All Stacked Up. The Last Days On Golden Pond.

Stacked 15m and 19m

Since I got into this kite thing this is always a weird time of year for me. The snow kite season is coming to and end, the weather is getting warmer and the days have gotten longer. While my co-workers are bubbling about the warm weather and up coming riding season (I work in the bike industry) I find myself getting depressed about the rapidly approaching end of the snow kite season. This is compounded by the fact that our season is ending about a month early and we’re already scrambling to find the last bastions of kite-able ice. We still have ice at Umbagog and we’ll probably make it until April but it will still be a short season. This entry is a bit long because I've added a story with some valuable information in regards to safety. I apologize in advance if this seems a bit too long.

Last Friday Molly got the day off and she, Mike and myself went down to Squam Lake to check the conditions and see if we could “safely” squeeze out a few more sessions on it. My original plan was to go to Umbagog but the wind forecast for Umbagog was bad and the Squam forecast was not much better. I called Randy and told him our plan and since he had never flown Squam he said he’d come down and ride with us. Jim Cline had been on Squam a few days before and said it was great which we all found rather unbelievable since every body of water anywhere near Squam, including Winnepesaukee, was done for the season. The only water that we thought might still have riding was Chocorua. And to ride there you would have to swim to the ice.

Molly and I met Mike at the town parking lot. The winds were light and straight out of the East at maybe 4mph. The ice looked amazing! Mike checked an ice fishing hole and the ice was still almost 20 inches thick, at least where we were. The ice can always be thinner just a few feet away if there are springs, inlets or outlets, or if it’s shallow. The Fish and Game authorities are always on alert this time of year because people are going through the ice left and right. As we were unloading our gear two NH Fish and Game officers rolled up to see what we were up to.

I laugh a little bit when I try to envision what we must look like from a non-kiter perspective. They must have been driving by, feeling a state of relief knowing all the ice fishing huts are off the lake and they probably don’t have to worry about any ice fishermen needing rescue, when suddenly they see a couple of cars on the beach with people wearing ski boots, some crazy strapped on diaper looking things, full face helmets and we appear to be pulling piles of what look like tents out of the backs of our cars like we're going to set up some kind “of Burning Man-esque” tent city. They pulled in and we all expected them to be aggressive, give us a hard time, and tell us that the ice was unsafe and that we had no business being out there. In fact they were super nice and told us that there was still a ton of ice out there with just a few bad spots. They were really pumped about the kite thing and psyched to see us ride. Who knew? They even played with Sirius a little before they left.

Highlighted big hole

The wind was still really light, borderline non-existent in fact. Molly suggested that we try stacking a couple of Chargers and see how that goes. Stacking is something you can do with Peter Lynns in light wind conditions to get more power. Essentially you connect the kites in series, one above the other effectively giving you more wing surface and more power in light winds. We’ve seen video of it and have talked about wanting to do it but never really got around to it, until Friday. After all there was zero wind at this point so why not mess a round and experiment? We got some kites out and our spare parts bag that has all our line extensions in it and hauled everything out onto the ice.

Mike, me and the Chargers

We decided to try the 19m and the 15m Chargers and see how that goes. Again we didn’t really think this through too much and were just making it up as we went along. The only thing that I remembered reading about stacking was that the smaller kite goes behind the bigger kite. This didn’t make any sense to us because it seemed the big kite would wind shadow the small kite and make it not fly. Just like when you’re passing someone racing. But on the other hand the kite in front will dictate the turn rate of both kites and if you put the small kite up front the kites won’t turn in sync. So we tried stacking 19m/15m first.

Pre-launch

If nothing else it looks impressive. One big kite always looks cool but two kites look freakin’ awesome. It was overcast but still bright out and the contrast of the colors on the kites against the gray sky and the gray ice was stunning. There was still no wind and I didn’t know if we were going to get them airborne but we were going to try.

Randy showed up shortly after we started messing around and walked out to give us his expert opinion on what we needed to get the stacked set up a good chance of working. Apparently the magic ingredient is wind, which we had none of. The theory with the stacking thing is it will help get you moving in light wind. But as we found it doesn’t really work in zero wind.

