Madison, Wis. — Earlier this month the city held the 14th annual Frozen Assets Festival, organized by the Clean Lakes Alliance to celebrate Madison’s winter relationship with its lakes. James Tye, the nonprofit’s founder and executive director, emphasized that when the lakes freeze they become one of the community’s greatest assets.
Sitting on an isthmus between Lake Mendota and Lake Monona, Madison weaves its lakes into daily life. In winter residents use the ice for fishing, skating, ice sailing and snowshoeing. The region also has a long history of commercial ice harvesting, with blocks cut from the lakes well into the 20th century, notes Hilary Dugan, a limnologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Locals have tracked lake freeze dates for more than a century, and the city runs a contest predicting the day Lake Mendota will freeze. That average freeze date has been moving later, and Dugan says the area has lost roughly a month of typical ice cover. Ice that does form is also less reliably safe than it used to be, she adds, a trend researchers link to fluctuating winter temperatures and broader climate change.
Warmer winters have already affected the festival: organizers canceled the on-ice portion in 2024 when ice conditions looked unsafe. This year, however, Lake Mendota developed more than a foot of ice by early February, allowing the event to proceed for more than 1,000 attendees.
Activities included kite flying, skydiving demonstrations, ice hockey and a distinctive 5K run held entirely on ice. Scientists from the UW–Madison Center for Limnology led demonstrations on how to measure ice thickness and explained lake ecology and changing winter conditions. Members of the Ho-Chunk Nation taught snow snake, a traditional game where hand-carved wooden sticks slide down packed-snow troughs.
Photos and scenes from the day showed families on the ice, runners warming up for the 5K, colorful fish- and owl-shaped kites filling the sky, a skydiver gliding over the frozen surface, and anglers tending holes on Monona Bay. Participants tested ice with augers and skimmers while children learned to measure thickness alongside researchers.
Organizers and scientists use the festival both to celebrate winter recreation and to highlight how climate trends are altering local ice regimes. The event offered a joyful winter gathering on Lake Mendota, even as it underscored growing uncertainty about how long and how safely the lakes will freeze in coming years.