http://www.iceboating.net/node/3608 Both on ther Minnesota iceboating.net site under photos-library images
http://www.iceboating.net/node/3607Here are a couple of photos of the Green Lake ice at Spicer, MN only 85 miles west of Minneapolis. It is a 3 mile X 5 mile lake with excellent ice conditions. Ice at 2 fish shacks in the middle was 8-9 inches thick. Meyer says it is a 9.5 today and maybe a perfect 10 by Saturday due to expected 46F temps on Thursday and 42 temps on Friday. Today there was a slight pebble texture, but fast and smooth. Below freezing for all the upcoming nights and 35F for Sat with 10-15 winds! Most of the fish shanties are in small areas leaving at least a 2 mile X 2 mile sailing area with no hazards seen by the 3 of us sailing the entire area.
The 4 lane launch ramp right in downtown Spicer was perfect to drive our trailer on the ice at 11AM. Plenty of parking space in 2 seperate lots right on the waterfront. I believe one is a MN DNR ramp and lot. The sand beach, volleyball courts and lot is the City of Spicer. By 4PM it heaved up 2 feet!! We then backed up in the sand volleyball courts 200 yards to the South and no problem. We did see 2 small pickup trucks driving to fish houses before the one seam on the lake, so must be a foot of ice. The seam runs the entire width of the lake about a quarter mile from Spicer. We easily spotted a crossing that was flat and healed up with at least 4 inches of ice. We sailed across it and also walked across it. I expect to mark this crossing on Friday by noon with 2 orange cones. Plan to sail between them one at a time. You may find other equally as good crossings too. Look due east to the 3-4 fish houses on the right side and it is sort of behind them.
Thanks to Mark Christenson, US 4824 for spotting this great sheet of ice on Jan 2. He walked it and we got to sail it.
Mike Miller 5369 Tom Meyer 602 Paul Larson 5445
And a big Thank You to Julie Jankowski for getting the rest of the stuff sorted out.
