Cross-country Snowkiting (150km round trip)
Around Lake Simcoe by Kite and Ski
“Two kiters from Canada embark on a daring snowkiting adventure to circumnavigate frozen Lake Simcoe. It has never been done before! A 150-kilometer journey through blizzard conditions, fierce winds, occasional whiteouts, and subzero temperatures put both Lukas Novak (LN) and Mathieu Turgeon (MT) through their paces.”
Lake Simcoe is nestled between Lake Ontario and the Georgian Bay on the east side of the Great Lakes. It is the fourth-largest lake wholly in the province of Ontario and spans roughly 725 square kilometers, about 30 kilometers long and 25 kilometers wide. Originally the lake was called Ouentironk (“Beautiful Water”) by the Huron natives. The lake freezes completely during the winter and so it becomes a paradise for ice fishing, snowkiting and other winter activities.
LN: Long distance kiting adventures have become my passion and so I started to wonder whether it would be possible to circumnavigate the entire lake by kite and ski in one day. A 150-kilometer round trip would be about the same distance as skiing the famous Ontario Blue Mountain 80 times nonstop. I figured that would be okay and started to prepare.
A few weeks later my first attempt ended in total defeat. I traveled alone, hauling my camping equipment on my back, just in case I ran out of time and got stranded. After encountering terrible ice conditions, relentless northerly winds, and temperatures of -15C, I had to scrub the mission and turn around. I reached the car absolutely exhausted after covering only 44 kilometers. Among other things that I learned that day was the fact that camping wasn’t an option as a contingency plan. The load was simply too heavy.
Over the next few days, I brainstormed this mission over with Mathieu and Jason Maloney and thanks to their input the new plan was hatched. This time, Mathieu and I were going to make an attempt together with Jason on call to monitor the weather and to pick us up from wherever we fell along the route. I reworked the whole plan, incorporated the lessons learned from my first attempt, had my skis professionally sharpened, and then waited impatiently for the right opportunity to strike.
MT: I had never previously contemplated doing any kind of long distance snowkiting but have always been fascinated with Lukas’ numerous adventures on his trips. His amazing feat of kitesurfing around Barbados certainly topped the list. When he hatched his latest detailed plan to make it around Lake Simcoe, I just had to join this adventure!
LN: Saturday morning on January 25, 2014 I left Toronto at 6 o’clock in the morning and started to drive up to Simcoe. It was still dark and there was a raging blizzard. The radio stations were broadcasting wind advisories, blowing snow across the highways, and unsafe driving conditions. I wasn’t worried as this weather was expected.
MT: We met up in Keswick at the local Tim Horton’s to discuss the latest weather forecast, kite sizes, and what gear to carry. We anticipated SSW winds around 15 knots to shift around noon to WNW, and the speeds reaching 25 knots later in the day. I decided to use my 8m Cabrinha Switchblade and Lukas was going to fly his 8m Flysurfer Unity. We were both excited and ready to embark on our incredible adventure. This journey had never been done before and thus many unknown factors could arise.
LN: We cast off at 8:30, slightly behind our planned schedule. It was snowing lightly, the visibility was fairly good, temperature -8C. We traveled clockwise, our first waypoint Innisfil. The wind was mostly at our backs and the initial travel was easy and joyful. We were doing broad reach tacks which felt almost effortless.
MT: I followed Lukas closely as he had studied the route extensively, and had the waypoints set on his GPS watch. As we passed Innisfil and started to cross Kempenfelt Bay, we had our first surprise of the day. There was a massive pressure ridge ahead of us with puddles of water seeping through the snow!
LN: I had encountered pressure ridges before on Lake Nipissing and so I knew what we were facing. Along the pressure ridge, there could be areas of open water, not always visible, even though the ice is more than 16 inches thick all across the lake. In fact, driving over a pressure ridge accounts for a significant portion of vehicle mortality on lakes. The ridge is a compression rupture where whole sheets of ice are pushed on top of each other.
MT: We were looking at large, nearly meter-high chunks of ice sticking out of the lake along the ridgeline, which extended east-west for kilometers! It was quite impressive for a short while, but we had to look for a path to cross. I happened to bog into a soft slush while crossing the “unknown” but luckily, I came out of it quickly on the other side.
