It was a scene of epic ice skating, all under the watchful eye of Abraham Lincoln.
The Reflecting Pool on the National Mall looked more like a stretch of solid tundra, frozen from the steps of Lincoln to the World War II Memorial.
But the selfies snapped in the wake of Thursday's costal bomb cyclone were not on solid ice, according to rangers with the National Park Service. Although friends and families stomped and slid across the ice, authorities cautioned the ice is only an inch thick in some sections, with drains making the ice potentially unstable.
Returning to retro winters where the denizens of D.C. set up hockey goals was also strongly discouraged.
“Skating is prohibited at nearly all the sites on the National Mall,” said NPS spokesperson Mike Litterst Thursday. “Constitution Gardens, skating is permitted there 'when posted,' however at this point that has not occurred.”
Washingtonians took the Reflecting Pool for hockey nearly 100 years ago, with photos from the Washington Post archives showing men and women chasing the puck in January 1922.
Signs posted on Thursday at the ends of the pool warn people not to walk on the Reflecting Pool – although tourists from thousands of miles away, even a local newspaper reporter with a metal chair in hand, couldn't resist.
“It was my frozen Jesus moment,” said a tourist with her family from Ann Arbor, Mich. “Totally worth taking the picture on the ice. How often do you see this?”