Mike, Randy and me

So we gave it a try and learned some interesting things. First if there were any wind I would probably have had my ass handed to me. Even in what felt like absolutely zero wind I had to work hard against the pull of the 2 kites together. Second we found that having the small kite in the back did shadow the kite too much and the smaller kite spent much of its time as dead weight stalling the 19m. We switched the kites around and had better results but we could see how the turn rates would be out of sync. Third I was surprised at how well the kites behaved. It really didn’t make much of a difference in the ground handling. You could land them, launch from a “clamshell” (closed up) position, roll them over, anything you wanted. It was really pretty amazing.

Me launching the Charger short stack

The problem came with the flying part. You just can’t fly if there isn’t any wind.

Some success

After a while of playing we bagged it. The wind started to pick up and I decided that I would rather actually be riding at this point than experimenting. So we all went out and had a late day session in some decent wind. The lake was in surprisingly good shape with very little open water apart from a big hole out in the center of the lake. Late season kiting has some added risk. For example the hole out in the middle of the lake was nearly invisible in the overcast light. If it was windier and good for doing speed runs one of us could have ended up taking a swim. At 50mph+ speeds you can be on a hole like that before you know it and be swimming.

Of course you don’t need a hole in the ice to be swimming this time of year. I don’t know about other kiters but every spring when the ice starts getting sketchy we always convince ourselves and TRY to convince others that if, on the off chance we DO go through the ice, our kites will pull us out and pull us to safety. That has always been our “security blanket”. None of us had actually put the theory to the test.

Until we rode a little lake named "Keoka"

Let me set the scene. It was really late in the season and all of our local ice was done. There was no ice anywhere; there wasn’t even bad ice to be found. Even Umbagog was questionable. One night Paul Morse calls me up and tells me that he and Seth Merriam found a place to ride not too far from where they live over in Bridgton. My response was a sensible "No friggen way. There is no way you guys were riding anything anywhere south of Umbagog. There's no riding anywhere less than 60 miles north of here."

But Paul insisted that they rode and that the ice was good. The only trick was to get onto the ice. They managed to get on by tearing apart an old rotten dock and making a REALLY sketchy bridge with parts of the dock and a water ski tow rope. Sure, this sounds awesome! I mean really what could go wrong? But Paul swore that it would be good riding and that they were going to ride it the next day and that I should join them. I reluctantly agreed and told Paul I would meet them there in the morning.

The following day I left the house fairly early.  Even though it was early the temperature was already in the low 50's and the day was supposed to be really sunny and I knew it was just going to get warmer. I seriously doubted that I would get to ride but thought if Keoka was a bust I would just head up to Umbagog. I left the house and headed to Bridgton. The whole drive there I passed several bodies of water and there wasn't a trace of ice in any of them. The entire drive I kept saying to myself "There's no friggen way there's any riding there!" I said it so many times it was almost like a some sort of mantra or religious chant. I couldn't believe I was wasting my time.

About 45 minutes later I find Keoka. It's a tiny little lake in the town of Waterford Me. and even though the lake I passed less than a mile down the road had just a trace of ice on it Keoka was covered in ice. And the ice was completely tracked up with ski tracks from Paul and Seth (and I think Randy) from the day before. It didn't make any sense! Paul and Seth were already there and we all got our stuff on and headed across the sketchy little bridge and onto the ice. The whole scene was freakish.

By the way, the water under that rickety sad little excuse for a bridge was black as oil. It didn't make you feel good about the idea of going in it.

Before I knew it we were riding. The temp at this point was 69 degrees and the wind was really nice and steady. The runs were relatively short but they were still fun. There were pockets of thin ice on top of water on top of thick ice and every once in a while you would punch through and sink about 4 inches but nothing major. After a while you got used to it and it didn't startle you anymore. Any reservations I had were gone as I flew back and forth without fear across that little lake.

After about an hour or so of riding in the early spring heat the ice had turned from a nice frosty white color to more of a dark ash gray. The sun and the heat was taking their toll on the surface and now the wind was letting up so I decided it was about time to pack it up. I decided not to push my luck much further.

Ever hear the term "candle ice"?

I turned my kite back toward shore and made my way back to my anchor. I was following the same line I'd be riding all morning and was about halfway across the lake when once again my skis punched through a layer and into some water underneath like had happened a hundred time already that morning. I didn't think anything of it as I was moving forward until I felt the ice come up past the normal level at the top of my instep and start hitting the cuff of my boot. Then it was hitting the top of my boot cuff, then my knee pads, my lower thighs, my waist until I ground to a halt when my chest plowed into the ice. Then I sank up to my neck in the water.

