Dear Rider,

The Annual Lake Simcoe Winter Sports Festival continues to be the largest gathering of wind sport enthusiasts in Ontario. We invite you to join us for the 9th year to be held Saturday February 19th, and Sunday February 20th 2011 in Keswick Ontario. (from 11:00-15:30hrs ET daily)

Bringing together wind powered enthusiasts using kites with skis, snowboards, snowfers, skimbats, monoskis, and more the weekend is aimed at educating, demonstrating, meeting new friends, connecting with familiar faces and having a great time doing what we love.

This year for the third time we are pleased to announce a fun race in partnership with the Heart & Stroke Foundation of Ontario, Board Sports and Silent Sports. The organizing committee is asking that all participants to the fun race raise a minimum tax deductible donation of CAD$20 or more. We are pleased that this year the Heart and Stroke Foundation has supported our event by including an on-line pledge option for our festival enthusiasts. You will receive an email shortly about how to pledge online for the Kite for Heart and Stroke fun race. As with last year, there will be race and pledge prizes for the most skilled kite racers as well as the top fund raisers.

Feel free to forward this invitation to your friends and come out and see why we are having so much winter fun.

http://www.lsws.info

Anyone know if the whole lake is frozen and rideable?

yes it is - haven't been there yet this year - too many other paces to kite that are a closer drive and some events to attend. Still like to get out there a few times a year when I can though.

Not sure what the overall surface conditions are like - sometime there may be patchy ice/snow, or overall snow pack base and drifted areas. Snowmobile traffic packs down an area not to far from the shore line as the sled highway follows it a few hundred yards off - the little ice fishing hut communities scattered.

We are expecting a big snowstorm coming up from Texas tuesday eve into wednesday but that's a few weeks off from the event. I'm heading to a winter event a bit further north on the lake this coming weekend - I'm guessing it's location will have a lot deeper snow because it's always inline with the way snow generates and dumps in that area - Keswick (where the wind sport festival takes place) is much more exposed to wind.

The event is VERY casual and if you were there every weekend to kite you wouldn't notice too much difference other than more kites there that weekend and marked off pit area. On most weekends there might be anywhere from 25- 50 kites out, the fest weekend it could be 50-100. The majority of people are off doing their own thing. The race last year was fun - organizers walked around and asking who wanted to get in a race if they hadn't pre-registered and then gathered out by a couple of banners - picked a few ice fishing huts, three laps, go!
So, very casual. Depending on conditions and forecasts about 1/2 of the people go both days (if they live closer) and the other half made up of people who chose 1 day.

For the "BoB & Doug" show I check the live daily reports from the ice fishing web site - always good for a laugh. He says 14 inches of ice this morning - this is in the same place as the event location:
http://www.cooksbayfishingboard.com/

Just booked Sat + Sun @ the Travelodge in Barrie. I had a great time last year , the boys (ages 10 + 12) took the van for a spin in the parking area while I was flying , they had a great time too!!! I really need to shorten their leashes.

Anyone thinking of coming up to the Lake Simcoe event this weekend (north of Toronto), I'm jumping ahead of an official email here but the event is going to be cancelled from an official point of view. There is milder temperatures today and expected the next two days and the police have issued a general "beware of ice conditions report" and the organizers having some involvement with a rescue late last season are thinking with all things considered it would be best to issue a cancellation.
If anyone needs to contact the organizer directly I can forward an email address,
Mark

It is official.
S

Dear Kite enthusiast,

The event organizers regret to inform you that the kiting event this weekend has been cancelled due to milder weather and unsafe ice. If you have raised money for the Heart and Stroke Fun race, you are still eligible for a prize. Please visit us on-line <http://www.lsws.info> to read more.

Regrettably,
LSWS Event Organizers

I cant imagine 2days warm up will ruin a foot of ice this time of year. I wont be driving the van out on the ice but we'll be there Sat. hoping the surface is hard and fast.

It was really mild today and it's all surface melt happening. the biggest danger is run off on faster moving rivers that would have ice breaking up. The only problem I see is Lake Simcoe had more snow and I don't know if it's had enough chance to melt all the snow right down yet and smooth out. I think it might melt most of it and leave a little soft layer - then colder temps moving in friday and through the weekend and good winds. So, will it whip up the soft stuff as it freezes, will the ice fisherman and sleds make a lot of ruts, will it be all cratered etc. i'm hoping I can get an update on the local ice fishing guy that does a daily video blog. He said the ice was fine today - usually they are concerned about the shore getting messed up for vehicles getting on and off that might break up the edge at the access point.
I'm sure there will be guys out there - just waiting to see what it will be like if it'll be good to make the run there and take an ice buggy etc and hope for some good speed runs. I'll see what I can find out tomorrow.
If you are staying in Barrie, they have a web cam that point out into the bay.
Also rather than driving from Barrie (west side) down and around to Keswick (southeast side) you can go down to Gilford on the south west side - that's directly across the lake from Keswick. I usually do a nice long haul run from Keswick to Gilford and back. if the wind is a good direction it would make a nice snowspider run.

Just had a look at the video from earlier today as the guy drove out to ice fishing huts - looked like a good 8-10 inches of heavy wet snow and the tire track were full of grey slush at the bottom and the ice fishing huts lost the surface snow around the huts surrounded by melt water. he said he wouldn't want to walk out to the huts with the wet snow and slush below from the melting.
I was hoping it would have taken the snow down a lot more. Friday will be warmer during the day but cools off quickly late in the day to below freezing. You might find some areas with a frozen crusty snow saturday.

We are staying in Barrie and will give the Gilford launch a try. I can run over just about anything , but 8" of slush , 30mph overnight winds , this could get ugly. See you tomorrow.

Lake Simcoe melted down to the ice some what bumpy. Winds today were dangerous 5minutes on a 5m and I decided to give it up before I got bit. We're going to fly out from Barrie in the morning. Very cool waterfront.

Thanks for the update, I've been trying to get some kind of update on what the surface looks like there.
We didn't have as much snow cover on the small lake close to my house (west of Toronto) and it was down to lumpy ice. I was thinking Simcoe would have more.
It was really windy most of the day here - and gusty with blowing snow. I was out with a 1.8 Core on an ice buggy for a while but way too many ruts and bumps.
Barrie had a winterfest 2 weeks ago and I was there for it - I've kited the bay many times but that weekend was almost no wind. I hope it's a better day for you tomorrow - I'll have to look on the Barrie web cam to see if I can see you. (Still images that refresh every 15 min)
http://www.barrie.ca/City%20Hall/Webcams/Pages/default.aspx
Oh, you should have a quick look in the library, a couple of blocks from the waterfront sculpture. It has the large kite related display that used to hang in the entrance to the Eaton Centre on Yonge street.
Mark

Was able to fly this morning untill the wind died then again late afternoon, winds were pretty light I and had to work the kite quite a bit. The surface is hard , fast ,and bumpy with the occational ice covered snow mound. If you dont mind catching some high speed air its all good.

No festival but had a good time , got to fly my new 10m , lighter , turns quicker,less bar pressure than the old montana, really worked the low end of the kite. Morgan was pretty happy with "13mph in light light winds dad , not bad" , those vipers will fly in a whisper of wind.