Wind power

I grew up praying for wind in the summer time and begging for calm days in the winter. This past Saturday, I think I may have changed this trend. Growing up in Hood River, Oregon with two parents involved in the windsurfing and kiteboarding community it was hard not to try the two sports. I would mainly consider myself a windsurfer, but I had multiple kiting adventures growing up as well. I am excited now to and kite-skiing to my list. This is a perfect combination of a wind and snow sport.
Saturday morning I got a call from my friend Scott Ryan asking if I wanted to get on a kite today, of course I jumped on the opportunity. The wind was going to pick up around noon so we met up and drove out to Blue Mesa Reservoir, the largest man made in Colorado. The Mesa is completely frozen over in the winter time and has higher winds than Gunnison, making it the prime location for kite skiing and snowboarding.
Scott set me up and I was off in no time. It took me a bit to get the hang of flying a kite again after 4 years but once I started to get more comfortable with it I began to have so much fun. I never reached this point of fun when I was kiteboarding on the river back home. I knew at this point this wouldn't be my last attempted at this sport.
About 20 minutes later I looked back behind me an realized I was pretty far away from the launch site; I figured I should start heading back up wind. This is when the panic mode hit me because I couldn't remember how to work my way back up wind. Minor detail I probably should have thought about 20 minutes prior. So there I was in the middle of the frozen lake, too far to walk back to the launch site and at a horrible pull out location. Finally Scotty made it down to me and began giving me instructions to get back up wind. However, the wind picked up and I was well over powered. I was having a blast going down wind, but there was not hope for me to get back up. We organized a shuttle plan and I continued down the lake. Luckily it was only a 10 minute detour for Scotty and he was back out kiting in no time. I decided the 9 meter was a little too big when the boys informed me they were full power on their kites. I played photographer for the rest of the day and enjoyed watching Scott catch some good air!

Scott Ryan and Lloyd Tucker

Scott 

Three days later and my upper body is still killing me from this skiing activity. I can't wait to get back out there soon. As for the mean time, I am watching the snow stack up on the pow cam at CB and so jealous of anyone who gets to ski tomorrow! Go make some turns for me!