Myth #1(Mother Nature killed the sport of ski jumping) Debunked

Myth #2(NCAA killed the sport of ski jumping) Debunked Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

Myth #3(The US doesn't have the talent) Debunked Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

Mind Of A Ski Jumper Part 1, 2, 3, 4

The Ultimate Coach - Ski Jump Training Device

Jumping Season Digest: (see bottom of this page)

Saturday, December 27, 2008

Jumping Journal: December 27, 2008

When it rains...
 
Month 96 in a row.  Four more to month 100.  Gee, when was the last time someone managed to jump 100 consectutive months.  I wonder.  Then again, I WONDER!!!
 
Yes, it has been a long haul since I last jumped and it turns out it has also been QUITE a long haul since I last jumped.  In true reality I don't think I have ever had this many days in a row without jumping since I started jumping in mid January 2001.  In the first couple of years I wasn't typically starting to jump on snow until the weekend between Christmas and New Year's.  Normally those years also saw the last day on plastic around the 5th to 7th of November, not November 1st.  I think this is the longest stretch I've went without jumping, PERIOD!
 
I last saw Cannonball at the eastern division fall meeting in Brattleboro, VT the weekend before Thanksgiving and I...rather jokingly, asked him what he thought the first day for jumping on snow would be.  He said December 10th.  I knew their has only been once that I can remember of that the K50 was jumped much before 18th.  In fact in the past three years, twice we jumped the K50 for the first time on December 18th and last year we jumped it for the first time on December 22nd.  Unless we get early natural snow we end up making snow on the K50 first and then move the guns over to the K25 after the K50 is ready.  We did jump the K25 on natural snow each of the three weekends starting Thanksgiving weekend back in 2005 as part of the 52 consectutive streak that we had going.  The K50 never was jumped for the first time until December 18th.
 
Well, this year was going to be different.  VERY DIFFERENT!
 
Back over the summer a storm came through in mid July and took down some trees on the outrun of the K25.  I think I wrote about that in my first journal entry in August.  The plan was to get the lights back and up and working again with quite a few other projects that was planned around the hill came fall.  The other projects were pretty much complete by the time Jay, the hill manager, showed up in early November.  Between everyone being busy and Jay being busy trying to make sure everything at the hill would be ready for opening day, yesterday, the lights got put on hold again.  Granted, according to how I have heard the story, the plan was to rent a lift bucket truck so they could get up and get the wires rerun, instead of just having the power company do it.  Since Lebanon Outing Club is a non-profit organization it only makes sense to try to save money.
 
This is where things went from bad to much worse.
 
November 28th.  This would be the day after Thanksgiving.  Typically they don't bother trying to make snow any before this due to their being too much of a chance of warm weather melting everything off and now they would just have wasted time and money making the snow.  Well...December 1st comes around and the first rain, freezing rain, sleet and snow storm of the winter arrives.  Did I use the word ICE.  Things will get much worse.
 
Somewhere between the 28th and December 8th they did managed to get a couple of days of snow making in.  I'm not sure when but according to Cannonball yesterday they did get two or three days of snowmaking in before the board meeting on the December 8th.
 
Right after the board meeting the next time they went to make snow something in the pump house broke so they couldn't make any more snow.  To this point in time we had been having some real crappy snow making weather anyways:
 
December 01: high 46 low 32
December 02: high 43 low 29
December 03: high 40 low 21
December 04: high 39 low 32
December 05: high 32 low 20(getting there)
December 06: high 33 low 14(much better)
December 07: high 34 low 20(okay, kinda)
December 08: high 16 low 5(SWEET)
December 09: high 47(late in day) low 6(early in day)
December 10: high 56 low 30
December 11: high 30 low 27
 
As you can see, you make snow one day to lose it all the next.  The problem was December 12th came and that created a very nasty situation.
 
Granted, according to Cannonball before the December 12th storm, the power lines on the lights on the K50 had already been knocked down by one of the previous ice storms.  So now there was no lights on the K10, K25 or K50.  All the jumps were not going to be daytime jumps for a while.
 
Then December 12th came and with it the monster ice storm.  All the local media said it was much worse than the ice storm that hit this area back in early January 1998.  This time the storm hit down in the southern part of the state instead of hitting right around where I live.  This time it left 400,000 homes without power, instead of 55,000 homes without power back in 1998.  I didn't have power for 2.5 days and I know of one individual that didn't have power for 11 days.
 
Right after the snow storm the warm weather set in for a few days.
 
December 14: high 35(late in evening) low 7
December 15: high 54 low 31
December 16: high 45(at midnight) low 25(late in evening)
 
Yes, the 16th showed a new trend was coming.  The 17th I woke up to 3 inches of snow.  YES, SNOW!!!
 
A very good sign...then again...how long would it last.
 
December 20th saw another 9 inches of snow fall with the forecast already indicating a potential bigger snow storm coming two days later.
 
As the next day went by the liquid precip for the next storm was dropping but I still ended up with 7.5 inches and some places not far from here probably did get at least 12 inches of snow from the storm.  Not bad almost two feet of snow in five days.  Talking about making up for lost time.
 
The plan was to get together last Sunday, when we got the 7.5-12 inches of snow, and do work on the hills to get them packed and ready to jump this weekend.  The snow storm naturally kept most people, myself included, at home.
 
