Quote:
Originally Posted by Webbsatwinni
We are planing on venturing out to Rattlesnake tomorrow. Is it just me or is the lack of bob houses visable on the cams and indication that the ice isn't safe yet?
With this weeks temps, I would think that there wouldn't be an issue. But I thought I would toss it out to the forum and see what others think before we head out.
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I went out with our son today and we found conditions to be pretty poor. The high winds this past week scoured much of the snow off the ice, creating 1) many bare spots of sheer ice, 2) many snow moguls making riding somewhat rough, and 3) a snow surface (what snow remains) that is so hard that the snowmobile tracks couldn't pick up enough to keep the engines cool.
We first went from Minge Cove around the southeast end of Rattlesnake. As we headed northwest past Rattlesnake Guy's & Gal's place (which faces Parker Island), we encountered a huge area of large ice shards sticking up almost horizontally from the surface of the lake. There were thousands of them, many of which stick up over 12". Once we had slightly entered that area we were unable to continue forward and had to turn around and back-track out of there. It appears that the surface of the lake had frozen to a depth of about 2" of clear, solid ice, and then the high winds broke up large sections of it into "shards" and blew them southeast where they piled up and were forced together, causing them to ride over-and-under each other so many of them were forced into near vertical positions where they re-froze. I haven't seen anything quite like that before. I don think a vehicle of any kind could navigate that area at this time. We saw those shards of ice over a fairly large section of the lake in that area.
I don't know if the northwestern end of Rattlesnake has those conditions or not, and it could be a totally different situation there. I can tell you that what little snow remains on the ice is so hardened by the wind and bitterly cold temps. that we couldn't keep our machines cool today and we decided to come back after a relatively short time out there.
However, there is a snowstorm forecast for tonight and tomorrow that could totally change conditions for the better.
All should beware the sharp vertical ice shards near the southeast end of Rattlesnake, however!