Today I surveyed and kited a “private” lake SE of here. Very nice smooth but not glassy ice. 4 cm of ice, structurally not the greatest but still should be about 160 psi flexural which gives over 300 lb load which is more than I need. I expect it to be close to double tomorrow. Based on the location, I would be surprised if Weed or even Chester is not ready.

I went to Cochrane Lake yesterday. There is now about 1/2 inch of snow on top of 4 inches of ice. There is a wide band of ice shards about 150 feet offshore that I did not go out to check out. There was a breeze from the south but I did not kite - leaving that for next weekend after the freeze we will get this week.


Had some fun with the XXL and snowblades at the Rocky Ridge sports fields.

The shoreline area up to and including the band of ice shards was safe last week. It was the glass past that point that was marginal. Now with the snow,the survey will be that much more difficult. I have clear and very nice ice on “my” private lake where I kited the last 3 days. It has 7 cm of ice and in spite of lower strength due to higher temps, it doubled the strength since my first day. BTW “my” private lake is by special arrangement with the farmer and would not work with a public access. I would tend to assume that identical conditions should be at Weed and may be at Chester and Eagle but had no reason to check it out.

Good to see you are riding already out there, we've been warm and short on snow in SK. Ice is still too thin except on the shallowest of sloughs.
However, a good snowstorm is dumping on us right now... when the weekend rolls around it's gonna be time to hit the fields

It has been over 1 month of incredible ice (and wind too) conditions the likes of which I haven’t seen for years. The ice has been consistently of top notch curling variety, easy to edge yet frictionless. Yet in all this time and over 1200 km of cruising I have not seen any kite other than my own. The wait is on, I guess, for the ice to get contaminated with snow. Ghost has had dream conditions of beautiful ice for almost 2 weeks, getting slicker now with warm temperatures so I had no reason to check other locations. The last time, after the snowfall, Cochrane had 50/50 ice and nice soft drifts. Chester had awful, steep sided, deeply grooved drifts essentially unusable but strangely there was a clear, wide, nice ice path across the lake at right angle to the wind that saved the day.

You're killing me. :D