WISSA Races and Snowkite Bliss at the End of the Road.

Okay so obviously I've been slackin off on this blog thing to a level of slack that has rarely been seen before.  I started the WISSA entry almost 2 years ago but managed to misplace it and well when the summer of 2012 hit and we started trying to put together a little company called Hardwater Kiting and Eastside Bike Guides (more on that later) and things like the blog just got pushed aside. 

But recently I found the WISSA blog entry, and some images ANNNNNNND snowkite season is upon us so I'm getting pumped to get back into the swing of things.  It's been a strange year or so since WISSA and I have a lot to write about but I want to get everything up to speed starting with this delayed entry.  Bare in mind I wrote it a while ago so any present tense is from a few months back.

The WISSA trip.....

Friday I woke up at 04:00 and got myself out the door at 04:30m, jumped in the van and headed North to the Canadian border.  Before I knew it, 9 hours later I was in a city called North Bay on the shores of Lake Nipissing.  I'd seen this lake on satellite images for years and it was on the way to the WISSA event so I'd been looking forward to riding it.  This had been a strange winter to say the least and where I live is one of the few places in the U.S. that even has ice to ride.  South of us there isn't any ice and North of us, even into Quebec, the conditions haven't been good.   I was amazed at what saw while passing through Quebec.  There was some ice but it wasn't ice that I would ride on.  It was like this all the way to North Bay.  A lot of regions are hurting but Lake Nipissing isn't one of them.

 

Just after I got into town I found a small municipal park on the north side where I launched the 12m Phantom 2 and made my way South along the shoreline.  The wind was 12 mph gusting to about 16 mph and the surface was ice and variable snow all the way to the horizon.  After about 20 minutes of cruising the shoreline, jumping off lots of snow covered rocks and walls I saw a few other kites about 3 miles further south.  I decided to fly down and say "hello" and maybe get some information about the ice conditions further out past the multitude of fishing hut towns.

People seemed surprised as I came out of nowhere.  Most of their kites were fairly high where as usual I was trying to get there quick so my kite was about 4 feet off the ice and blending in with the shoreline behind me.   Flying an Arc that nobody had ever seen before.  Especially there as most of the kites were inflatos.  Everyone I spoke to was very nice and they told me that the lake was completely frozen and it was 70 km of ice out to the horizon.  After we talked for a while I decided to fly out to an island in the distance that looked about 10 miles out.  I was about halfway there when I realized I was losing too much daylight to make it there and back safely.  I don't know the lake well enough and didn't want to risk having the wind die or running into a pressure ridge in the dark so I headed back to my anchor.

 One I made it back to the park I packed up, got a sandwich on my way out of town and headed to Sault St. Marie.  Even though I was heading to the WISSA event my mind was filled with nothing but thoughts in my of riding this big lake again. The vastness, the terrain features near the shore, the steady winds, all of it awesome and all I could think of the entire way to St. Ignace.
 

I arrived it St. Ignace at about 08:00 Saturday morning. It's a pretty quiet little town in the winter. I drove around a bit to get the lay of the land then headed to the WISSA site. I was riding at the race area on the 15m Phantom 2 by 09:00.
 

 

The last time WISSA (http://www.wissa.org/) was held in the states was in 1986 in Wolfeboro New Hampshire, about 40 minutes down the road from where I live. I signed on for this event because it's the first time it's been held in the states since and there were supposed to be a speed competition and a long distance race.  But winter was as unkind to northern Michigan as everywhere else and the venue got moved first from Lake Huron to Lake Michigan and then from Michigan to Chain "Lake". Calling Chain Lake a lake is a blatant abuse of the term. 

I've said this before, I'm not a course racer by any stretch.  This is a racing community that I am not a part of and putting me in this level of course racing is akin to putting a top fuel dragster in an Formula 1 course.  I signed on to this event because the average wind in St. Ignace usually rages and there was supposed to be an endurance race and some flavor of speed event both of which I do like and do well in. But I guess it's hard to have a long distance race on a pond so we were relegated to straight up course racing. The event did go off as promised and with the poor winds my heart just wasn't in it.  In fact I was bored to death a good part of the time. The only time I was happy was when I wasn't skating my ass off keeping my kite in the air in some race with no wind on a pond about the size of a dinner plate.
I had hoped that being moved to an inland lake would work to my advantage and we would have gusty inland winds but as it turned out when we had wind it was so light I almost couldn't get a kite in the air most of the time.   That's just the way it goes with wind dependent sports.  Not having wind in St. Ignace is as rare as not having ice, we just got unlucky. 

