Jumping Journal: February 22, 2007

That scared the crap out of me.  Talk about a good jump gone bad.

 

Back on the 50 in Lebanon for the afternoon and evening sessions.  I ended up arriving at the hill later than I wanted to so I didn't end up the evening with as many jumps as I had hoped to today.  As always I seemed rusty jumping on the 50.  The first couple of jumps were by far the longest and everything else all day long just kept on getting shorter and shorter.

 

It was the third jump of the day that brought quite a nice and VERY nasty surprise.   I started down the inrun and about the time I got 2/3 of the way down I decided to try something a little different at the takeoff.  I get to the takeoff and make the move the new way.  I can feel the difference right at the takeoff and know that I can easily change what I've been doing for the past seven years without trying too hard.  I get into the air and quickly realize that I'm in trouble.  My ski tips are dangling BIG TIME!!!  No simple little drop, more like major drop wanting to lead to digging in to the landing hill.  Somehow I managed to keep the tips up until I landed.  I'm still not sure what I did wrong.  I never brought out the video camera until the evening session started.

 

I ended up the afternoon session with 5 jumps  The best jumps of the day seemed to be the first couple of jumps.

 

The evening session got underway after an hour or two long break.  Cannonball was busy running the chairlift so he asked me to video the kids and flag them in between jumping myself.  Dan Brown and I did this quite a few times late last winter.

 

I start out the evening session by working once again on controlling the arms at the takeoff like I had been doing during the afternoon.  The distance of the jumps seemed to be getting shorter by the jump so after three or four jumps I change and start jumping for the tips.  I do notice though that I'm still wanting to try to dive for the tips after I get into the air instead of just holding steady in the air and letting the tips come to me.  The distance continue to get shorter and shorter even though the conditions are getting faster and faster.  I'm not exactly sure what happened today but it was one of the more unusual days of jumping this winter.  In all I ended up with five jumps in the afternoon and seven jumps in the evening.  It marks the sixth day in a row that I have taken at least ten jumps, eleven jumps minimum for that matter.

 

Crash