Ice Here and There but...

As our season struggles to build momentum we are finding some places with phenomenal ice, some with marginal ice and some with no ice at all.  Black ice like in the image above is hardest to find.  The ice in this pic is between 3-5" of the blackest ice out there.  Plenty to ride or skate on.  

Other places, mostly north of the notches, have cloudy ice that can vary from 4-6"+  This was shot on Jericho today.  The surface was highly variable but mostly rough ice.  Not the best surfaces but worth riding in lean times like these.  Although the ice in this shot is not the best, people were out on it with studded dirt bikes,  We didn't see any holes or indications that they had any problems.  We have rain and wind in the forecast followed by another cold snap.  This should smooth out surfaces nicely although the thin snow cover on the land based riding we have right now (see below) will likely suffer and maybe even become useless in the next day or so.  It will be hard to tell.  Right now we are playing this by ear.  We are NOT holding lessons on the ice yet and we strongly recommend that you ask locals about the conditions before venturing out.