Snowkiting Central Oregon

Good luck Moto! I'll be pulling for ya! Shame your primo spot got pulled off the table. This is going to be my first year Snowkiting and I'm snooping around a bit too in the greater Park City area. NBC Studios went and bought the land out from under one of the spots a lot of kiters had used for years right on the outskirts of town and went and built a giant studio complex. Doh!

For us one the big gating factors becomes the depth of our snowpack. A great amount of our open rolling terrain around here is covered with sagebrush. Once the snowpack is at least a settled 4 ft everything is covered up with a layer of protection and the options expand exponentially. The Wasatch snow is so dry that it really settles down to much less than when it fell. Twelve inches of Utah Powder, however wonderful (Greatest Snow on Earth, so they say) settles in a few days down to about 4 inches of snow pack. "Some settling may occur during shipment" as I usually say, just like breakfast cereal. . I know your snow, like that in the Sierra Nevada Range in CA really gets deep on the ground due to its higher moisture content. Hey, we all live with trade offs, right?

I look forward to hearing about your adventures and conquests this winter! Videos please! :D

If you guys get tired of all the powder, come to Wisconsin. We specialize in high moisture snow

Sounds like a great dump! That storm missed us but for a short two hour period where it snowed hard and dropped about four inches. Good while it lasted.

Those spots sound promising. Your day on snow sounded an awful lot like a lot of my days with my buggy this summer. Chin up - it will come!

Quote: Originally posted by MotoFoo86

We got DUMPED on in town here on tuesday night/wednesday morning, snow depths in town ranged from 12-14". As such i was determined to set out and do some snow kiting. So this morning i took off my chains, loaded up both snowboards and all three kites (not going to miss a session if i don't have to!) and headed out. First flight at Riverbend park, wind was good, launched the 14m montana... wow, that sucker is a BEAST. If it's flying it's yanking, loved it, however two families descended on my flying field to play soccer in the snow. I landed, packed and slunk away. Onto the next, Pine Nursery. I've flown here before, but always have dodged soccer goals. Not today, the good people of Bend Parks and Rec had apparently stashed all the goals due to the impending score. Jackpot. Pine nursery park is a combination of 4 baseball fields, with backstops only bordering 4 soccer fields. Perfectly smooth too. Set up just in time to meet another local snowkiter, so far things are good! By the time we both finished setting up though the wind was abysmal. He managed to get a 20yd downwind drag on his Manta II. I never managed to get running. Spent the better part of 2 hours resetting the kite, strapping back into the board, and lying in the snow. Major bummer. Still glad i tried, and it was great to put the 14m up! Even managed a small 4-6ft jump flying static in low wind. All in all a frustrating but passable day.