LN: With this mini-adventure safely behind us, we kept pressing on. We had to make up some time because we were already a bit behind our schedule. Maintaining our timetable was paramount to our success. If we fell behind, we would never make it back in daylight. According to my calculations, we were still 22 kilometers away from the top of the lake and it was already eleven o’clock. The sky cleared up for the first time of the day, and with the sun came some stronger winds as well. Around Hawkestone, the snow conditions were just magnificent.
MT: There were hardly any ice patches in this area and lots of snow. We were reaching some pretty good speeds here carving the nice powder.
Close to Orillia, Lukas informed me that we had almost 60 kilometers on our legs, and as mine were certainly in need of some rest, we took a break. A few energy bars, apples, and Gatorade were on the menu.
LN: Fifteen minutes later, we were back on our skis, heading north, with Grape Island in sight. Grape Island was the northernmost point of our trip and it felt incredibly good to reach this milestone. Circumnavigating this little island, though, nearly turned into a disaster. We got ourselves in a huge wind shadow and it took a lot of effort, energy, and time to “kite-loop” ourselves out of trouble.
MT: I forgot to mention that during our little break, winds had shifted around and were blowing out of the west. Even though this was exactly what we had hoped for, it definitely hindered our little Grape Island circumnavigation efforts due to the tiny fetch there in these conditions.
LN: After that close call around Grape Island, we turned eastbound. With the westerly winds at our backs, all we had to do was to park our kites at 12 o’clock, point our skis towards Strawberry Island and Lagoon City, and enjoy the ride. The wind speed and direction were so perfect that we were literally carried at a very comfortable pace towards our next adventures. The sun was shining, and we were laughing. This was just too easy; it felt like cheating.
Out of curiosity, I strayed from our track to look for Whiskey Shoal. It is a tiny sand spit in the middle of nowhere with a few rocks barely sticking out of the water. I wondered whether it would be visible in the snow. With the help of my GPS, I found a few boulders and a tiny piece of bare land. Satisfied with my findings, I turned back east to catch up with Matt. Riding side by side with our kites at 12 o’clock, we soon reached Lagoon City with little to no effort.
MT: I couldn’t believe how precise Lukas’ itinerary was and how well we were able to keep to it. We were perfectly on time, and things were looking good. It was 12:30pm and we were heading towards Thorah Island and Beaverton.
LN: The wind had picked up and we started to ride in blowing snow and occasional snow squalls. At times, there was nothing to see but a white horizon with no civilization or land in sight. We could have been at the North Pole for that matter and it would have probably looked all the same. I marveled at this rugged beauty and felt truly alive.
MT: Lukas, don’t get any ideas. 🙂
LN: As we were approaching Thorah Island, Matt and I decided to take another break. Our knees were on fire and we were dehydrated. Close to Beaverton, there were many fish huts on the lake but they all seemed to be deserted as there was not a single soul or a vehicle to be seen.
MT: I figured we could go sit in the wind shadow of one of those huts, or maybe even use its shelter for a short while! After we put each other’s kites down, Lukas and I went to check out one of the huts. To our big surprise, there were two dudes inside looking like bears woken up from their hibernation.
LN: The storyline of the next 15 minutes should read “Four dudes in a tight fish hut!”
MT: When we opened the door of the hut to continue our odyssey, there was a full-on blizzard! Winds must have been well over 20 knots, the snow fall was horizontal, the visibility was terrible, and our skis and bars almost completely disappeared in the snowdrifts.
LN: When I finally tried to launch my kite, it sprang into the air but the tips remained spliced together as if frozen. Then, without any warning, the kite abruptly opened and I found myself flying head first right into the snowdrift. Matt and the “hut-dudes” watched my snow-eating action with great interest but nobody laughed. It was just too cold and miserable outside.
MT: Correction, I definitely had a good laugh! Knowing that Lukas was okay though or else I swear I wouldn’t have laughed.
LN: We left Beaverton behind and headed towards Georgina Island and Holmes Point. The wind was relentless and I was seriously worried. I was grossly overpowered and I feared that I could be lofted and smashed hard onto the ice. Jason, who was monitoring the wind situation and our progress throughout the whole day later showed us the graphs with winds averaging around 23 knots and gusting well over 30 knots. This was a serious matter. The trip up to this point was like a honeymoon in comparison to what was awaiting us over the next 3 hours.
