The Coolest Dumbest Thing I've Done In A While.

If there’s anything I’ve learned through all these years of playing in the outdoors it’s that sometimes I have to pick my battles. It’s a fine line between pushing your personal limits and doing something totally reckless and stupid.

I wonder which side of the line I was on Friday.

Winterstieger

As I posted in the short Blog entries the past day or so we were set to get some wind, a lot of wind. And the weather reports were actually right this time! I also described a few of the variables that I thought could be a problem for me to get out there. After a sleepless night I decided to improve my odds of having a good speed session by taking my skis over to a couple local shops to tune them up.

Trim disk edger

I usually tune my skis by hand but since my hands aren’t working too well these days I decided let a machines do most of the work. Here's a lesson, tune lightly and tune often. I slacked off and my skis were spent beyond my ability (at the moment) to get a good consistent edge back. It's a lot easier to maintain an sharp edge than sharpen a dull one. After a quick breakfast of fish (mmmm crappie) from our friends Mike and Kelly I headed over to one of the best ski shops in Mount Washington Valley, Stan and Dan's Sports.

Stan and Dan's Sports

After two hours tuning two pairs of skis with the help of Dave McDermot and Dickey Denny of Stan and Dan's I was on my way down to Ellacoya State Park on Lake Winnipesaukee. I was an hour behind schedule.

The wind was out of hand when I left the shop and I couldn't believe some of the gusts I saw on the way out of town. Full traffic stopping white outs, tree branches falling from the sky and all sorts of debris blowing every which way across the roads. All of it fueled my desire to get out on the ice as fast as I could.

Chocorua

On the way to Ellacoya I had to drive past Lake Chocorua. The wind was blowing out of the west and for Chocorua that is the ideal wind direction. In west winds you get to use the whole lake north to south and west winds are steadiest there. It was white out conditions on the highway west of the lake and since I was already late I stopped briefly to check it out.

Chocorua in a lull

The wind was super steady and blowing about 25mph. I considered staying and flying there but then I saw that an ice fishing shack had been blown over. That told me that as steady as it seemed there have been some substantial gusts. Chocorua is too tight in west wind to be flying solo in 25mph gusting to whatever it takes to knock over a couple hundred pounds of ice fishing hut.

Continuing on to Ellacoya.

Leavitt

I rolled into Center Harbor around 11:30am and remembered that Jim Cline (who currently has over 1200 kite miles in for the year) was going to kite out of Leavitt Park which is right on my way. I decided to go see if he was out and check the conditions for the north end of Winnipesaukee.

I got to the Leavitt and Jim was out cruising back and forth on his 4m Radsail at what looked to be about 35-40mph. He was riding smooth and didn't look like he was getting beaten up by the gusts at all. It looked deceptively tranquil really and the only hint that there was still some serious wind out there was the white smoke like haze just out beyond the cuts south of our location.

I checked the time. It was so late at this point I couldn't justify driving the additional 45minutes to Ellacoya . I was going to meet Mike Elliott there but when I called him earlier there was no answer so I figured I was running so late I figured he was probably out riding already. I decided to launch from Leavitt and maybe I would head down to Ellacoya and hook up with Mike there. It would be a 45+ minute drive in traffic with idiots who have no business driving in windy winter conditions or a 20 minute high speed down winder by kite.

The choice seemed obvious. I was full of fish and yerba mate'. I put my gear on and headed out to the ice.

Crappie

As I skated out I met Jim skating back in with his kite down. I asked him how it was out there and he said he didn't know for sure how fast the wind was blowing but he was sure it was gusting over 50mph. It didn't look like it from what I saw but he was pretty close to shore which was sheltered from the WNW winds that he was in before I got there. Jim's a big guy and I've seen him fly that little 4m in some pretty intense conditions comfortably. He said this is the first time he'd ever seen wind that he felt unsafe on the 4m meter. Also he was calling it quits for the day because he managed to pull the bases off his new pair of Atomic DH boards.

Jim

We saw a ice fisherman's cooler blow across the lake and disappear into the haze down in the cut. Must have had his bait in it because he just packed up and left.

I had my 9m Peter Lynn on me and decided to give it a shot and see if I could bag some mid 60mph speeds today and maybe even break my record of 73.5mph. Based on what Jim had described and what I had seen so far today is was going to be risky but I figured it was a calculated risk. The 9m was going to be the best balance of power, speed and safety for me. And I don't want to be on anything but a Peter Lynn in dirty, gusty wind conditions.

Jim left the ice and I headed out to set my ice screw. The wind was blowing a steady 25ish and I didn't have any indication that there was anything unusual in the wind and I was starting to have doubts about Jim's claim of "50mph gusts". The ice was very smooth and VERY hard. I took my skis off, set my ice screw and started to unpack my kite when out of nowhere all hell started breaking loose.

Wind, LOTS OF WIND. My guess, somewhere in the mid 40mph range wind. Enough wind that without my skis on I was losing my position on the smooth ice and was at risk of getting blown down to the cut with the bait cooler from earlier. Luckily my screw was in and I was able to lock my carabiner to my harness and anchor myself and my pack to the ice. I didn't anchor my pre-inflator though and all I could do was watch it accelerated across the lake. Fortunately it got stuck in a snow patch about 1/4 mile out.

