I only had about an hour or so to ride but I got out and got 30 miles in on Nipissing. I was looking at it on Google Earth last week and decided I'd check it out.

What a great lake. The wind was perfect smooth 13 gusty to 14mph when I started then picked up as the sun got lower.

Ran out of daylight. I could spend days here.

Sounds like a blast Chris! I want to try some ice bad.

Looks like you found a hidden gem? What size lake we talkin here?

(Todd: I'll trade ya some ice for a ride on the beach.:bigok

Nipissing is NE of Lake Huron - Here's a jpeg of it's location. The city of North Bay is on the lake. Chris is doing a long drive from his place up around Georgian Bay and then further west along the north side of Lake Huron to the WISSA event.

From North Bay to the far end is almost 40 miles. Wind was straight out of the west sick.

Good luck at WISSA, i took a peek at the wissa facebook page, looks like it should be fun. http://www.facebook.com/wissa2012

It will be something?:ticking:

I rode the location today. The surface was messed up first thing this morning but the snow blew in and it actually smoothed out a lot.

Not much room at the new location. Gonna be tight with a bunch of kiters racing. High pressure is due in so the winds are gonna be light possibly. A bunch of 20m+ kites in a tight space should be interesting.

I didn't have much of a chance to read about the change of location for the races. Good luck. There will be a lot of Quebecois there for certain,... they have a race series that has a high turnout as demonstrated in the race vid on another thread.

Thanks for the map markite They always say a picture is worth a thousand words! Lake Nipissing is not so small after all.

I'm on call the weekend of WISSA so I won't be able to make it Good luck Chris and any others that may be competing. Have a good time for me;-)

I managed to ride Llake Michigan Saturday morning for 40 miles then ate lunch and found a sweet spot on Lake Huron to ride 50 miles in the afternoon.

2 great lakes in one day and nearly 100miles made me happy. The huron side was super smooth and covered with lightly windpacked powder about 7" deep. Not a single track on it. I tell you what, St.Ignace could be a snowkiter's paradise if they get the ice they usually get. I'd love to tour the coastline.

Went to bed at midnight, woke up at 6am, ate a couple waffles, checked out and pinned it back to NH. Drove 16hrs straight and wa home by 11pm.

I rode about 30 miles today in 12 gusting to 36mph. I'm feeling a little spent.

Chris your a MACHINE! You kite ski more miles in a day then most people drive.
So you let Morse top you @ WISSA? ;-)

Hard not to rack up the miles when the conditions are good.

Yeah WISSA worked out better for Morse than it did for me. No wind, and I had the Charger out of commission on one of the days I could have really used it. That's the way it goes sometimes I guess. He did a hell of a good job racing with a bunch of guys who have a lot more expirience in that arena than he does. He was on his 15m S3 SA the whole time. If he had been on an Elf I think he would have done even better.

After they moved the venue to Chain Lake all I could think about was getting out on the big lakes. Every non-race kite minute I had I spent out on Michigan or Huron and it was awesome. I love the feeling I get when I'm just cruising and see nothing but ice to the horizon. Maybe if winter ever decides to come back I'll head back that way and really rack up some miles.

Quote:

Every non-race kite minute I had I spent out on Michigan or Huron and it was awesome. I love the feeling I get when I'm just cruising and see nothing but ice to the horizon.

Yeah...that's got to be awesome! Did you get any video or pictures that you can share?

Here's a small shot of the islands about 5 miles out from where I launched.

Nice! Look at all that room :wee:

No kidding! That's right off the shore at North Bay. There was a small pressure ridge about 1 mile out but smooth riding in the sunbeams beyond that.

It was awesome. It had a very ethereal quality to it, a kind of feel and visual thing that I really have a hard time putting into words.

My favorite kind of riding I think.

Yeah...it looks so surreal and peaceful...shots like this really get me motivated to try snowkiting!!!

I would think when summer comes around, it would be a great place to 'kitesurf'. I imagine you would always need some kind of suit but I wear those all the time so I'm used to it. I love the ocean and all but sometimes I dream about lake kiting...

This is the exact reason why I like winter so much around here. So many vast areas of ice to ride, it's really a Midwestern's version of "Ivanpah" :bouncing:

Anyone have any idea if Lake Nipissing is still in play or is their ice going too?

We've been having early summer like temperatures for a week now - everyone out in shorts and t-shirts totally whacky for mid March.
But Nipissing had far better conditions all winter than we have had - I'll try and find out

http://www.lakenipissingmessageboard.com/index.php?topic=58....

thanks Dave, I've been checking all the fishing forums but many didn't have much up to date info. On another forum there was a post march 13 where a guy wrote "Always sad to call your trip final for the season, but this is what it was. Despite brutal weather and ice conditions we managed to land some good size pickerel and jumbo perch. Friday March 9 was a day of fun, when in the morning we discovered that ice is absolutely bare and had lots of deep pockets of slush, still we headed to great Manitou island area. Beautiful weather with plus temps., sunshine and 0 wind .... Sunday with bright sunshine and double digit temps we didn’t expect much and didn’t catch anything, but few perch, instead had a great time with local fishermen we met on ice at the beginning of season and became friends with. All in all it was not bad of the season for us.Looking forward to next ice fishing opener in Ontario and good luck to everyone on water for next 10 month."

from that post it sounds like they were calling it quits by the end of last week.

Thanks for the info guys. ;-)