Jumping Journal: January 17, 2009

Cold feet.  2nd best of all time.  The mysterious float.  Yep, must be time for Hanover.

 

Since I last jump I have been around ski jumps each day, just haven't been jumping anyone of them.  Wednesday I was in Hanover for the high school jump meet.  I had thought about jumping but by the time we got there I knew I had enough stuff to keep me busy until it was going to be time for the jump meet to get started.  I had already been asked by Tom Dodds, the Hanover High School Coach/former coach of the Ford Sayre ski jumping program if I would be the head marker for the even and I had said I would.  The evening went great and given the weather forecast it looked like the hill was going to be in great shape for the jump meet today.

 

Thursday I spent the late afternoon/evening helping Ron Beaudet work on the Newport ski jump.  After never getting the chance to jump it last year since I was never jumped last winter I'm hoping to spend some time jumping there, possibily starting this coming week.  The hill is ready and with the snow that is in the forecast for tonight into tomorrow it should give some extra snow for the inrun which could definitely use some more snow on it.  I was going to head up to Lebanon after helping Ron but I knew the weather was a bit questionable, temperature-wise, and I never got done helping Ron until around 7PM so I headed on home instead.

 

After running a few errands early Friday evening I found myself up to Hanover once again kinda thinking about jumping.  I didn't see anyone else jumping on the K32 and there was very few cars in the parking lot so I figured I would let Tom put any finishing touches on the jump before the big meet today.  As I remember from five years ago tonight(a Friday in 2003) I was pretty much the only jumper on the K32 for the practice under the full moon before the jump meet the following bone chilling morning.

 

Yes, I said bone chilling!

 

Since 2003 was the year they dedicated the newly built warming hut at the hill and plaque gives the date of the dedication it is always easy to go find out when I saw the coldest day in my life...January 18, 2003.  I had jumped Friday evening under the full moon and found myself wanting to the jump with no artifical lights by the time I got back to my car after practicing.  I have wanted to do this ever since but haven't ever had the right opportunity.  Someday...  Saturday morning after my car started(surprisingly), I found the temperature -25 Fahrenheit around the Sunapee/Newport town line as I drove to Hanover for the jump meet.  I won't ever forget it.  The only way I could stay warm, even with the new warming hut and the nice heater inside, was to stay outside and stay jumping, err climbing the stairs after each jump.

 

The very next year Tom cancelled the jump meet because the overnight low was suppose to be around zero.  He didn't want to lose anymore markers by putting them in such a nasty environment.

 

Then comes this year.  All the troubles around the Upper Valley.  Andover postponed its jump meet last Sunday until tomorrow due to a snow storm that was forecast to dump 5-9 inches of snow...I saw 3.5 inches at my house.  Lebanon that was suppose to have its jump meet today postponed several weeks ago to next Saturday thanks to the equipment problems.  After talking Tom decided to move the Hanover meet to today and Tim would move the Andover meet to tomorrow.  Then the forecast entered the picture.

 

The funny thing is I got an email, internet marketing style email several days ago talking about how a person should expect to see a big jump in the price of oil coming up starting on January 21st.  One of the reasons listed was that January 21st is typically the coldest day of the year.  Looking back, January 18, 2003...not far off.

 

The forecast for Thursday/Friday/Saturday this week was calling for subzero weather.  In fact it was calling for 10-20 below zero freezing weather.  I already had my doubts in about Tom having the Hanover meet.  Wednesday I was kidding him about it but he was still sounding optimistic.

 

Thursday I received an email from him to notify everyone that he had put the meet on a one hour delay so things could warm up bit.  He was still planning on having the meet though.

 

Thursday night I saw -10 at my house, the Lebanon/Hanover area saw -26 and in the northern part of New Hampshire it -39.  Friday night came around and while I was in the parking lot of the Hanover jumps it was a balmy 7 above zero.  In 2003 it zero when I got back to my car after jumping on Friday evening.  Was this suppose to be a sign that this year was going to be a bit warmer than 2003?

 

After I got home I was still watching the temperature on the computer up in Lebanon and I was noticing that it seemed like it had put in a defined bottom end.  The dew point early on was -7 and as the temperature kept dropping the dew point wasn't dropping.  It looked like the temperature had found a floor around -5 to -7.  When I went to bed it -4 and when I woke up around 3:45AM to go to the bathroom it was still -4.  It was looking like I was correct.

