Rocky Reef Resort Ice Update

[rockman]

12/17/08

I have been plowing with the truck and moving snow with the skid loader since Tuesday, and I am just about done. Between the resort, the house and the landing, I am just about frozen. The weather is very cold and the ice is getting thicker by the day. I wish we would get the snowfall, after we get the ice that we need first. There is between 11 and 13 inches of ice on the lake, the 11 inches is under the snow and the 13 inches is on the bare spots, which there are not many. We ended up with 10 inches of snow, and with 2 days of wind at 25 to 40 mph it made for enormous 4 and 5 ft drifts in the yard and 2 to 4 ft drifts on the lake.

I had to block up one of the foam house yesterday because of the weight of the snow drifts around it, it took on 6 inches of water over night on Tuesday. It would have been a very bad thing to have it freeze down to the ice in 6 inches of water. It is safe and sound for now, but it is going to be interesting to see how much water the heaver houses will take on this year with this much snow so early in the season. There is a lot of snow on the lake, and it will take a V plow to get a road open. I am going to wait until Friday before I punch the road because; I get very anxious when I have to put that kind of weight on the truck with only 13 inches of ice.

The V plow itself weighs over 900 lbs not to mention the weight of the truck. There is going to be a lot of weight on the wind row when I do start to punch the road, and it will for sure crack off and flood. I have some pretty big banks on the shoreline that have already cracked off and are flooding. We need more than 13 inches of ice to hold that kind of weight. I hate to say it, but it will be another week before I will let any vehicles out on the lake.

So, for this weekend, bring up the sleds and wheelers to get around. Sleds will be better than the wheelers, with all of the snow out there. I do have some flooding right on the shore, but I was able to get the skid loader down on the landing and get the snow off so that it can freeze down. I also put snow into the slushy areas to get it to freeze down tonight. There is no way a plow can get through that wet snow, so I am glad I have the skid loader and enough ice on the shoreline to handle the weight or it could have been ugly

We will see how it goes and maybe, just maybe, I can get a road plowed off on Friday, so I can let it sit over night to heal up. Hopefully we can start to pull houses out next week and be in full swing by the weekend. All that we can do is hope that we do not get any more snow. That would be devastating to the ice right now.

I do have a short story to share with you. On Monday during the storm, I received a phone call from a guy that had come upon one of the foam houses after getting lost on the lake during the storm on Monday. Lucky for them, I have my phone number on the fish house name tag. They started out from Jerry Brants place, went out to 4 mile and got lost in the storm. Now I am over 5 miles from Brants, so you can just imagine how these 2 guys felt being lost out in the storm and then have your Gps run out of battery.

They were driving a sled and a 4 wheeler around for a couple of hours in the storm, before they came upon my foam fish house on the lake. It was only out about a quarter of a mile off shore, so I was able to direct them into shore from the way the windows in the fish house were facing, which was towards shore. They are so lucky, so many different things could have happened to them and they are lucky to be alive!! It never ceases to amaze me how stupid, and I mean stupid, people can be. Did I say Stupid? Why would you go out on the lake when you know there is a blizzard coming?

With that being said, they got off the lake and back to Brants, By way of the road and arrived safe and sound back at brants.

Thank God

We do not want any more snow!!

That is it for now, have a great week and be safe on the roads, they are very slick.

I Hope to see a lot of you this weekend.

We will see ya

When we see ya

The Rockman