It may be below freezing, and snow and ice may cover the ground, but on Monday afternoon a few hardy souls ventured down to the Spit at the edge of the Columbia River to set up their kite surfing gear.

Not on the water, but on the spit itself.

With the sand covered with nearly a foot of snow, area kiters put on some warm clothes, hooked up their snowboards, and shredded through the white stuff.

Or at least tried to.

“It’s a lot more difficult,” Jacob Beuselinck said.

Beuselinck has snow kited plenty of times before; just not so often in Hood River.

The sport is fairly common in extreme snow sport meccas such as Colorado and Utah with their frozen snow packs, and the frozen lakes of the northern Midwest make for easy going.

Heavy, slushy snow and inconsistent winter winds were not the ideal conditions Beuselinck the others on the beach could ask for, but they gladly took it.

Erick Clark drove from Sandy specifically to spend the day trying to learn to snow kite; and while he had mixed results, he enjoyed it overall.

“Yeah, it was fun,” he said.

Mike Johnson, of Portland, who was also trying snow kiting for the first time with some instruction from Beuselinck, had bigger problems. Early in the afternoon a gust of wind took his kite right out of his hands and blew it across the river, sending him on a drive to the Washington side to recover it.

Even though the conditions may have been anything but perfect, the spirit of adventure that burns within so many in the Gorge meant the kiters had to at least give it a shot.

“It can be more dangerous (than kite surfing),” Beuselinck said as he hooked up to his kite. “That’s why I’m attracted to it.”