Best kite for long expeditions?

[Hardwater Kiter]

I personally like to lean towards the caution end of the spectrum. I don't do anything without seriously thinking it through and giving it a lot of time to get my program dialed in. Snowkiting is in many ways easier but in other ways more dangerous than water riding. It's usually a much more hostile enviroment than what you usually run into as a water rider.

What is the longest distance you've kited? What kind of speeds are you comfortable with? Are you familiar with AT gear and winter camping? If your goal is to cover the trip at speed then you will have to train for high speed kiting with minimal gear. Flying open cells on water is not going to be the best situations for training. Please tell us you know how to ski.

Most of the places we kite are remote enough that if things go wrong you may have to spend the night out in the cold. The same rule goes for snow as water, don't go farther than you are willing to swim or posthole back. We ride AT gear so if things go really wrong we can skin back but that can really suck even if its just 10 miles. Most places we ride there is no cell coverage. We are on our own. Self sufficiency and having your program dialed well before you go are key to successfully pulling something like this off.

How long do you plan to take to make the crossing? That's somewhere around 1500 miles. My longest day this season was 108 miles and I was pretty well smoked and I wasn't hauling a polk and it was on firm packed hero snow.

[edt]

The only question is if we should buy new Foils asap so we can train with them on water this summer or wait for it until next winter. What would be your choice?

I don't think it matters. Keep your inflatable, it has better relaunch on the liquid stuff, and kite as much as you can. You need more days kiting much more than you need to shake down your gear.

Like . . . the gear that you need most work on is not the kite, it's not the sled, it's this two legged thing, that's where you need the upgrade. Snowkite every chance you get, plan a trip up north, you can use your inflatable for snowkiting if you want. You might also want to learn how to splice line, how to make a figure 8 knot, how to sew so you can fix your kite if it rips in half, how to use kite line as improvised lashing for sledge repair, stuff like that.

You got the hardest thing already, and that is finding a knucklehead to join you. I'd love to do a crossing of Antarctica but it's hard to find a buddy that thinks weeks of cold hell is somehow fun.

[john a]

Most people would use a combination of some big and some small foils for that use, and maybe 40/60/90m lines to get more wind on light days...
But we actually use Best Kahoona for our guide service over the mountain platou and over the biggest glaciers over here. We find they work better for us - great stability, huge range and stiff profile in gusty wind. They will take a little more room in your baggage and a bit more wight maybe...
We even had Ski Magazine on a guided trip last May - can se some pictures on their web page: http://www.skinet.com/ski/galleries/snowkiting-norway
So it´s really a matter of taste.

[whiteout]

13m, 11m ozone frenzy ultralite. Multiple line combos, 2 bars

[Hardwater Kiter]

In regards to using inflatables for this I think you would have to find out who has done similar trips using LEIs. It's one thing to use them for guided/supported single day teips but another to use it for trips of a couple 1000 unsupported km. Personally I don't want to mess with pumps or possible blown/leaky bladders or valves 1000k out. An open cell would be my first choice for simplicity and durabilty. You whip an open cell in it has less chance of blowing up since the CELLS ARE OPEN. As in air can be blown out before serious cell damage can occur. Some Flysurfers have blowout valves but I think they stopped using them in the currrent models. I think Ozone is using them now on there Access series tho even if they are open cell.

I'm assuming this is going to be a self supported endeavor. If not I don't see the point personally. If it is self supported I'd lean towards the stuff that will need less attention.

Good point about the extra line lengths. Super long lines can be a lifesaver on dead days. The ability to stack kites could be handy as well but I think that's more of an Arc thing.

I dunno, I don't take things like multi week excursions lightly. We get people up here dieing on simple multi day climbs in the mountains and usually it's because of inexpirience/poor planning and underestimating what can happen in a winter enviroment. So far what I gleaned from this is that you "can" kite. Not that you have a lot of kiting hours or expirience. You clearly have a lot to learn about snowkiting and have little or no time on snow. It's still unclear as to wether you ski or not.

From my perspective I'm seeing a lot of red flags. I say this not knowing anything about your expirience level with winter camping or mountaineering. I like the idea, but I think that trying to pull this off this spring with a reasonable amount of safety and likelyhood of success is gonna be tough.

[john a]

Yes you are totally right even though we use them for several of days over the mountain platou, the best and lightest and easiest gear on such a extreme trip like a expedition would be a open foil. No doubt... Ozone has some good ones. My point was that in a lot of settings on a trip some might prefer a tube...
You can fit more kites in the baggage with the same weight. And if somethings goes wrong - or the wind varies, thats a good thing.
A friend of mine use to skisail a lot before he did this trip, but had not bin kiting a lot before. He broke his back in the middle of the expedition.... So get as much training as possible before getting into something like that. Send me a PM and I can get you in contact with those guys - maybe they had some experiences to share...

