Jumping Journal: February 25, 2006

Day 43.  Snow, snow, and more snow.  This sure has been one strange winter.  You can't get snow when you want it and then it comes when you least want it.  Today was just about the only day this year that has seen snow come when you actually want it.  In this case, just in time for Junior Olympics.

 

I left early for the hill to get ahead of the snow.  The tires on my car aren't in the best shape and I plan on replacing the front tires on Tuesday.  I knew to get up to Storrs Hill before the snow started.  Pretty much I arrived at the same time the snow started falling.  All the talk had been that the snow would last probably no more than 3 hours.  It a was coming from a fast moving Alberta Clipper.  The forecasters were wrong.  It started snowing around 10AM and it didn't stop snowing until around midnight.  It was VERY fluffy, dry snow.

 

I started off working on the landing hill getting the hill leveled off back to grade.  Cannonball told us to get ready to jump.  I put on the jump suit and headed on up for the first of what would turn out to be only three jumps for the day.  The inrun was nice and slow thanks to the fresh, falling snow.  I didn't make it very far as a result.

 

The second and third jumps were better, but not by much.  I think it was the hardest I've ever seen it snow while jumping.  The worst thing was trying to keep the snow out of the goggles.

 

Afterwards we spent the rest of afternoon getting the deflection fence put up on the landing hill.  There are deflection boards on the stairway side but we are only putting up fencing on the other side of the landing hill.

 

With all the fresh falling snow it was decided to not bother with making snow overnight like Cannonball had been planning on doing.  I was planning on sticking around and spending the night helping to make snow and get other things done as well.  With the fresh snow and the cancelled snow making, I knew it was going to create for an interesting drive home.  Well, I ended up not making it very far, .25 mile, before I turned around and ended up spending the night at the hill.

 

I woke up this morning in the lodge and went out to start the long shoveling process under sunny, cold skies.  I shoveled off the steps on the landing hill and inrun on the 50 as well as some other shoveling around the lodge.  In the afternoon I helped get the distance markers put up on the deflection boards and thn helped ice down the inrun.

 

All in all most of the work is finished with a little more work needed on the 25 meter jump that will be used during the opening ceremonies on Wednesday morning and on getting the maintainence building setup as the wax room.  The snow may have also helped with keeping at least 1K team event in the Upper Valley, the 5K is also questionable as of right now.  Time shall tell.

 

Crash