Mike B. Terrain out west

[Matt V]

It's game over man, game over. Freezing rain on Sunday made it a chore to ride on flat lakes, but the grass was still good up at Mazeppa/Meyers GPA/WPA north of South Shore, SD. Though I do not think skis would have been usable with the 1/8inch coating of ice on most of the deep snow. Shane and I had the best day ever today kiting the cornices (soft on the lip and in the bottom for landings) in the NNE valley of Meyers. First time I made it out on that side of the area and it was nice to have someone around to pick up the pieces if I fell apart on the 25ft cornice that started to avalanche a bit. The valley was lit on the SE wind and you could ride just under the lip across the entire cornice. I think this is my new favorite spot.

But a bit more freezing rain that is in the forecast will put an end to it even for snowboards. And it looks as if I cannot out run it even by going up to Fergus Falls, MN. - Game over man

Maybe next year.

[Travii]

Is there rideable terrain near Fergus Falls?

Thanks,
Travis

[Matt V]

Here is a quick overview of finding terrain and public spots when you have never even been there.

Step 1: Find snow using NWS snowcover info or just type in "us snowcover" in a Google search and that will lead you to Intellicast snowcover maps. Once you find the desired amount of snow on the ground, look around these areas for terrain via Google Earth.

Step 2: Use Google earth to look for areas that seem to look like they are mostly grassland and not farmed. These are typically the steepest as farming is difficult on steep areas and those areas usually contain too much rock if they were in a recently glaciated region. To see really steep areas, use the center scroll button (push down and drag the mouse). This will allow you to quickly identify big hills and easily see their orientation to the wind. To see how mush elevation change their is, look at the elevation indicator right next to the "Long & Lat" reading at the center bottom of the Google Earth window. This indicator tells you the elevation where ever the cursor is on the terrain. Another way is to draw a line across the terrain, save it, and then right click that saved line. Select "show elevation profile" to get a horizontal representation of the elevation changes along that line. Some times you search can end with Google Earth as some of the public areas will be listed with a little green "tree" with their name listed by them. For more detailed boundary info, you may need to go a little further.

Step 3: If the county that the area is in does not have a major town located in it, you will have to use DNR maps to find WMA's (wildlife management areas), GPA's (Game Production Areas [South Dakota], or WPA's (Waterfowl Production Areas [Federal]. Other avenues exist too numerous to go into here. Once you find the apparent boundaries, draw them on Google Earth with the "measure tool" and then save those lines. This way, you can look at the public areas anytime you want to when you open Google Earth.

Step 3 again (complicated but the most accurate): If the county has a municipality that is big enough like Fergus Falls is in Ottertail County, then you need to find the county assessor's GIS service. GIS stands for Geographic Information Server (Service?, System?). Once you become accustomed to using this system, you will be able see the size of parcels, the owner, and possibly any tax records for that particular piece of land. Fortunately if you find a Federal piece of land, the owner is typically listed as United States of America.

For Fergus Falls, I typed in "ottertail county gis" into a Google search. This lead me to a mess of a county site and I clicked on the "maps" tab. On this next mess of a page, I clicked on "interactive land map (parcels)" under the "Land / Parcels / Property Tax Maps" on the right side of the page. This opened the map system that I want to use.

On this map system, the first thing to do is to get the picture zoomed in to where you need to be. This is accomplished by using the zoom lever on the upper left hand portion and then moving the map to where you want to see. When you zoom in enough, individual parcels will become visible. Now your goal is to be able to click on them and watch them cough up the info on the owner.

If no "Enhanced Search/Identify" window is open, then you need to click on the little red circle with the binoculars in it. With the "Enhanced Search/Identify" window open, click on the little "i" icon. Then you need to select the square box with the little blue dot in it. Once you have clicked on that, you are ready to go. But only if you have zoomed in far enough to see individual parcels. So keep zooming in. Once zoomed in and after you have clicked the little blue dot, click once in one of the parcels to see it's ownership. It looks like you have to click on the little blue dot each time you select something. But the owner will come up. If you click and it selects tens of hundreds of parcels, you are not zoomed in far enough.

For more accurate viewing, and to more easily relate to Google earth, change the base map to "2010 Photo". If you have made it this far, you are on your way to becoming a Terrain Snowkite Scout from home. Unfortunately, other counties have systems that work differently so you will have to relearn all of this if the snow falls somewhere else.

Here is a map of the areas I found around Fergus Falls.

[sco_dubbl_T]

Fantastic tutorial - especially for us noobs. Thanks Matt!

[MikeM]

Matt,

Fergus is still a go, all tops of the highest hills are still covered as of sunday, ther was 1.5ft drifts crossing I94 from Fergus to Fargo yesterday. I think it will hold for a little while yet. Lakes north of Fergus have some overflow but it is still getting into the single digits at night freezing things up.

Mike

[MK]

Held lessons and rode in Maple Grove yesterday on land. I saw water on the surface in some spots of Medicine Lake so switched to the land figuring their would be a healthy foot soaking amount of water on top of the ice and below the snow. However, saw a few riding on Medicine Lake so am happy to see there is activity. If you rode there yesterday please post about conditions. Cooler temps over night and today will help. Also see snow hitting south east MN:)

Land location was good. Below the snow held some slush but nobody had soak'n toe syndrome after class. One of my studentst hopped at the idea of "seeing how it's done" so I got to ride a little. I chose skis, snowboard in hindsight would have been better option given the snow depth and density of it.

I'll put out a possiblility that we have a more ride time available. Keep the hope alive!

Further west--- I'll be in Skyline Utah later this week. Had a unique opportunity to meet with a group doing a trip to the area including Strawberry. Since I've oggled over the youtube of AP and others in this area (that leaves an impact of mysticism) for years I suppose, I couldn't say no. Plus, I'll be riding with some of the pro's of the sport maybe known to you like Ruben Len10, Susi Mai, and a handful of others I apologetically am un-aware of there names.

It was this subject line that grabbed my attention and prompted me to post. Hope I'm not in over my head with these riders. I've heard Mike B talk about the great snowkiting conditions out there over the years. I'm looking forward to responding with good stories. It sounds like a really good place to run some trips, especially for late season snowkiting. I'm hoping to map it out and find a way to encourage this as an option to extend our snowkiting season.

Mike