The Huntsville/Lake of Bays Fire Department was called out around 3:30 this afternoon for a snowmobile that had gone through the ice near Point Ideal Rd. on Lake of Bays.
Crews from Lake of Bays Station 20 & 30 arrived to find the person standing on the machine which had broken through the ice and was sitting on a sandbar about 50 feet from shore. An extra crew was brought in from Huntsville to assist and firefighters were able to bring the man safely to shore. The man was checked by Muskoka Paramedic Services but not injured in the incident.
Later on around 6pm, Lake of Bays firefighters were once again called to assist paramedics with a female that had fallen and broke her arm on a trail about a kilometre off Wolf Bay Rd. The ATV was used to transport the patient from the trail to an awaiting ambulance.
Firefighters would like to remind the public that ice conditions are quickly deteriorating and warn people to stay off the ice.
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I did a bit of a lake tour last week, Thursday Mar 2. Usually by this time of year we have good ice, at least 15 inches thick pretty well everywhere but this year has been abnormal for sure.
I found a minimum of only 5 inches in some places, a lot of very open creek and river mouths and all the sandbars and shallow rock areas were either open or weak. The channel to Dorset I would not trust.
Haystack bay had about 16 inches of ice at that time but one has to remember it froze earlier than other areas and even there, the ice is not all “good” ice. All in all a poor year to snowmobile.
Our ski trails at Bondi Resort are currently closed, but if we get about 3 or 4 inches of fresh snow I will re-open about 2/3 of them as there is a good but icy base. Some are washed out or flooded beyond further use for this year however.
The Lower Oxtongue river is wide open, like it usually is in April and almost as high too. There is no ice here at all.