Jumping Journal: March 02, 2008

A beautiful day for flying a kite. It must be March...isn't March suppose to be kite flying weather.  Hum...

 

Well, first let me make a couple of corrections to the last journal posting.  When I said that the average high temperature for late December was 33-34 degrees, I meant late February.  I happened to go back early today and look at the post from Friday and noticed I really messed that sentence up.  Also I come to find out after making the post that the overnight low Thrusday night/Friday morning was -24 not -21.  It was more of a desert style environment a couple of days ago than what I thought. It's quite rare you ever see a 47 degree temperature swing around this part of the country, QUITE RARE!!!

 

The big snow storm forecast for Friday night into Saturday...well...it wasn't.  I guess some parts got 6+ inches of snow but not around here.  I knew something seemed a little off when the snow hadn't started by 11PM.  When I woke up Saturday morning to find we had only received three inches I was quite surprised and quite glad at the same time.  I was really hoping we wouldn't end up with 6-12 inches.  There is no place to put the snow now as it is.  The landing hill on the K50 is already 2-3 feet above grade thanks to all this snow we have gotten this winter.  It's more amazing when you stop and consider pretty much all the snow on the jumps this winter is natural snow.  A little man made snow was put down on the landing hill to help give a firmer/more reliable surface.  The inruns are 100% all naural snow.  As of today the inrun on the K50 is above grade by a few inches with tons of snow that can be used as filler snow when it starts to get melted off some.  I can easily see, especially with the current weather forecast for the next week, at least three more weeks of jumping on the K50 and it would be easy to be jumping the K25 into April on all snow.  Heck we may end up jumping the K50 in April again this year if this weather doesn't change.  I won't complain any.

 

I arrived at the hill to day around 10AM.  I grabbed a shovel and headed up the inrun to shovel off the steps.  Dan was already tracolating the inrun and the landing hill/outrun had already been groomed.  I managed to shovel of the steps on the inrun and get the path between the landing hill stairs and the inrun shovel down to the firmer surface like I did after the last storm.

 

11AM came around and Cannonball, Dan and I suited up for the first of two sessions for the day.  Cannonball was hoping to grab 10 jumps today.  If he could pull it off it would be the first time I've seen him take that many jumps on snow in one day.

 

As we headed up the hill we noticed the wind was going to be a factor today.  For the first time this winter the wind was kicking up nicely.  It wasn't a constant wind either.  It had a gusty nature to it.  We hung out a flag so Esky could have a visual on the wind.

 

For the most part the morning session went smooth.  I grabbed eight jumps in the morning.  None of them was really outstanding by any means.  I did have another one of the strange feeling jumps like I had last Saturday at Andover but otherwise each jump was consistent with the one before it.

 

The sun and milder temperature made for a nice jump session even with the delays up top for the wind to die down.

 

Most of the jumps I took in the morning and in the afternoon for that matter were in the 28-30 meter range.  I may have had one that was longer in the afternoon but I would say nothing was over 32 meters all day.

 

We took a break for lunch and then headed back over for the afternoon session.  Cannonball managed to grab ahold of his sister, Kim, to flag us.  This would prove to make for the fun session of the day.

 

Right by the lift shack and even at the jump inn it seemed like the wind had really settled down while we ate lunch.  Once we got back up the knoll we realized we had been fooled.  The wind was still just as bad and maybe slightly worse. 

 

Cannonball takes the first jump, realizing that he forgot his goggles.  He had thought about giving up and only taking one jump but Dan and I got on and wouldn't let him give up.  Cannonball did manage to grab another five jumps in the afternoon session to go along with his five jumps in the morning session.  I'm not used to seeing Jon take that many jumps in day.  I like having a little competition from him in terms of who is going to take the most jumps.

 

My second jump of the session would mark my tenth of the day and my 300 jump off the K50 for the winter.  I had my ski set in the track and finally got the flag from Kim.  Right as I started down over the edge of the track I head her say "I'm sorry, Ryan".  I knew the wind must have changed right after she gave me the signal.  I managed to say, out loud, "Thanks a lot, Kim."  She heard me and Cannonball and Dan heard me as well.  Turns out her worry was much to do about nothing.

 

All in all I finished the day with 14 jumps taking my total for the season to 304 jumps on the K50.  I had 307 jumps last year on the K50.  I'm hoping for 650 jumps between last year and this year on the K50 and I have even thought, depending on the weather, about trying for 900 total jumps on the K50 since the start of the winter of 2006.  Let's see 511 jumps total at the end of last year would mean I would have to get 389 this year.  I only need 85 more jumps to accomplish the crazy goal.

 

The forecast for this week is looking halfways decent, no real snow storms moving in, then again the rain/freezing rain/sleet is another story.  Tomorrow is looking good.  Thursday is looking good.  Tuesday and Wednesday are another story.  A mixed bag of precipitation with highs around 40.  Next weekend is looking like it will hold up well also so the K50 should hold up for a few weeks at least before it becomes unskiable.  Time shall tell.

 

Crash