Does anyone who is reading this doing it yet?
Are foils better for snowkiting than tubes?

Jimmy

I hear that ram air works for snow but blimps don't or not as well anyway.Never see pics of Naish snowkiting.Haven't tried it yet but plan to this winter. The question is: skiis or a snowboard? maybe shorty skiis....

That's a good question. Which is safer? For the carving feeling like you have on the water, the snowboard should be more fun.

Christopher

I: RAM FOILS are the better kites because they start and land easier.
relaunching a tube kite means: REMOVINg the board, preparing the kite and relaunch.
if you restart a tubekite like you do in the water, you will damage it.

II: a snowboard has more 'style' than skiies, but less the grip and no safety bindings.
skiies go faster, jump higher and are safer but don't provide the boarder-feeling and the surf-style-tricks can't be trained on snow.

Do you really jump high with snowkites? Or are the landings quiet hard?
In general, are their many accidents?

Tala, France

well,
in snowkiting, there's one difference:
you can stert really small.
a 4meter kite in 3-4bft is enough.
you start gliding earlier and don't sink.

to jump high, you need more power, but if you use the terrain, incredible hang-times are the result. as far as i know, a good snow-kiter can get hangtimes of more than 10 seconds while jumping downhill.

how soft you land depends on how good you jump.
it's like on the water - edge hard, gain preassure, steer the kite backwards and in the moment it lifts you up, steer it back.
if you do this propely, you will land as soft as on the water.

i don't know of any serious accidents so far,
but even here, it's the same like kite-surfing: it's as dangerous as you make it.

try starting with a small kite (ram foils can be bought 2nd hand for about 130$), and go bigger if you like.

hey murdoc,

do you use a board or skis?
what are the differences?

Michel

like said above:
a board has some disadvantages - it has only one edge to grip into the snow and is less fast - and has no safety-bindings.

another cool feature of skiies is:
you can move around without removing them.
(removing one foot of the snowboard to change position to the kite (for example to restart) is very dangerous - it coulld kill your knee)


if you take a snowboard and set the bindings to TT-style you'll be able to just start and ride like it's water and u use your board.

right in the moment i use neither board nor ski, but go surfing

I have heard Ram air types are best because inflatable could burst much easier if they hit the ground, plus the bladders get brittle in cold..

correct.
these kites are made for water and that's where they belong.
these temperatures are not good for them and the tiny sharp snow and ice-crystals are hostile, too.