On Saturday, the day before, the guy from Bombadier(snowcat manufacture) showed up at the hill to give the annual maintainance check on the groomer.  Everything went okay.  On Sunday and into Monday Jay and Esky worked to get the tracks on the groomer tightened up.  On Tuesday they pulled all the hoses and lines off to the side of the hill so they get it groomed and get it ready for opening day on Friday.  As they were getting ready to start grooming something snapped.  Turns out something in the drive shaft on the groomer broke.
 
Let's see, now were without lights on any of the jumps, without snow making equipment(yes, the K50 needs quite a bit of snow right now to bring the landing hill up to grade, and the outrun only had about 75% of it's normal snowmaking completed before the pump house went down), and now the groomer is broken.  Generally with 50% snow made in the outrun they can get it groomed up so it can be jumpable.  Without a groomer...that's another story.
 
I noticed today that in spots, especially mid hill the landing hill on the K50 is at least one foot lower than grade.  All of it is to some extent or another below grade from 26 meters to 54-55 meters.
 
Yesterday, not a bad day.  Got the landing hill of the K25 ready to be jumped today. The natural snow fall did nice wonders for the jump.  I didn't realize when I arrived at the hill yesterday that the groomer was broken.  I saw Jay on the snowmobile towing a homemade grooming attachment behind the snowmobile going through the outrun.  Later I learnt that the guys from Bombadier were suppose to be back today to see what the problem with the groomer was.
 
I helped Cannonball and Bill get the landing hill ready and called it a day.  Today was going to be the long awaited day.
 
I arrived at the hill today and after chatting with Bill for a while as he was getting the summer wax off his skis both of us headed on over to get the 2009 season started.  Cannonball had already forewarned us that the outrun was soft and not packed down like we have always gotten use to over the years.  I said the heck with and decided to break with open day tradition.  When you have jumped that darn K25 as many times, and under as many different conditions as I have...who needs to ride the landing hill!
 
I watched Bill put his skis on a rode the landing hill from the takeoff and then I walked on up jump and put my skis on.  Their was no track set on the inrun...VERY UNUSUAL!  I knew it would make for an interesting first couple of jumps.  I was intrigued to see how poorly I would do setting track.  You just can't tell that when on plastic on the K25 and they always have a track cut during the winter, unless it is right at the VERY end of the winter.
 
I get the signal from Cannonball and head down the inrun.  I realize that I had initially started at a VERY slight angle to straight down the inrun and correct it rather nicely and managed to hit the takeoff right in between bows.  As I walked back up Cannonball was looking at the tracks and it turns out mine was far better than I expected, but Bill's left a lot to be desired(sorry Bill, LOL!!!).
 
The one thing I noticed on the first jump was it seemed like my head was down much lower than normal.  Not the whole body, just the head.  It caught me off guard and I was surprised I managed to stay upright on the jump.  Granted, that plus the fact of not having rode the landing hill before taking the first jump, both threw me and I ended up riding the outrun dragging my hands the whole way.  It kinda seemed more like summer jumping rather than winter jumping...at least the stopping did.
 
I went up for the second jump and it went a bit smoother.  I still felt like my head was buried WAY to deep.  Everything seemed...unnatural.
 
From the third jump on I didn't notice the head trouble any more.  It did take me until the fifth or sixth jump before the jumps really started to feel somewhat normal.  Granted I'm used to jumping on the K50 first thing at the start of the winter, not the K25.  Everything seemed a bit unnatural today.
 
Watching the videoes afterwards that Cannonball shot I see I was dropping the hands again like I have had trouble with over the years.  This time the effect was quite noticable.  I don't think I have jumped this chesty in several years.  Some of the jumps, from video, were extremely chesty.  I didn't even realize I was jumping that chesty.
 
Most of the latter jumps were gettign down around 17-18 meters but the final jump of the day, jump nine did get real close to 20 meters as I managed to jump on time and jump without popping the chest as much as what I had been doing before.
 
The talk right now is that the guys from Bombadier want to pick up the groomer on Monday or Tuesday so they can work on it in the shop versus outside.  Who only knows how long that will take to get fixed.  The part for the pump house is suppose to be in sometime before New Years.  Right now it looks like it might end up being close to mid January before we even get to do any jumping on the K50.  I guess my plans for 1000 jumps on the K50 in three consectutive years have went into hibernation for at least three years.  It doesn't sound promising that I will see very many jumps on the K50 this winter.  It doesn't sound like I will see much jumping at all this winter with the way things are right now.  Next time out may not be until Tuesday, depending on the rain, freezing rain, sleet and snow forecast for tonight changing to all rain and a high off 55 forecast for tomorrow.
 
Yes, to finish off the statement at the very beginning of the entry...IT POURS!
 
Crash

Summer 2008 Tallies

Summer 2008    Leb 25
Apr 24         7
May 21         7
May 27         5
Jun 18         6
Jun 25         6
Jul 16         5
Aug 13         7
Aug 20         9
Aug 27         6
Sep 03         6
Sep 07         9
Sep 14         5
Sep 28         7
Oct 26         5
Nov 01         5
Total          95
 
Winter 2010
DateLeb 25Plymouth 25Leb 50And 38
Dec 121
Jan 056
Jan 063
Feb 024
Feb 032
Feb 046
Feb 073
Mar 063
Totals133102