Flyboy:
I am speaking with people who are recommending I get 7-9.4's ; this seems extremely large to me cause last winter I used 3- 4.9's , I never needed anything larger than the 4.9 (maybe I was lucky with the wind gods)I was in cook's bay & kite beach most of the time aswell, I think you might be right in deep snow we may need to go bigger, but the 4.9 would pull me like a freight train in high gear; lake already has surface ice on it, we should be good to go real soon!!!

Where do you guys snowkiting in Ontario this winter. Is it enough ice/snow on the lakes?I will be in Toronto area from Dec.27 to Jan2,would be great to go ride with somebody. Specially wind forecast looks promissing. Any info would be a help.
Thanks.

Igor - probably the best place to kite near Toronto is Lake Simcoe, a little under 1 hour north of the city. It looks like there will be strong ice there by the end of December. Go to the south end of Cook's Bay - if there is wind you will probably find people kiting there.

G'day

I'm new to the "snowkiting" / "kiteski" thing and am just learning how to fly my FONE 5.0m and 7.0m on NW Ontario frozen lakes. At 200lbs, what sort of wind range can I expect for skis on a hard packed snow covered lake?

I've flown the 7m at 15-20knots and found it way too much but perhaps it's my technique or setup?

Certainly, if you're learning, you're not going to be comfortable too powered-up. A lot does depend on the ice/snow conditions, but good hard-packed snow should allow you to control quite bit of power.

On the snow/ice you can pick up speed quite easily, & as you travel faster the kite generates even more power (apparent wind). Unlike on the water, lulls in the wind speed don't cause you to slow down much, so you can carry a smaller kite a still keep going fast. I would suggest you use less power until you start to feel more comfortable with a bigger kite relative to the wind strength.