Ice is growing and the wind is blowing! Today (Friday 1/16) Ben drilled many holes in the same areas he did on 1/14. Common ice thickness where he drilled today was 14 to 16 inches with 15 inches being the most common. Ben concentrated on checking where it was black ice. if you drill in the slush ice you will see more overall thickness in spots where the slush ice adds to the black ice thickness. On the south side of Coney Island, Ben found 13 inches of ice where it had been 12 inches on 1/14. This area by the island has the thinnest ice we are aware of at 13 inches other than where the springs are.
It is incredibly windy right now (3 PM) Visibility is low and the wind is supposed to keep blowing hard through Sunday and pretty hard into Monday. Drifts are already forming around existing houses so those people will have some banking snow to work with.
There are no established roads on Lake Waconia because there wasn't enough ice to plow when we had snow and because of the warm up there wasn't any snow left when we had enough ice for the plow truck. Now with the fresh snow flying in this wind we will not be doing any major plowing to establish a road until the extreme wind lays down likely after the weekend.
Half Ton Pick-ups with Single Axle Houses are still what we are allowing. If you have a capable ATV or Side by side and dolly to pull it, we will allow reasonable sized tandem houses to go on through here. FYI there is a bit of a hill as you approach the ice at our landing. Please do NOT drive on the ice with a truck and Tandem House yet, even to just unhook. We are allowing up to 1 ton trucks including unloaded Diesel's with NO houses behind them on through our access as well.
Tomorrow, Saturday, 1/17 there is a fishing tournament put on by the Future Flames Committee and benefitting the First Lutheran School of Glencoe. Check out this link for more information...
Fishing Contest Link