Jumping Journal: August 24, 2009

Did I mention critical mass?  Couldn't of.  Signs of fall finally arriving.

 

Well, after a week of temperatures in the 90s...did I say 90's, did I say sunshine.  Couldn't of, not this year.  I guess anything can happen.  Yes, starting around August 14th the temperatures started spiking and the sun started coming out big time.  Heck I didn't have rain for almost an entire week and I saw temperatures up around 90 almost every day.  I guess when you miss the bulk majority of summer it will arrive sooner or later and come all at once and then leave quickly.

 

Well, temps today was back down more into normal levels right around 80 with some rain in the early to mid part of the afternoon before it tried clearing out by sunset.  I looked at radar and I knew it was going to be decent weather for jumping so I headed on up to Lebanon this evening for a very surprising evening of jumping.

 

I arrived at the hill and saw quite a few cars in the parking lot.  I figured their must be a committee meeting going on something like that.  I was wrong.  All the vehicles were there for jumping.  The first face I see was an old timer...no not an old time jumper just an old time friend of Storrs Hill.  I guess Fred's son is getting married this next weekend so they are up visiting family and getting ready for the wedding.  I haven't seen Fred in probably a year now.

 

I next start seeing several kids I didn't recoginize and then several adults I didn't recoginize before finally seeing Walter, Bill(both of them) and Dan.  Turns out the expansion phase of ski jumper at Storrs Hill is well underway.  Yeah, well I didn't jump last Monday thanks to the heat and still being sore/tired from doing other things on Sunday their were a few more new faces that popped into the sport of ski jumping and started jumping last Monday night.  Tonight they returned for their second evening of jumping.  I guess the extreme skiers are finding other ways of keeping skis on their feet during the summer months and are getting ready for bigger hill jumping this coming winter.

 

Colin, the newbie I mentioned about a month ago had told some of his other extreme skier friends about jumping and they have now started coming out to jump.  Three more new adults were in amongst the ranks tonight, Colin, Jonathan and I'm not sure what the other jumpers name is.  I'll have to find it out next week.

 

In all it sure didn't seem like a late August jump session.  I've never seen a late August jump session with so many people out jumping.  This time of the year it is normally three or four jumps at the most.  Tonight their was two high school kids, one junior, several first time very young juniors(8-10 years old), and Walter, Dan, Bill, Colin, Colin, Jonathan, ?, and myself out jumping.  Gee 8 adults out jumping at the same time.  THAT'S NOT NORMAL!

 

I suited up and headed up for my first jump.  Turns out the first jump would be the best of the night.  I managed to get nicely below 15 meters, probably closer to 17, I believe.  The rest of the evening I would struggle, for some reason, to even make it 15 meters.  The one pleasant surprise was the wet outrun that wasn't making stopping as quick as I have gotten used to it being all summer long.  I think Lebanon must have gotten some of the passing rain showers before I arrived at the hill.

 

The second and third jumps were barely getting down the 15 meters.  I don't know what the difference was.  I know I was surprised by each jump as I couldn't figure out why they were going so short.  Everything seemed like they should have been going 17-18 meters but instead I was landing at or above 15 meters.

 

The one thing I did notice was I was having a rather unusual time getting started up top.  It seemed like I was almost sticking as I was trying come out of house.  I couldn't figure out what was causing the problem but it wasn't being an issue until the fourth jump.

 

I got the signal from Cannonball for the fourth jump and I started over the edge when the skis caught nicely and threw themselves a bit sideways.  I acted quickly and grabbed ahold of the railing and managed to keep myself from going down the inrun.  I had to sidestep back up a foot or so of the inrun as my skis were already on the downhill part of the track.  With a small bit of help I managed to get myself back up into house and tried it again this time without sticking quite as much.

 

Before the fifth and final jump Bill K. mentioned about the skis maybe not being wet enough so I went ahead and hosed them off to see if I would notice any kind of a difference or not.  Their was a slight bit of a difference but not much.  I didn't stick like I did on the previous jump at least.  I'm still not sure why I was having the trouble tonight.  I haven't ever had trouble like that in the past.

 

Crash