Jumping Journal: April 27, 2007
That was quick. I have never seen a snowmelt happen that quickly before.
When I last jumped on April 14th the forecast was for a Nor'easter to drop anywhere from 4-16 inches of snow on the area. Sunday brought 3-4 inches of snow. The trees were caked with snow when I went out to do some "early" shoveling late Sunday afternoon. It was still snowing when I went out. Shortly after I came in I noticed that it appeared that it had stopped snowing.
When I woke up to go to the bathroom around 4:30AM Monday I noticed that it looked like the snow on the trees had disappeared. Granted it was still dark out but that is what it looked like. When I finally went outside around 6AM I noticed that it was already raining. The forecast for Monday was for a rain/snow mix. When I saw it already raining at 6AM I said "Winter's over". Boy, little did I realize how right I would be.
Later in the day Monday I got an email from Cannonball that he heard from his sister that a tree had come down with the wind on top of the inrun of the K25 at Storrs Hill. He was planning on heading up to cut up the tree on Tuesday afternoon.
It was raining, still, Tuesday afternoon but I did go up and kinda thought he might not show up since it was raining. I was right but I notice that the snow had already started to disappear in a BIG way. I was surprised. The inrun on the 25 and the landing hill down to the K point were already completely down to plastic. Most of the inrun on the 50 was down to wood.
Thursday we ended up meeting and taking the tree down and found minor damagge done to the inrun, but nothing that would really prevent the jump from being jumpable. The snow had melted even more. I was surprised that I wasn't seeing any ponding of water on the outrun like normally occurs.
Saturday I head up to the hill for the annual Eastern Division Ski Jumping and Nordic Combined Committee meeting. I have attended the spring meeting each year, except my first year, since I started jumping. That day found temperatures in the lower 70's with sunny skies. The snow was melting quite quickly, still no ponding water anywhere. VERY WEIRD. The ski area had very little snow left. I have never seen that little snow at the ski area the third weekend of April.
Yesterday. I head up for the weekly get together and cross training program that we have started doing this spring. Basically it's a get in shape program for summer jumping. All the snow on the 25 had melted except two very small patches right around the K point. Everything else was completely snow free and dry.
Forecast for today was for rain, up to two inches was forecast, in reality much less fell, MUCH LESS. We decided to meet up and jump this afternoon to get the 25 jumped in April and to keep the 25 streak alive and well. Yes, I'm very bullheaded, err stubborn. This was to mark the 116 consectutive month of jumping on the 25. Hey, if I'm going to jump in the rain in December to keep the streak alive...then why not jump in April in the rain to keep the streak alive.
The water hadn't been hooked up so we still relying on rain to get the plastic wet. As I left my house it was still dry as it had been most of the afternoon. It did rain some this morning but dried out this afternoon and all we saw was just drizzle/mist at the best. Upon getting into Newport, about five miles from my house, I got into a nice rain shower. I started having very positive thoughts about jumping, the rain was coming just in the nick of time. The closer I got to Lebanon the more scattered rain showers I ran into.
I got into Lebanon and noticed the pavement seemed on the dry side. It did look like it had rain earlier in the day but not recently. I got to the hill and found Dan and Cannonball there. Dan was talking about taking some of the snow still left over from the ponding skimming and tossing it on the inrun and the landing hill to give moisture on the plastic. At first I thought it was a crazy idea until I realized that Lebanon hadn't got any of the rain I had seen on the way to the hill. All it took was on touch to the plastic on the landing hill to realize just how dry the plastic was.
Cannonball took a spray washer up the inrun and sprayed on some soapy water while Dan and I filled several bucket/trash cans with snow and tossed it on the inrun and the landing hill.
We changed clothes and headed up the landing hill. Both of us chickened out and rode the landing hill first. It was the first time in probably three years that I have ridden the landing hill on the 25, summer or winter. I just don't need to anymore. Today I wanted to make sure on how wet/safe the plastic was going to be.
Everything seemed fine so I headed on up the jump while Dan took a second ride on the landing hill. I was still a little on the nervous, too say the least, about the conditions. I have jumped the 25 with the only remaining snow on the inrun being in the transition, and the landing hill was dotted with plastic while most of it was snow. At that point in time two years ago we raked the snow both up and down the landing hill to get the plastic wet. I was not use to the idea, though, of having no snow for the past two weeks on the inrun and just tossing some snow up there. It didn't feel right but I was willing to make the best of it.
After putting soap on the bottom of the skis, I decided to stick with the recent concept I have been trying of telling myself "I WILL...", in this case it was definitely I will have a safe jump. I started down the inrun and was surprised by the time I got to the takeoff at how good of condition the inrun was in. It was definitely faster than what I was expecting. We didn't have the picnic table on the inrun, yet, like we normally do to help increase the inrun speed. Part of the picnic table platform was damage by the tree that came down.
I was hesistant, naturally, on the first jump. I ended up somewhere around 11-12 meters. Given the speed on the inrun, that wasn't a bad jump at all.
My second jump I was feeling more into, by a long shot. I knew I wanted to cock my ankles better right at the takeoff so I told myself "I will have a safe jump and cock my ankles". I did both and had a much nicer jump than the first one.
The third jump I decided to work on the inrun position and see if I couldn't get myself once again to keep the shoulders up on the inrun instead of being hunchbacked on the inrun which has lead me to being hunchbacked in the air. I knew this wouldn't be hard to do. The jump went smoothly and it seemed like it was still a slight bit further down the hill.
The fourth jump was about the same as the third jump. Before the fifth jump Cannonball decided he wanted us to get a little more height on the takeoff since our speed wasn't quite as fast as usual. He put a small piece of plywood underneath the plastic at the takeoff to basically give us a kicker at the takeoff. I got slightly caught off guard by it but managed to hold out most of the way through the jump. I wasn't fully expecting the extra height at the takeoff. I also ended up jumping quite late.
On the sixth jump I decided "I will jump on time". I had my best timing I've had on any jump on the 25 in a couple of years it seems like on the sixth and final jump of the evening. I held the position in the air much better as well as compared to the jump before it when I wasn't quite ready for the extra height in the air. I pretty much held the position right into the landing.
All in all it was a nice way to start summer jumping. It does seem awful early to be starting summer jumping given two weeks ago tomorrow I was jumping on all snow on the 50. Normally we see at least three if not four weeks between the last jumps on the 50 and true summer jumping on the 25. This was the fastest snow melt I've seen. I hope I never see anything faster.
For a review of the concept of "I will" read the following article that I found on the internet back in early March. Toxic Vocabulary
Yes, the website does seem strange when your thinking about ski jumping, but the article says a lot straight to the point
Crash
posted by Ryan Crawford at 9:54 PM
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