Thanks for the updates AT! Always nice to have some first hand reports from people on the ground.

I do think that Ice out for the opener is going to be close but knowing how the park has handled the opener the last 4 years (as Peek has mentioned before) I think it's more likely they will start letting us in on Friday April 28th as there BOONDOGGLING seems to suggest they like to open it to the public on Fridays.

But I really hope I am wrong on this one and its earlier for all those with vacation plans for the opener.

Craiger05 wrote:

It's OFFICIAL, the ice finally went out of my backyard rink west of Ottawa yesterday!  Peak thickness was 9" in early Feb.  Strong winds combined with the +23C temps finally broke the remaining ice cover.  Technically there is still some ice chunks floating around, but you could safely navigate a toy boat from one end to the other, so it counts =)
 

If you have 9" of water, why don't you have a canoe in there already???? 

I was feeling pretty good about ice out... but this AO twitter post has kind of bummed me out.

https://twitter.com/algonquinoutfit/status/851933311928807425

Last edited by breed85 (4/12/2017 6:13 am)

The elevation difference never ceases to amaze me in terms of the impact it has.  Source Lake is 100m+ higher than say Sand Lake at Kearney, or the reservoir at South River . . . 

Agreed on Lake Nipissing though ATVenture, saw that on the MODIS image and was really surprised!

 

breed85 wrote:

I was feeling pretty good about ice out... but this AO twitter post has kind of bummed me out.

https://twitter.com/algonquinoutfit/status/851933311928807425

Ugggggh. For the first time I'm getting nervous about my May 4th booking. 

RobW wrote:

That's about how much our cottage lake had 2 weeks ago an hour south of the park. That lake is still ice covered today (confirmed via webcam) and I'm really not expecting it to be open by the time we get up there on Friday. It might be open by the time we leave on Monday. 

 

You're bumming me out Rob. 

Uppa wrote:

Tripper wrote:

Just got back from the Park.  Things are still very winter like there ....

Sorry if I bummed you out even more Uppa.

 

Seeing even a tiny little bit of open water gives me hope, although there's clearly a long way to go. A lot can happen in three weeks, but the long range forecast doesn't show anything all that promising. 

The lake behind my house (round and about 1km from side to side) sure has gotten dark over the last two days even though the warmest it got was 4 degrees with no sun. I assume the ice will go out either later today or tomorrow sometime... it's open at least 30 feet from shore all around.
I'm not sure about 2016 but in 2015 the ice went out on that lake on April 20 and Opeongo was May 1st.

Last edited by ATVenture (4/13/2017 7:12 am)

There is still plenty of snow in the marsh areas that are visible from the Visitor Center Web Cam.  If land areas that receive good sun exposure are still not free of snow, I'd have to believe that there is still snow on the lakes.   The large snowfall that the south end of the park received a week ago is really slowing things down.

Uppa wrote:

If I read only ATVenture's posts in this thread then I'm convinced ice-out is coming soon. If I read everybody else's posts, ice-out will happen in June. 

What I'm saying is from now on I'm only reading ATVenture's posts. 

 

Then your probably best off to book a site at the Kiosk Campground and do day trips from there on the open water (they probably won't issue interior permits until at least a week after ice out up here).

Lol all joking aside, I'm going to head into the Kiosk Access in a couple of hours.. going to bring the dogs, and have supper on a fire at a campsite. I'll make sure to take lots of pics. If my puppy wasn't scared shitless of crossing the old rail bridges I'd probably go into Mink.

Last edited by ATVenture (4/13/2017 9:48 am)