MT: It was tough to get back on our gear after warming up in the cozy fish hut. Despite the howling conditions, I knew the lake pretty well from this point on. Approximately 2 years ago in the spring, Jason and I had kite-surfed around both Georgina and Thorah Islands from Sibbald Provincial Park, but that’s a story for another day!
LN: Our journey From Holmes Point all the way to Snake Island was almost straight into the wind. Keeping the kite up high was not an option. When the kite was above my head, it was reducing my weight, and I was sliding sideways no matter how hard I tried to hold the edge. I had to put my kite low and carve insanely hard into the wind to control my speed. I slouched forward and leaned into my skis the same way the downhill skiers would do in the turn. To keep my kite at the edge of the wind window was my only chance of “survival.”
This would have been all okay after all, had there been no patches of bare ice. As soon as I hit clear ice, all upwind progress was over. No matter what a person did, straight downwind he went. It was like running in a mine field. Every ice patch was a dangerous mine that had to be avoided if possible.
With my extreme lean into the wind, my legs were taking an unimaginable toll. My forward speed was just slightly more than a slow bicycle ride. Mathieu, on the other hand, looked like a champion in comparison. He took a different approach to tackling the blizzard conditions we found ourselves in.
MT: At that point, I wasn’t sure what was taking Lukas so long. Little did I know he was way overpowered and just “surviving.” I thought he was simply taking a measured approach to the whole situation, and conserving energy. I felt re-energized after passing Georgina Island, realizing that we would actually complete this trip. With renewed determination, I started the upwind fight with tons of power in my kite. I kited as fast as I could for a few tacks, before I dropped down to the ice to give my legs a short but much needed rest. A quick sip of my energy drink, Lukas passes by, and I am back up fighting the elements.
LN: I found Matt’s “mad-zigzag action” hilarious! I felt like I was doing all the hard work and he was just lying in the snow, having a drink!
The blowing snow was blinding and the visibility was not more than 50m at times. Every time Matt lowered his kite he disappeared from the surface of the Earth. At one point, I thought we had been separated for good and so I stopped and waited for an orange kite to hopefully appear from the whiteout.
Matt’s kite was like an anchor of sanity for me during the whole trip. By this point, it was absolutely clear that without Mathieu, I would have never made it by myself. We were a perfect team as if we had trained together for this expedition. His typical high spirits, enthusiasm, and never faltering motivation were like fuel to keep me going. Matt is not just a dude that kites around in crazy environments. He is an accomplished Olympic athlete. His wife Karen, is a world champion, 4-time Olympian, 3-time Olympic medalist in the same sport of trampoline. In fact, I was kiting with a celebrity whose beautiful orange kite had disappeared out of my sight for quite some time now and I really didn’t like it. Fortunately, in a short while Matt’s kite reappeared in the blowing snow and I again had a smile on my frozen face.
MT: Lukas is seriously hardcore and never stopped for a rest after leaving Thorah Island. He must have legs made of steel as a result of all his long distance kiting adventures! Those were incredibly harsh conditions. Between the snow squalls, however, the visibility was great and the sky was blue. We could finally see Snake Island. This was our last hurdle before reaching Roches Point, and finally turning south for our final downwind leg back home.
LN: When we turned around Roches Point, the relief was immediate, like a cyclist who reaches the top of a steep hill and starts coasting downhill without having to peddle. Our minds started to celebrate even though we still had about 7 kilometers to go. At this point, we were sure that we were going to win this fight. The almighty Lake Simcoe will be defeated after all. It felt like heaven but I was barely able to appreciate it. My legs were non-existent. I had to keep going slow because I wouldn’t be able to stop in case I had to.
MT: I was combing the shoreline looking for our cars. After reaching Crates Marina, I knew we were close. It would only be another kilometer before we spotted other local kiters and our cars nearby.
LN: And then, there they were; two familiar kites flying in the distance. At last, there was our finish line, there was our home!
TRIP STATISTICS __________________________________________________________________ Total distance kited: Mathieu 152.23km Lukas 146.12km Total time kiting: 7 hours 50 minutes Maximum kiting speed: 39.2 km/h Average kiting speed: 20 km/h Number of stops: 2, about 15 minutes each Calories burned: 5035 kcal Recovery time: 42 hours __________________________________________________________________ Interactive map and detailed statistics: SUUNTO Ambit2