Jumping Journal: January 20, 2009

WOW! A historic day.

 

No...that historic event.  When you get rid of one thief and replace him with another what's changed...NOTHING!

 

This marks the furthest, at least since I started jumping, that the K50 in Lebanon has went into the winter without being jumped.  Tonight that all changed.

 

I spent yesterday late morning into the afternoon helping Ron get the Newport jump ready for action, tomorrow...

 

After I got home I saw I had an email from Bill saying they were going to spend the evening working on the K50 getting it ready to hopefully be able to jump it tonight.  I was beat from all the work on the Newport jump plus shoveling out for the second time from the same snow storm.  Granted we didn't get much but it was a bit of a surprise seeing the snow Monday morning when I figured I wasn't going to get anymore snow.  OOPS!

 

I drove on up to Lebanon late this afternoon and arrived to find the Dan, Bill and Esky up on the K50 raking out the inrun and getting it down to the grade boards so we could cut a track on the inrun a while later.  I got the extension cords run up the inrun to power the tracksetter and then helped some down on the takeoff.  Cannonball came on over and got after stringing the line that he follows with the tracksetter he proceeded to cut the track.

 

I must say my first reaction to seeing the inrun was a little bit of a shock.  Even after a nice snow storm I haven't seen that much snow on the inrun before.  It was right down to grade but there is so much extra snow on the sides its incredible.  No worry about any thaw.  At least there shouldn't be any worry with all that snow.

 

After he finished cutting the track he said, "Whoever is going to jump go get suited up."  It already sounded like I was probably going to end up being the only one to jump.  I guess you could say, the test dummy.  Dan had left his skis at home figuring he would have enough time to run home and get them in between getting the hill ready and regular practice time.  He was wrong.  We never got the track cut until about 7:15PM.  That's about when we normally finish jumping each evening.  Bill...well...I guess I will have to call him a chicken.  Yeah, he is going to read this and I don't care.  YOU CHICKEN!  He wanted the test dummy to jump it first.

 

I was a bit relucant at first.  I didn't really feel like jumping.  This winter has been so darn crazy I just haven't been in the mood for jumping at all this winter.  My jumping has been the best it's ever been and...not surprisingly...I don't feel motivated to jump.  I guess when my balloon got burst by not having the K50 open at the normal time and knowing it would be forever before I would get to jump it plus not standing a snowballs chance at getting he 330+ jumps on the K50 I needed this winter to hit 1000 jumps off the K50 in three year, they just kinda deflated me and my ambition for jumping.

 

I suited up and headed up the hill.  I was already thinking seriously of continuing the 2009 tradition of just jumping and not riding the landing hill first.  I walked out to the knoll and looked down and was questioning myself.  I knew I wasn't going to ride the landing hill first.  It looked way too nice.  I couldn't believe I was about to jump this hill for the first time since late March last year and I wasn't going to ride the landing hill first.

 

I walked up the jump and put on my skis only to find a small bit of a problem.  I wasn't able to turn the skis around to get them into the track due to the extra snow right behind the railing.  After doing some top of the inrun maintainance I finally was able to get the skis to slide under the railing and things was back to normal.  I figured what I did shouldn't cause one potential problem I knew might be able to occur.  Fortunately, I was right.

 

I put the skis back on and got pointed down the inrun.  I got the signal from Cannonball.  I pushed off the back and started down the inrun.  It was very smooth.  I haven't been on such a well cut track in a while I guess.  Or maybe I haven't been on the K50 in a while.  My mind was trying to play games me a little.  I managed to push everything aside.  I jumped, tentatively and late at the takeoff.  I ended up with a rather short jump, probably under 25 meters for the first jump.  I knew I had been very tentative about the jump.  Turns out everything was nice.  The landing hill was the best I have ever one.  It was the softest landing I've had in all nine years I've been jumping.  Granted the only tracks on the landing hill were from me and since I didn't ride the landing hill that meant, now that I think about it like an idiot, I could have easily been able to tell just far how I went on the first jump just by looking where my skis prints started.  I wish I would have thought about that sooner.  Darn.

 

I walked back up slowly.  The landing hill stairs still need cleaned off.  It was another thing I was dreading about the thought of jumping tonight.  I knew the stairs weren't going to be any fun at all.  It took about twice as long to make it back up to the knoll as what it normally does.

 

I got back up top and put on the skis.  I got the signal from Cannonball and headed down the inrun.  This time everything seemed better set than before.  I jumped at the takeoff and this time I put some more into it.  I managed to get down somewhere much closer to 30 meters.  The whole jump was a lot nicer than the first one by a long shot.

 

I walked back up, only planning to take one more and Cannonball said he was half frozen so that confirmed my notion to stick with my original game plan.  After getting the signal I started down the inrun, and set myself better into position.  I jumped at the takeoff and was right back to jumping through the knee.  Strange how this has managed to finally come into play after all these years of jumping.  I can even tell now when I do or don't jump through the knee.  I had a nice flight and finally landed somewhere at or below 35 meters.  I still couldn't believe how smooth/soft the landing hill was.  You couldn't hit hard...their was nothing hard to hit.

 

Not bad for the first night on the K50 of the season, just a month late is all.  35 meters the first night...I can take it.  I know with a few more jumps I wouldn't be surprised if I find 40 meters this winter to be quite easy to obtain.  Things have really changed this winter.  It is irritating in a way but not surprising.

 

Crash