Gunnison's Ice Season Starts Indoors. Pac Man Pond Waits on the Cold.
October 22, 2026
October 22, 2026
In early June, more than 300 people showed up at the pond in Jorgensen Park for the Kids Outdoor Expo and Fishing Derby. Colorado Parks and Wildlife gave every child a fishing pole. City events manager Andy Elfin told the Gunnison Country Times that the Pitkin Fish Hatchery had stocked the pond two or three times for the event.
The city expects that same water to turn into Pac Man Pond around the third week of December, weather permitting, with free public skating all day, every day. Until then, every hour of skating in Gunnison happens indoors on a paid ticket. The cold decides when the free ice opens, so it also decides how a winter of skating at 501 E. Tomichi Ave. should be budgeted.
The Jorgensen Ice & Event Center opened its indoor rink on Monday, Sept. 28, 2026, and plans to run it through Sunday, March 21, 2027. The covered outdoor rink and Pac Man Pond follow later. The city's target is the third week of December, and it hopes they last into March, with weather as the qualifier on both ends.
So the indoor sheet carries the whole skating load from late September into December, about eleven or twelve weeks. From this Thursday, Oct. 22, about eight of those weeks are left. During that stretch, the indoor rink is the only place in town for public skating, drop-in hockey, learn-to-skate classes, and youth and adult league games.
The concession area covers the basics: food and drinks, skate rentals and sharpening. The live session times are on the rink schedule, and that's the page to check before you drive over.
Here are the city's posted rates for the 2026-27 season:
| Item | Adult, 16+ | Youth, 6 to 15 | Other |
|---|---|---|---|
| Public skate, per day | $9 | $6 | Free for 5 and under |
| Drop-in hockey, per day | $9 | $6 | Free for 5 and under |
| Season pass | $90 | $65 | $125 family of four, $10 per added member |
| Skate rental | $6 | $6 | $5 per day for multi-day rentals with a contract, select skates |
| Sharpening, any age | $9 single, 24-hour turnaround | $12 single, same-day 2-hour | $35 punch card for five |
The adult pass costs the same as ten daily adult sessions. The family pass is for two adults and two children in the same household. One family outing at daily rates runs $30, so the pass pays for itself on the fifth visit.
The pass covers unlimited public skate or open hockey on the indoor rink. Once the outdoor ice opens, both the covered rink and the pond are free to everyone, and drop-in hockey on the covered rink is free too. The pass earns most of its value in the indoor-only weeks before that happens. A household that skates every week this fall gets there fast. A household that mostly waits for the pond may never reach ten indoor visits.
Until December, every program in town runs on that one indoor surface. The city's session list shows how the ice gets divided:
The youth game belongs to the West Elk Hockey Association, which is already into its season and held youth picture day at Jorgensen on Oct. 21. The Gunnison Country Metropolitan Recreation District's 2026 funded-projects list includes $30,000 for the association, operating as Gunnison Valley Hockey, for a "West Elk Hockey Pilot Multi-Year Operations" grant.
College hockey plays here too. Western Colorado University's events listing says Jorgensen hosts all of the university's home club hockey games, plus occasional student skating events. A Western team also shows up on the WEHA schedule among teams playing at Gunnison Indoor.
All of that, along with public skating and private bookings, fits on one sheet of ice until the outdoor surfaces open. To reserve ice time, the city directs requests to rink manager John Solanik at (970) 641-0435.
The second half of the season looks different. The city describes Jorgensen as an indoor rink, an outdoor rink, a frozen pond set aside for public skating, and "miles of Nordic trails," all in one park. Once the outdoor surfaces freeze, Gunnison has three places to skate instead of one, and two of them are free.
That same cold puts the Nordic trails in play. The Gunnison Nordic Club, a nonprofit, grooms Jorgensen Park as one piece of a 45-kilometer public network. The network also includes Hartman Rocks, Van Tuyl Ranch, Western's Practice Field and Dos Rios Golf Course. The club says it makes early-season efforts to groom at Mill Creek, which makes Mill Creek the one listed spot that can come into play before the others. The club's grooming reports are posted on the same site.
With the pond and the trails in one park, a December afternoon can mean skates or skis without moving the car. The fishing pond from June turns into the free skating surface. The only thing that changes it is the weather.
The December date is a forecast and the March 21 date is a fixed schedule. Everything between them depends on how cold this winter gets in Gunnison.
If you're working out how a place near Jorgensen Park, Hartman Rocks or the Nordic trails would fit your winter, I'm glad to talk it through, ice skates and all. Reach out through John Bobby Overturf and let's connect.
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