Jumping Journal: June 25, 2008

An epic day...of weather...of ski jumping...of just about anything you could imagine.

 

To say the weather around here has been utterly miserable the past several weeks now would be an understatement.  There is no one around that hates there job more at the present time than weather forecaster.  It has been cool compared to normal, instead of being in the upper 70s for highs we have been seeing upper 60s generally at the best for the past couple of weeks now.  Instead of being nice and sunny like I would normally think of mid to late June as being, we have seen rain pretty much off and on every day for the past couple of weeks.  The only two days that it hasn't rained here in the western New Hampshire was last Saturday and then again today.  Today highs were in the low 80s and it was partly sunny most of the day.  If the past is any indication of the future than I shouldn't get use to today.  The weather forecast is saying the same thing.  Other than maybe Saturday, its rain straight through early next week.  It does sound like the temperature are suppose to be a bit more seasonable at least.

 

I arrived at the hill to find five or six cars in the parking lot.  I figured more than likely their wouldn't be very many more jumpers than that tonight.  WAS I WRONG!!!

 

One of cars I noticed had a rather telling license plate "RAINMBL".  Knowing that Bill paddles whitewater like I used to do all the time I knew it had to be him.  I thought, "Gee I'm going to have another adult to jump with tonight, sweet!"  OKAY, SO I WAS WRONG!!!

 

I round the corner on the lodge to see my initially guess of 5-6 jumper was going to be more like 10 jumpers including two adults, one of which hasn't jumped on plastic ever before.  Well.........

 

After taking my bag inside I walk back outside and about that same time up walks Dan as well a couple of the Concord High School kids.  It now appears that there is going to be 13 jumpers to jump tonight.  I was dumbfounded to say the least.  I think all the adults including Cannonball were amazed to see that many jumpers out to jump on plastic in Lebanon.  I think everybody agrees that this is a Storrs Hill record for jumping on plastic.

 

In total we had four adults(including a father/daughter team), two high school kids, and 7 younger kids all out jumping tonight.  Talk about chaos.

 

Since I arrived late I did some stretching as the kids were doing immos.  We all suited up and everybody had for the top of the K25 or the landing hill of the 25.  Nobody was going to be on the beginner training area tonight.  That was a first for the season.

 

I headed on up and waited for the first round of the kids riding the landing hill to get over before I took my first jump.  With soap sitting around tonight i ended up using soap on all but the last jump of the evening.  I knew on the first jump to watch myself or I would get caught way off guard by the added distance the soap would provide.  It did manage to add another 1.5-2 meters to any of the jumps I took last Wednesday evening.  As usual I got the flag a bit early and managed to get a bit wet going through the landing hill sprinkler that hadn't completely drained yet.  I'm starting to get use to the idea anymore.  In the past seven years I've went through it with it still spraying water maybe two or three times total.  I've had about three or four times that many occurances so far this year.  Heck, three or four of them was tonight alone.

 

After waiting once again for the kids riding the landing hill or practicing on the telebump I hopped on up and put on my skis for the second jump of the evening.  This time I got nailed by the water on both the inrun and the landing hill.  Like I said I'm starting to get use to it now, LOL!!!

 

The second jump was a little better and the third jump was the best jump of the evening and the best jump so far this summer.  I managed 18-18.5 meters on the third jump.  I did notice one thing a little different on the third jump compared the rest of the jumps I've taken this summer.  I'm going to have to make some comparison jumps the next time I jump and see if I notice any actual difference between the way I always use to jump prior to this summer and the way I'm jumping now.  It seemed like I was doing things the way I always used to do them when I took the third jump.  It may have been my imagination though.  I'll find out the next time jump, hopefully I'll remember to check at least.

 

The fourth, fifth and sixth jumps all fell short of the third jump.  Tara did try getting on me before the fifth jump about not putting in a V.  So I put in a small V for her to keep her from crying too much.  I made up for it by jumping rather late on the sixth and final jump of the evening.

 

By the time the evening was over I think ten different jumpers each took jumps/their first jumps on plastic on the K25 tonight.  It was the biggest crowd I have ever seen out for summer jumping in the eight years I've been jumping.  Cannonball best called it on the money...EPIC!!!

 

Since Cannonball has been missing out on jumping by coaching all the new summer recruits he is taking next week off and going to spend the whole week jumping in Lake Placid.  I hear a couple of the other adults are going to spend a couple days up there as well.  For me, I guess I'll wait until the following week before I get month 91 under my belt.

 

Crash