Pre-inflator

It took me about 20 minutes to skate back in the wind after recovering it.

Okay, change of plans. I had to find a sheltered cove to launch from. I found a good spot with plenty of snow to walk on and little wind. I set my anchor, set up the kite, launched it and limped it in the light winds out of the shelter of the cove to where the wind was really blowing. All under the watchful eyes of a group of ice fishermen just downwind of me.

I got to the edge of the calm and as soon as the kite got into the real wind it was immediately obvious that this was going to be a lot of work. In my experience the Peter Lynn twin skins are the best kites for handling super gusty, dirty, punchy, shifty winds. They make bad winds seem easy. This was the was the worst wind I've EVER put a kite up in.

This is where that thin line that I mentioned earlier comes into play. At this point I have a decision to make. I can pop my safety, land the kite, pack it up close to shore and call it a day. Or, I can try to make it work. I can use this opportunity to test my kiting skills and maybe even strengthen them. I can test the limits of my equipment and myself and maybe break a record if I don’t destroy the kite or myself too soon.

I tend not to think in those terms however. In situations like this I'm always an optimist because you can't afford not to be. The second you start to doubt that you're going to be okay is when you get into real trouble. When you get scared you get stiff, you get panicky and start making mistakes that bring everything you're afraid will happen right down on top of you. I've spent a lot of time in bad wind. Not wind like this, but this is how I learn. The kite's in the air and I'm going to try to make it work.

I couldn't believe what I was witnessing. The kite was jelly fishing like crazy as I headed out to the center of the lake and I've never seen or felt anything like it. I was in some level of control until I cleared the point just north of me then things went bad. The funnel effect from the cut north of me must have had the winds blowing about 40mph with gusting to whatever. The kite lit, and luffed several times and then a VPC bridal hooked behind the right wing tip. Then it luffed again and this time the right steering line got tangled behind a wingtip and now the kite was spiraling out of control and winding the steering line around it.

Bad wind zone

I was in a wedge on my skis at this point still getting dragged down the lake.

It was too windy to try to cut the kite loose at this point. Even flagged out it would probably try to drag me just enough to be a pain in the ass. At least with the kite spiraling I could edge against it enough to move but I could only move towards the east side of the lake. I decided to head that way and find a sheltered area to cut the safeties and get the kite down.

I headed east toward a small island near shore. Even with the kite spiraling essentially on the ground I was moving pretty fast I thought. I looked down at my GPS and my speed was just under 50mph and my top speed was 53.3mph. Not record breakers but a good indication of what the wind was doing.

I was at the island in seconds. I hit the wind shadow and cut my safety. The kite flagged out and I set my screw. Even in the wind shadow the kite was still flapping around and the lines were all over the place so I didn't dare skate to the kite for fear of slashing something with my fresh edges. I took my skis off and climbed down the lines with the wind pushing me to the kite. I deflated the kite, packed it up and climbed hand over hand up the lines back to the anchor.

Self rescue island

Then the wind picked up again. I couldn't believe how windy it was and I've never seen anything like it. As I wrapped up my lines a ice fishing shack went by about 400 feet out from my position and it looked to be going about 25mph. I doubt anyone was in it but the last thing I was thinking today was to watch out that I don't get hit by a ice fishing hut.

Now that I had the kite packed up I had to get back across the lake. It would be about 10miles to walk around but it was only a mile to my launch area. I skated up along the east shoreline about half a mile. That pretty much sucked whatever energy I had for the rest of the day but this way I could skate across the lake and not get blown too far away from the anchor. The wind was out of hand as I got closer to the center of the lake but then I got a pleasant surprise.

It was windy enough that I could semi-tack across the center of the lake by adjusting the angle of my body and edging lightly. It was amazing! My GPS said 11-12mph! It lasted until I got inside the western point's wind shadow. At that point I skated back to the anchor.

As I was just finishing up I hear a voice behind me "So, that 9m not treating you too well out there?". It was Jim Cline who I thought had left hours ago. I asked what he was doing back here and he told me he never left. He saw me launch and decided it would be worthwhile to see how things turned out. He was watching me self rescue on the far side of the lake with his bird watching binoculars. He said it was quite a show.

Winnepesaukee

There are all kinds of little details that I left out of this story for the sake of not making it any more drawn out than it already is. Molly thought that it was a waste of a day for me to spend the morning tuning skis, driving down to Leavitt, setting up a kite just to fly one mile. That's right, one mile. My mileage for the day was just over 2 miles. One mile on the kite and one mile skating back. And looking at it from her perspective I can understand her disapproval.

But you have the opportunity to learn every time you experience something new.

Friday was something new to me. There were aspects about that day that have really shaken up some of my assumptions about the whole speed aspect of snow kiting. Some things I thought I knew aren't exactly right and some theories I had after my last day last season when I got 73.5mph were confirmed. Also I managed over 50mph with the kite in a bowtie so that was pretty exciting. So for me it was a really great day. I flew a kite in winds that I had no business trying to fly a kite in and I came out of it unscathed.  I've still got all my fingers and toes so I think in spite of what happened I was on the right side of that thin line.

Out.