[WndRdr]

Well, Both of us are beginnners. I "can" kite but when it comes to huge jumps and spinns I´m totally lost.
I haven´t put any effort in reading about Foils before as i already have my tubekites, so your knowledge is more then welcome!

Our plan is to make this trip next spring (depending weatherdata) so we will have "plenty" of time to train this and next winter. The only question is if we should buy new Foils asap so we can train with them on water this summer or wait for it until next winter. What would be your choice?
There are excellent point in the responses already.

There are good points in the messages already sent.

It is important to kite on snow and in various conditions as much as you can. If you have tubes go with them but try to get the kites you are planning to use on expedition asap. You need to know how to work with them in all possible conditions by yourselves.

Other training depends a lot how experienced you are in hiking/mountaineering or similar or sking with sled. You need also learn to kite with a sled and have you harness or what ever system (you need to be able to ski with it) you use to fit to pull the sled. You can start training with a small weight in the sled but then you need to go with the full weight in it. I recall the Greenland expedition had 175kg starting weight in a sled. However they wanted to ski half the way so they used more time and needed some more food etc. with them.

Plan also training tips with all the gear to travel some days.It will give better picture what you will face out there.

During the expeditions the day travels with kite have varied from 30 to 140 km depending on the wind. They have used 8 to 14 hours to those distances. You need to be in excellent mental and physical condition to do so.

It would help us to help you and also it would ease our minds if you could tell how experienced you are with snowy conditions and making any expeditions.

[Hardwater Kiter]

Well said.

[skydive]

Well, Both of us are beginnners. I "can" kite but when it comes to huge jumps and spinns I´m totally lost.
I haven´t put any effort in reading about Foils before as i already have my tubekites, so your knowledge is more then welcome!

Our plan is to make this trip next spring (depending weatherdata) so we will have "plenty" of time to train this and next winter. The only question is if we should buy new Foils asap so we can train with them on water this summer or wait for it until next winter. What would be your choice?
There are excellent point in the responses already.

There are good points in the messages already sent.

It is important to kite on snow and in various conditions as much as you can. If you have tubes go with them but try to get the kites you are planning to use on expedition asap. You need to know how to work with them in all possible conditions by yourselves.

Other training depends a lot how experienced you are in hiking/mountaineering or similar or sking with sled. You need also learn to kite with a sled and have you harness or what ever system (you need to be able to ski with it) you use to fit to pull the sled. You can start training with a small weight in the sled but then you need to go with the full weight in it. I recall the Greenland expedition had 175kg starting weight in a sled. However they wanted to ski half the way so they used more time and needed some more food etc. with them.

Plan also training tips with all the gear to travel some days.It will give better picture what you will face out there.

During the expeditions the day travels with kite have varied from 30 to 140 km depending on the wind. They have used 8 to 14 hours to those distances. You need to be in excellent mental and physical condition to do so.

It would help us to help you and also it would ease our minds if you could tell how experienced you are with snowy conditions and making any expeditions.

Hi,

Experience
We both have relatively good experience "hiking" in tough winterconditions from our military service (similar to Airborn Special Force), without being to cocky I would say we are in excellent physical and metal shape.
My friend also have experience from climbing mt mckinley, Elbrus and Mont Blanc but when it comes to kite-expeditions we have much to learn.

Our plan is (as someone here recommended) to get hands on the kites and gear we are planing to use at the expedition and train as much as we can with it, mostly next winter (as he works in the US at the moment)

So... I´ve got recommended Flysurfer Speed 3 21m for superlight conditions, Ozone Frenzy 11 and 7m.
What do you think about that combo?
As written the best thing for our economy would be to buy 3 Flysurfer kites ( or other closedcellkites as we don´t really want 2 sets of kites), but if those aren´t the most safe and best kites for the purpose maybe it´s worth going for 2 open cellkites?

Once again, thank you for you engagement. It´s appreciated!

[Cray]

So... I´ve got recommended Flysurfer Speed 3 21m for superlight conditions, Ozone Frenzy 11 and 7m.
What do you think about that combo?

Disaster waiting to happen..... people gave you info on their leasure kite equipment, you'll be towing stuff. Doing XC. That's different. And you are taking all the info from a forum, that's BAD .

Btw.: Flysurfer might need preinflation in low wind and it's more sensitive than open-cells, IMHO it's not a good bet.

As written the best thing for our economy would be to buy 3 Flysurfer kites ( or other closedcellkites as we don´t really want 2 sets of kites), but if those aren´t the most safe and best kites for the purpose maybe it´s worth going for 2 open cellkites?

Once again, thank you for you engagement. It´s appreciated!

Don't use forum information, people pimp their own gear/snow experiances. Ask people who'd done it: http://www.flyozone.com/snowkites/en/ne ... ines/19780

These kites were used for expeditions, see the size charts and think hard on that:
http://www.flyozone.com/snowkites/en/pr ... a-gt/info/

If you want to test snowkite traveling with a support crew, these guys have (snowkite support) experiance and gear and can set you up in a safe way:
http://siadv.is/