Jumping Journal: January 10, 2009

EPIC!  That was the word to describe today used by both Cannonball and Bill

 

I would have to say that don't get much better than today.  The weather was great, the hill conditions were great, and the jumping was unreal.

 

After getting 3.5 inches of additional sleet and snow Wednesday I would have thought the conditions wouldn't be very good.  Dan spent a good chunk of the Thursday afternoon working on the K25 getting it ready for a jumping session today before the jump meet in Andover tomorrow.  I wasn't able to make it up there due to other obligations I had going on.

 

I arrived at the hill today and saw Cannonball setting up the string to cut a track on the K25.  A kid was already out jumping on the K10 with his dad flagging him.  I helped Cannonball with setting up to cut the track and throwing bows out on the landing hill.

 

Once we were finished a whole group of us suited up and headed on up the jump.  Once again the adults led the way with Dan, Bill, Todd, Cannonball and myself taking jumps during the afternoon.  There was three junior jumpers out plus the one I hadn't seen prior to today that was jumping the K10 when I got there.

 

After one of the kids jumped I got up on the box and put on my skis.  I noticed right away it looked like Cannonball had cut the track further to the right than what we had normally been skiing it.  I also quickly started to notice I was having trouble keeping myself from sinking/slipping out of the track and I was still at the top of the jump and hadn't started down the inrun yet.  I was having a lot of trouble trying to get any kind of balance that would help me to avoid sliding the right ski out of the track.  I knew the first several feet down the inrun was going to be intriguing to say the least.

 

I get the signal from Cannonball and start down the inrun.  My right ski is nowhere near the right track.  I managed to pick it up and get it set back in the track.  I continued down the inrun and I thought I jumped at the takeoff, Cannonball says otherwise, and I finally landed about the normal location.

 

I realized while putting my ski on I had forgotten to fix a small problem with one of the bindings that came up when I jumped with Dan on Tuesday. One of the catches that holds the cable down to the ski had popped open on Tuesday and allowed the cable to come up and out of it.  It than proceeded to close down far enough that I couldn't get the cable to reset.  I forgot about the problem and didn't fix it before jumping today.  After the first jump I walked into the lodge and found a screwdriver in my bag and took care of the problem.

 

I walked back up the jump and Cannonball was working at the top of the jump trying to fix where I had managed to have trouble keeping from sliding out the track.

 

I took my second jump and it was much better.  As I walked up this time Cannonball was working at the takeoff knocking down the angle of the takeoff.  He said to me, "You' re not going to get anymore free rides."  I didn't think I had had any free rides.  I guess maybe I was wrong.

 

Then the third jump came and everything changed.  Talk about a switch being turned on.  Out of nowhere I started jumping around the knee, jump after jump after jump.  I was shocking myself by the distance I was getting on each and every jump I took.  All of them was over 20 meters.  I had quite a few down around 22 meter and even had one jump during the second part of the afternoon session that was real close to 23 meters.  I have never jumped anywhere close to that distance on he 25 before.

 

It was relentless.  I jumped and kept right on jumping.  I actually ended up losing count of how many jumps I took in the first afternoon session.  It had to be close to 15.  It was one of the longest, timewise, jump sessions that I have ever been to.  I finally decided to call it quits and walked into the lodge with my helmet off and I was unzipping the suit when Dan said, "You going back out to jump."

 

I was floored.  I figured I was done for the day.  Dan spent some time helping get Todd into some good jumping equipment and I waited around in my jump suit talking with a couple of the parents.  This went on for about an hour or so and finally Dan asked me if I was ready to go back out and do some more jumping.  I said "Yes."

 

We headed back out for a second session where I ended up having the longest jump of the day on the third of the seven jumps I took in the second session.  By the end of the second session I was tossing in a V here and there as well as I trying, I think unsuccessfully to land in a tele as well.

 

It was definitely the nicest day I have seen for jumping on snow in a REAL long time.  The wild thing was hearing the snow.  Between the sleet/freezing rain/snow on Wednesday and the subzero temps last night the noise coming up off the snow when heading back to the stairs from the end of the outrun was very noticable.  I don't think I have ever heard it quite like I did today.  The conditions would be very hard to best.

 

Well...now you guessed it.  The forecast for tonight is 4-7 inches of snow lasting into tomorrow morning/afternoon.  Tim, the coach at Andover has already postponed the jump meet scheduled for tomorrow until next Sunday.  I saw that coming this morning.

 

At least the lights are back on working on the K10 & 25 and it looks like I might get some nighttime jumping in, the first in quite a long while, starting Tuesday.  Yeah, right before the big freeze arrives Wednesday.  Forecast is calling for -10 to -15 degree Fahrenheit by late next week for overnight lows.  Must be getting time for the Hanover jump meet, LOL!!!

 

Crash