Yesterday (Jan 1 2010) I woke to 25km/h winds, by the afternoon they had peaked to 35km/h SE winds. Temp was -20/-35 with chill but I had to take advantage of the wind as it has been lacking lately. I went to the usual quarter of land behind my grandparents and made many trips across it. My Father and Mother followed me in my Pathfinder. According to my dad the fasted I was at one point was 20mph so not too fast but the fastest I've been. The only trouble I had was that I have not been able to get myself moving back the way I came. I lose balance and fall flat on my backside whenever I try. So my father would help me pack up the kite and board and we would drive back to the other end and start again (by the last trip back we had it down to less than ten minutes). Here is a link to the pictures my mother had taken of me, I meant to have my video camera but forgot it when heading out the door. Either way it was a good time and a fun experience. :wee:

http://picasaweb.google.com/shaggs2riches/Snowkiting#

Cheers
Shaggs

Glad to hear you got some winds. Remember your actually cutting across the wind so try and make yourself go up wind slightly to keep lines taught. Make sure you work your kite in the window to keep your power up. Sometimes it easier on ski's, I know I can't board have the same problem. The more times your out the better you'll get. Enjoying your new kite?

Just looked at your pictures, maybe not enough snow is a big factor. Need to be able to grab a good edge and hard to do with that little of snow.

I was thinking maybe not enough wind for that much powder. Snow looks deep. You need more wind for powder. His tracks where visible don't look very straight. Underpowered and going downwind?

Maybe trying to point too high upwind to get back killing the power in the kite too?

Yeah we have about 6-8 inches of the fluffy stuff. I was being pulled upwind a bit. I worked the kite quite a bit to keep moving smoothly. Mostly I was doing loops with the kite in the downward motion. I found myself slowing downwind whenever I would spin my bar to untwist lines. I think it would help if the snow was a bit more packed. I tried to edge hard away from the pull but if I went too deep my board would cut into the dirt. Next time we have wind I'm gonna try to get to a grass field about 20 minutes from me. Its cut real short so I think that might help things out as well. The stubble in this field is about 15 inches

Nice work shaggs, good to hear your having fun! You will get the switch/upwind thing down in a little. Once you get the feel, just mentally take a picture of your body when you are going in one direction (where your legs are bent, where your weight is distributed, etc) then mirror it and head off in the other direction.

I wasnt too good at going back myself when i started, but now i do pretty well. Youll get there keep tryin and have some more fun!!!!!

Shaggs cool pics man!

I especially liked the one with the 'snow bow'! (1st one)