February Paddle

The plan was to hit the water Sunday morning, but with sickness in the house on Saturday evening I cancelled.  But on Sunday morning there was no more sickness.

Zack and I loaded up 2 kayaks somewhat quickly and headed to Creve Coeur Lake for a relaxing paddle...at least I thought it would be.

We were surprised at the volume of ice still on the lake after 5 days above freezing - several above 50 degrees.  Regardless, there was open water along the shore and we saw a path through the ice to an area that would be out of the wind.  The windchill was around 24.

We took off through the open water path with Zack in the lead.  Nearing the far end of the path and open water he hit ice.  It was about 2 inches thick.  We backed up and I took the lead to bust through.

I rode up on the ice and rocked to bust up about 3 feet.  That was just enough to let the wind shift the other end of the path and start closing it off.  The next bust caused the path to narrow.  At that point I slid up onto the ice as much as possible, put my paddle on the deck, and used my hands to scoot the kayak across the ice to open water - busting ice as I went.

Zack saw what I was doing and did the same, but he was on the other end of the path.  I circled around near the shore and bused through a little bit to get him with me.  We didn't go far though and ice was right to the bank.

We turned around and stayed along the open shore after that.

This is not the first time we've paddled in ice, but there was more of it this time.