Snowkiters will descend on NNY

LOWVILLE — The Lewis County trail coordinator is seeing lots of pull associated with the East Coast Kite Skiing Festival.

The third annual festival Saturday, Sunday and Monday on about 10 parcels of land in Lewis and Jefferson counties.

"There has been lots of interest," said trail coordinator Robert C. Diehl. "We'll have kiters coming from Canada, Vermont and North Carolina. I think we're going to have a real good turnout."

Last year, the festival was held at three main sites. Mr. Diehl said more sites were added this year and expanded westward to the Honeyville area off Route 177 and the "Dry Hill area" off County Route 155 in Rodman.

Snowkiters must be registered. Wind socks will designate the official snowkiting areas.

Registration will be 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. each day at Deer River Ranch site in the town of Pinckney off Route 177 and at the Honeyville site at Route 177 and County Route 155. The main base camp is at the Deer River Ranch site.

Mr. Diehl said about 200 snowkiters took part in last year's festival, which was double from the event's inaugural year in 2007. The number of spectators has been more than double the number of participants.

This year's event has a new name and is no longer called the Ozone Snowkite Basecamp Tour. Ozone is a manufacturer of kites, which is still a sponsor of the kite skiing festival. HQ Kites & Designs is another sponsor, along with the Lewis County Chamber of Commerce, Lewis County's recreational trail department and T.I. Adventures, Clayton.

Mr. Diehl said Ozone usually sponsors about a dozen kite festivals around the country but had to cut back this year to less than half a dozen because of the recession. He said Ozone officials thought it important to continue sponsorship of the north country event.

"We have so much snow and the wind is perfect for this," he said.

Mr. Diehl said a decision was made to move the annual event this year to the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend to give snowkiters more time to travel. It was previously held the last weekend in January.