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Winterswijk Natural Ice Rink Opens for Weekend, Set to Close Again as Weather Turns Mild

White coating with overnight volunteer spraying produced a thin yet skatable surface.

Overview

  • The 400‑meter outdoor track opened at 08:15 on Saturday and reopened Sunday morning, drawing roughly 200–300 visitors on day one and about 150 on day two.
  • Ice thickened from around 5 millimetres at Saturday’s start to roughly a small centimetre by Sunday, according to chair Auke Spijkstra and ice master Hendrik van Prooije.
  • Organizers closed access by noon Sunday via their online stoplight and say they do not expect another green light in the next two weeks.
  • The club applied a white surface in September to reduce solar heating, while small volunteer teams sprayed water in three‑hour shifts overnight to build the ice.
  • Skating lasted only a few hours on Saturday before thin ice degraded, and evening skating on Sunday was considered dependent on hardness but not guaranteed.