I couldn't believe it. I had actually fallen through the ice and was swimming with my damn skis and boots and everything. I felt around with my ski tip for the bottom. Nope no bottom. As I went in I noticed what sounded like wind chimes. I looked behind me and all the ice I had crashed through was floating and making a very distinct glass "clinking" sound. The ice I went through was about 10" thick and was comprised of long strands of ice or "candles". Thus the term "candle ice". A type of rotten ice that is extremely weak even though it can be as thick as the ice was at its strongest time of the season. I'd never heard or seen anything like it. It's defiantly something I take into account when I consider going out during the late season.

At the time I was riding my 19m Venom and it had gone to auto-zenith (hovering directly above me) and was waiting obediently for me to make a move. Fortunately I had my PFD on and all my armor which is made mostly of foam so I was in no danger of sinking in fact I was bobbing like a cork. It was a new thing for me to have my bar under the water and just see my lines coming out and up to my kite.

Okay so now I had to make a choice here. I thought to myself "Time to put your money where your mouth is." and see if all the theorizing about how we'd use our kites to pull us out if we went through. The last thing I wanted to do was try to live down being rescued by Maine Fish and Game.

I yelled over to everyone to stay clear of my location. Seth looked like he was going to come try to help me which as nice as that is on his part it would have ended up with both of us in the drink. I waved him off and got set up to try to self rescue via kite. The wind was getting lighter when I went in so I figured I better make this count.

There are several important things you have to do when in this situation and trying to get out of this situation. They are as follows.....

1) Do a "back scratcher". If you're on skis you'll need to do this to get out of the hole without getting hung up on the hole's edge or without losing your skis. You DO NOT want to lose your skis. You'll need them to spread your load across the ice when you get out of the water.

2) As you're in "back scratcher" position down loop the kite to build power and use it to pull you out of the hole and continue down looping until the kite has pulled you well away from the hole. When I first tried it I just got myself out of the water and onto the ice right next to the hole. When I tried to get up I broke through and was back in the water again.

3) Get the hell off the ice ASAP.

Shazam! Kite self rescue!

I'm not sure how this works with snowboards but I suspect it would be very similar.

I was most concerned after I was out and packing up my kite. I didn't know if the ice I was on while packing up was going to hold or not and if I fell through while packing up I wouldn't have my kite in the air to pull me out. That was the scriest part of the day.

We almost couldn't get off the ice it melted so much.

We call Keoka "Krug Goes Through" Pond now. The air temp was around 70 degrees and I changed out of my wet stuff and into some shorts. Even after being submerged for a few minutes my left foot still never got wet. Weird. It was a hell of a day.

Anyway, back to Squam.

Clouds on Staurday

Saturday turned out to be a hell of a good day on Squam. The wind was out of the East at about 15mph gusting to about 17mph and the surface was simply awesome. Molly and I got there first and just 200 feet down the road the local rescue squad was out on the ice practicing ice rescue procedures. Seemed a little funny to me that we were setting ice screws just 200 feet from them as the crawled across the ice with their floatation "thingy" and "Gumby" (survival) suits.

I'm sure they were thinking they'd be pulling us out of the water before too long.

Hole in the ice

Hole highlighted

Molly and I flew out to the broad part of the lake. She was sick but decided to come out anyway. The surface was fast and the wind was good. She rode the 10m Charger and got some good speed runs in. Her top speed for the short time she was out was 52.8mph. After a while she decided she was too sick and headed in. I stayed out and continued to make speed runs on the 12m Charger. The holes in the ice were still almost invisible. Most of my runs were between 44 and 56mph with a few over 60mph with one at 62mph. Too fast to stop in time if I lost track of the holes.

Randy Berube

Just after Molly went in Randy came out on his 10m Venom 2 and was completely lit. Randy isn't a big guy but he rides like a big guy. He's got a lot of heart and he's not afraid to be overpowered at times on a kite. He has the nerve and tenacity to make a kite that may be a little too big for certain conditions work. He came out and ripped around with me for a couple hours until the surface started to get too soft. He had a lot of fast runs and at the end he was on my heels at 58mph and some change. The wind was getting stronger but I was too tired and the surface was too sticky. We headed back in and finished our last day on Squam for the season.

Charger 19m Sunset

It was a great day. We all went fast and best of all nobody went swimming.

Until next time.

By the way, sorry for any typos.  I was a little rushed. =)