Hey All, Here is a boring report about my day yesterday. For those who are tl;dr: Best day yet; covered over 20km and reaffirmed why I love this sport.

Finally got out on Lake Luther for the first time this year in perfect conditions: -1 Celsius, sunny day with steady (enough) 15 knot winds. Randomly met a fellow kiter in the lot who I happened to sell my extra Neo II 8m to in the fall. After helping him sort out the lines that I left a little twisted when I sold it to him (I felt I should help him out 'cause you know --karma) I showed him how to launch then let him do his static thang and get acquainted with his new kite while I got ready for a 12m Matrixx session.
After hearing markite's report about snow that wasn't stuck to the ice, I wasn't too sure how the day would go as far as holding an edge is concerned. But, the mild temperatures had let the snow settle and turn into a perfect 6 inches of powder that made the perfect base for silky turns and buttery runs out to the island and back.
To be honest, I could have gone out to the end of the lake and back, but I was worried about : crashing through the ice, winds dying or changing directions. I wanted to stay close enough to walk back since I'm still new and weary of disaster.

The initial kite launch was great, but a lull quickly inverted the kite and twisted the side bridal of both wing tips. A quick reset and snow on one wingtip had me ready with snowboard on feet ready to launch.
Right away I was set on a close reach across the wind, up to the first point but had to turn back to avoid the trees on the shore with my kite. One more try had me past the first point and on my way down the lake. Top speed of around 15km/h was nice for a first day. (Sorry Feyd, won't be posting any runs this year. )
I did around 10 runs back and forth, careful to avoid Andre and his static Neo 2. A few times I got REALLY close to the trees and had to turn around and gain more ground.
After the wind got a little shifty and gusty, I decided to pack it in because it was getting harder to maintain my ground and not get stuck along the tree line. Also, it was two hours of back and forth and I was starting to feel fatigue.

Pack up was a cinch but my bag was 200m up wind. A little bit of walking and I was back in my car heading home for lunch and a cold one!

Can't wait till this rain and warm weather turns cold. Hopefully the lake will be in good shape next I get out. I much prefer the quiet zen of kiting on a lake to the frenzied madness of a ski hill :karate:

Thanks for sharing my stoke!
-aREA

Weeeeeee! We have warm and rain here too at the moment, so LAME.

No doubt, the Matrixx 2 is a great kite. Really, bang for the buck you cant beat the ride quality IMO.

I just sold a 15m to one of our regulars. He's been slowly working his way through every demo we have and after about 5-10 minutes on the 18m Matrixx he was sold on it. He's a lighter rider and the 18m in 6kts had to be trimmed a little. The 15m, which has a lot of overlap with the 18m, will work great as an all season light wind engine for him.

Awesome that you got a session and you love your new kite.!

Thanks Feyd!

Yeah I'm sure that big 15m would make a great water engine for him too. I wanted the 15m for the water but had to settle on the 12m for my all around kite. I have an 8m Neo for the heavier winds, and the 12m Matrixx has been a great kite for snow and water in regular wind speeds around here. Better to have overlap than a gap I guess, when it comes to quivers.

I wish I had the Matrixx 2 with the better chicken loop, but I actually like the 5th line safety to the center on my 1st gen Matrixx, rather than the front line flagging. (I have not tried that safety though so its hard to say.)

Cheers!

Hey Great you made it to Luther yesterday - too bad you couldn't join us on sunday (7 of us out), but weather was really nice yesterday as well. The google map doesn't do it justice with how much open area there is in the winter and those islands can be a lot of fun to either bushwhack through or a few of the smaller ones on the far side are nice 8 foot drifted berms. Toured the entire perimeter sunday and then down into the south bay with all the coyote tracks all over the place. The thinner snow cover that could scuff off the ice was more at Puslinch and like you mentioned by sunday things were starting to pack down and bond to the ice better especially at Luther.
the ice is good - there is that little dam directly at the north side of the launch area and if there is any melt / run off it tends to collect in that corner. So the ice is good all over the only thing that can carp it up is when you get a layer of slush and then a quick dump of snow trapping the slush so you end up having that slush and water filling your footprints in the set up area. So far it's good but it was a big melt/rain today so we'll see how it holds up by the end of the week for weather conditions.
Really glad you got out - that was the first real weekend for most people this season and a bunch still need to get their gear ready so over the next couple of weeks there should be more and more coming out on weekends. Thanks for the review and condition report.