LAKE GEORGE — If the lakes have frozen, the snow hasn't fallen, and the wind is JUST right, you might catch sight of boat-like conveyances rocketing across the ice of Colorado's frozen bodies of water, powered by only the wind in their sails.
Ice boating, otherwise known as hard-water sailing, utilizes specialized crafts that are equipped with metal blades and sails in order to harness the wind and zip across the surface of a frozen lake.
The video attached to this article was captured at Eleven Mile Canyon Reservoir, where a group of dedicated ice sailors gathered to take advantage of ideal sailing weather.
According to Rick Hypes, who's been ice boating for more than three decades, "We are looking for clear ice, like we have today. We're looking for, obviously, thick enough ice so that we're not going to go through, and we're looking for winds, you know, 10 to 20 miles an hour."
Waiting for conditions with just the right amount of wind is critical for these 'boats' because they can achieve multiples of the wind speed, "...because there's hardly any friction on the ice," said Hypes, "we can actually go faster than the wind."
Aside from the wind, the ice has to be strong enough and clear enough to sail; and when the conditions are right, you have to be ready to go right away.
I always tell people that you'll be lucky if you get 24 hours' notice, 48 hours' notice when we're going to go because it could be tomorrow, the wind is good, the ice is clear, and then the next day, it'll snow. The worst part about it is, in Colorado we have 300 days of sun, right? Well, what happens is, if it snows and the wind doesn't blow the snow off the ice, then the sun comes out and it melts the surface of the snow and puts a crust on it, we can't sail through that crust.
Hypes explains that a great year of sailing might consist of a week on the ice, while a good year might just include a couple of days.
To mitigate the challenges of Colorado's narrow window of opportunity to pursue this niche sport, Hypes and a number of other ice sailors across the state have formed a network to keep an eye on the conditions of potential sailing spots across the state and even into Wyoming.
"You've got to be careful," commented Lionel Stepp, another ice sailor, "it's like anything, but the thrill of it is, I was unsurpassable."
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