Hi Marco
I hope you don't mind I answer you on here so that others can benefit from the info.
Darren gave you some great advice already. I must recommend you chase down some lessons (even if it's late in the season). Try to get a qualified and experienced instructor that can at least teach you some
basics on the land (preferably someone who has landkiting/snowkiting experience). By getting a lesson you'll learn about the wind, kite setup, launching and landing, kite control,
safety systems (very important) and also how to self-launch and self-land (essential if you plan to go out kiting on your own).
Don't underestimate the danger of the sport, even a 3.5 trainer kite (which is quite big for a trainer kite by the way) can get dangerous if you fly it above 18 knots or so. But yes light winds are pretty safe and fortunately you need a lot less power to get moving on the snow than you need on the water.
The frozen lakes are by far the easiest place to learn and generally safe unless you fall through the ice. Forget the mountains in Ontario you'll have too many trees in the way:) If you have a hard surface on the lake without much depth of snow you should be able to move around quite easily even with just your 3.5 trainer kite and a minimum of 10 knots of wind (preferably 15). If you need more power and have deeper snow you'll have to get a bigger kite.
Personally I use only inflatable kites in strong winds in the snow (when the wind is at least 15 knots). Anything below that and I'll only use foil kites. Foil kites are lighter and perform very well with very low wind. The biggest problem with inflatables kites in low wind is they stall easily (fall out of the sky) and can be a pain to relaunch in low wind.
On the other hand, you won't be able to use the foil kite on the water, unless you get a closed cell foil (Flysurfer, Ozone Chrono, etc.) but they are very expensive and I wouldn't recommend you learn with those anyhow. The easiest foil kite that I know of is the Ozone access. something like a 10m should get you going easily in anything above 5 knots but you'll start to get maxed out around 15-18 knots.
The big advantage with inflatable kites is that not only you can use them on the water and snow, but they have a much wider wind range than foil kites, almost as much as double. So say you get a 10m inflatable kite you'll be able to use it on the snow in higher winds, but as a beginner you won't be able to get much out of it under 10-12knots.
If the snow coverage is nice and even (not too ''chunky'' or icy) and you have no other obstacles you don't have to worry much about damaging the inflatable kite. The inflation/deflation systems can be a pain to operate in the snow, especially some more than other, especially when it gets very cold. I haven't experimented with that many brands on the snow so I wouldn't be able to make any specific recommendations, especially that these days, kite brands love to change their inflation system every year.
So it's a hard choice which kite to get...depends on your budget really, but if you're tight and you want to play safe stick to your trainer kite for the winter, then get lessons and an inflatable kite in the summer.
Oh yeah, go and get advice from some local kiters as well
sorry I had to post this!
Christian