 

When I got up this morning the computer was showing -12, with an overnight low of -16 in Lebanon.  My thoughts were, OH NO!!!, it's coming again.  As I drove up to Lebanon I saw -16 at the Newport/Croydon townline but it had warmed up to zero at the highest elevation of the trip.  I think we have seen a very low altitude temperature inversion each of the past two nights.  As I turned off the main road onto the park road that leads to the ski jump I saw the temperature go from -9 to -10.  As I parked my car it dropped on down to -11.  This was going to be the second time ever I would ski jump with the temperature this far below zero.  I was really looking forward to it.  I've wanted to do this again ever since 2003.

 

I made my way on into the warming hut and suited up for what I knew was going to be a fun morning of jumping.  I wasn't going to compete and I wasn't even going to forejump.  I wasn't about to add extra time outside for the markers and coaches to watch someone forejump.  Instead I figured I would grab as many jumps off the K32 as possible during practice and then change clothes and help mark on the K32 during the competition.  Ahhh well, why not.

 

I headed up the inrun for the first jump of the day.  Mark was already up top and was getting ready for his first jump.  It has probably been 20+ years since he would have ever jumped in Hanover.  He jumped as a kid and into early adulthood but gave it up once he gave up big time competing.  He has come back out over the past year or so and started jumping again.  He headed down the inrun and had a nice jump.  I watched and it looked like he had got a bit surprised by the jump.  He typically jumps the somewhat bigger hills and it acted like he got caught off guard by how small the hill was.  I saw him kinda "flinch/twitch" near the end of the flight before he disappeared over the knoll.  It looked like he might have trouble with the landing, but I figured with his experience he would pull it off.  Turns out he did have trouble and ended up crashing.  From what I heard later he must have twisted his ankle, gave himself a nice black eye and bloodied up his face.

 

He was the only jumper before me.  I also knew that Hanover has a tradition of having a bit rougher condition toward the bottom of the landing hill into the first part of the outrun.  I have seen it happen each of the past two or three years now.  I knew from watching the high school meet Wednesday night everything looked real good.  I was marking the bottom of the hill.

 

I put on my skis and headed down the inrun and found myself veing very cautious.  I was surprised by how cautious I was being.  The first jump was horrible.  I havnet had a jump that bad at Hanover in quite a few years.

 

I walked back up for the second jump.  This time everything started coming back into shape and I found myself down below 25 meters on each jump, other than the last one, after that.

 

The third jump caught me off guard as well, only for a much different reason.  In the past I have experienced lift once, and I have experienced, what I call, float, several times each winter on the K50.  I don't remember ever seeing it anywhere but on the K50 in Lebanon.  It has been that way until today.  At least that is what it seemed like.  I didn't figure I would ever see float on such a small hill.  From what I learnt over the summer/fall months with another sport I've gotten myself into I realize that when the temperature starts getting colder it doesn't take as much to provide bouyancy as it does when it is warmer.  I'm still not sure if this is what occured or not.  It sure did seem like I had float as I was flying down the landing hill.  It was the sweetest jump I'd ever had on the K32.  Very smooth jump.  One of the smoothest I've seen anywhere.

 

I started thinking about saying the heck with my game plan for the morning and instead of marking the comp on the K32, being in the comp on the K32.  I went up for the fourth jump and quite naturally I choked.  I still had a decent jump but nowhere near as nice as jump three.

 

The fifth jump was pretty much a split between jump three and jump four.  By this time I was starting to notice my the bottom of my feet were starting to get cold.  I wasn't about to left the stand in my way.

 

I kept going back up and taking more jumps and more jumps.  I was remembering the old adage, if you want to stay warm when it's subzero, keep jumping, LOL!!!

 

By the end of the session I had taken 11 jumps, to match the -11 I saw when I parked my car.  On the last couple of jumps I was putting a V in while in the air.  I should have skipped the last jump as I still don't know what I did wrong but I landed WAY short of any jump of the day other than the first jump.  I was nicely above 25 meters on the last jump.

 

While the skies had remained clear throughout practice, like they have been the past couple of days, they was clouding up nicely by the time the jump meet was over.  Right now the forecast is calling for 3-6 inches of snow overnight into tomorrow.  Just to the east here the forecast is for 8-12 inches.  Yep...Andover is 15-20 miles east of here.  It should be interesting to see if the Andover meet tomorrow will happen or not.

 

So far there hasn't been an eastern meet this winter that has happened on schedule.  In fact, the first possible meet to happen as it was originally schedule won't be until next Sunday. Between today and then everything has already been rescheduled due to equipment or weather problems.

 

Oh yes...I can't wait for the next time I get chance to jump in subzero weather.  I actually enjoy it, as long as their is no wind, maybe more than jumping during the summer months.  I guess I like the novelty of it.

 

Crash