to really give us that 6 inches you need to safely walk on,” he said, adding that as a trooper he was involved in ice rescues that didn’t end as well. “I don’t mess with it until it’s a foot.”