I did get to race in most of the rounds.  Day one we had some wind and I was able to race the 19m Charger. Things were going well in the first heats but unfortunately I had a couple issues and managed to crack a spar and partially blow out a spar pocket.  That took me out of racing for the rest of the day.  The Charger could still fly but I didn't want the pocket to fail completely in the middle of the race and put the other racers at risk.  It was just as well I suppose as the surface had gotten so soft in the sun that when I edged hard I started to bog down. 

 

The rest of the week was plagued by light winds.  For those who were equipped with super high AR light wind race wings things were still good but the conditions weren't good for racing the Arcs.  Not even the 24m Phantom 2 was up to the challenge.  In one race I skated 8 miles with the kite in the air just to complete the first round.  I took myself out of the second round as I knew I had a few more days racing ahead and skating another 8 miles would burn up my legs for at least a day or two.

 

In another race I was on the 15m Phantom 2 in extremely light winds.  Unfortunately the only way I could get power out of the kite was to fly it over the tree line where the wind (what there was) ramped up.  Then as luck would have it where I was skiing there was slush under the snow and I caught a ski tip in someone's slushy track.  As I tried to recover from falling over I ever so slightly pulled tone side of the bar and managed to snag a steering line on a treetop, causing the 15m to roll into the trees  and get caught in the tops of three of them about 20+ feet in the air.

This was one of the few days that I was actually able to move in a race I was determined not to let this stop me.  I got my skis off, put down my bar and sprinted for shore.

 I managed to climb up the bank and then up the center tree in my ski boots.  I watched racers go by as I'm doing this but they were so focused on the race I don't think anyone even knew that I was in the trees.  I got within reach of one of the VPCs and disconnect my lines.  I then get to the other side of the kite and start to work it down through the trees as far as I could.  Then I climbed/fell down, grabbing the kite as I went by, and pulled it down with me. 

I disconnected the other lines and managed to get the kite out of the woods an onto the ice.  I got my lines squared away and reconnected and managed to get the Phantom 2 into the air with about 1/3 of the air she really needs to fly but managed to get her going anyway. 

I got the 15m out of the trees and she didn't have a scratch. Not a single hole.  If I had bridles like all the other kites there the 15m would probably still be in those trees but fortunately I don't and the Phantom 2 is tough as nails.  When it was all said and done I came in last in that round but I finished and that is what was important.

We ran 12 races and I managed to place 13th over all.  Never having seen this level of racing I learned these racers take it very seriously and on a course as small and short as this was, you have to have a high level of technical race skill and the right equipment.  If you make one little mistake the race is over before you can remedy it. Had I known what I was up against maybe I could have improved my chances by bringing better Cera F type waxes.  Oh well,  I learned a lot, and got to meet some really great people and after the day's races I'd explore more intriguing areas to ride.  The competitors and the people of St. Ignace were unbelievably nice and racing aside I also got to explore two of the great lakes, Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. 

After racing on the pond I couldn't wait to get out on Michigan.  Even though the region lacked the normal ice they usually have the lake was frozen pretty well almost 2 miles out and as far along the shore as I could see.  The winds were rock steady, the steadiest wind I've ever seen.   There were various ice flows and pressure ridges on it that had set up and I would launch from the beach and just explore the different smooth patches in between.  If the wind was right I'm sure you could follow the shore hundreds of miles all the way to the other side of the lake.  It was amazing. It really made my mind spin at the snowkite possibilities in this place.

On Saturday we had wind but for some reason we didn't have any racing so I headed to Michigan first thing in the morning.  The winds were blowing about 25mph and I took the 15m Phantom 2 and  I rode half trimmed for 40 miles then came in for lunch.  After lunch I decided to see if I could find some ice on Lake Huron.  I didn't know how I was going to get to some ice, just drove and followed my gut.  In about 20 minutes not only did I find ice but it was smooth and covered with a 6-7 inch layer of wind packed powder.  COMPLETELY UNTRACKED!  I couldn't believe my luck! I rode there for another 50 miles, flew out to an island and just generally ripped around and tracked out as much powder as I could.

It was bliss.

Sunday morning I left St. Ignace and headed for home.  It was a great trip and I'm really happy that I got to see what I saw and ride what I rode.  So my performance in the races wasn't what I'd hoped.  But I got to see some amazing racers, some amazing race kites and I learned quite a bit.  I probably would have been better off if I'd arranged to have a 16m Vapor on site but there were some logistic issues. On the last day of racing the 24m Phantom 2 actually did a great job.  

 So in spite of the poor wind conditions and the small race area I came away from it with a little more knowledge about course racing, a lot of knowledge about an new amazing place to ride kites and even got some personal growth by going out side my "comfort zone" and trying some new stuff.  Since being back I keep thinking about North Bay, Michigan and Heron.  All that open space, great wind and endless potential.  I'll be back up there some day soon I think.