Ski Jumping With A Twist

Jumping Journal: March 06, 2010

2010-03-06T23:34:00.001-05:00

What a stretch, almost one entire month without ski jumping during the winter months, WOW!!

Yes, it's been a while. Between hurting my arm on the last jump back in February and Mother Nature here the past two or three weeks there hasn't been much of a decent chance for flying. It took a week plus for the arm to come back around to normal and then the weather decided to start acting VERY strange. While Washington D.C. was getting two or three times their annual snowfall per storm I wasn't getting much of anything around here except for VERY sunny skies. Once the sunny started to disappear then the temperatures rose to very strange/unseasonal levels. Right now since the first of March the 20 day average temperature in Lebanon has been above the freezing mark. I figure this by taking the hourly record temperature in Lebanon and adding them up each day for 20 days. It sits roughly at around 35 degrees right now. Most of the past week, until last night hadn't seen temperature get below freezing anytime, day or night. This on top of VERY wet heavy snow for this part of the country and a nice wind storm that swept through the area a week or so ago and left many in the area without electricity. I was without power for at least 12 hours and some were without power for a couple of days. The weather just hasn't been cooperative at all and the forecast for the next week is sounding the same, no snow/precipitation and 40+ degrees everyday and lows in the mid and upper 20s if not warmer. One night MAY drop down into the teens.

I woke up this morning to the coldest morning in...it seemed, a month. The overnight low was 21 degrees. I knew Mud Meet was going to be interesting. It was going to come down to getting on the alpine and xc courses early before they got to rutted up by the other competitors and then the jumping was going to be REAL interesting given the forecast high in the upper 40s. It actually ended up reaching 53 for a high today in Lebanon.

I made my way up to Storrs Hill for the end of season tradition that normally wouldn't be held for another week or two but due to a conflicting event at the hill on the day it was originally scheduled the comp got moved to today. I was helping with the scoring and registration for the event so it kinda kept me tied up for a while. I finally did get around to heading out and do the xc courses in my alpine gear as I always do and saw while doing the xc course just how soft the conditions were. I can't ever remember in the past decade having Mud Meet be that soft, not even in mid March.

Watching some of the practice jumps on the 25 in between the morning alpine/xc and the afternoon jumping competition I was questioning if I was even going to bother jumping or not. Seeing one kid do a beautiful butt bump, err agony of defeat, off the 25 and watching a few of the other kids having trouble stopping made me a bit leery given all the trouble I've had this year jumping.

After finishin off the computer work and getting the morning scores posted and the sheets printed out for the jumping I suited up and headed out to get ready for the competition on the K25. It wasn't going to be the usual competition for me. No practice whatsoever. The competition had been cut back from trial and two to count to just two to count to try and save the inrun for the hoop of fire.

I joined the rest of the gang up on the inrun after rubbing some wax on the skis to see if that might help keep me from sticking. As it came my turn I headed down the inrun and jumped rather cautiously at the takeoff. The first nice thing was I didnt stick. I was a bit surprised. Just like the last jumps I took back a month ago I noticed it seemed like I was awfully darn high in the air. I backed out of the jump and still went 18 meters.

I walked up for the second jump and when I got the signal I started down the inrun. I didn't get into my inrun position quite a quickly as normal. I finally got myself settled in a jumped at the takeoff and managed to hold the position pretty well into the hill. My mind was still trying to fight back and tell me to pull out but I was trying my darnedest to fight the mindset. I landed at 20 meters and ended up falling over after I crossed the fall line.

After the competition was over I got some of the scoring work for the jumping done while Cannonball and the boys set up the Hoop of Fire. I heard the call from everyone that the hoop was ready. I pulled myself away from the computer and headed up the hill with the hoop already on fire. After waiting in line I got my skis on behind Todd and we ended up doing a rapid fire through the Hoop of Fire. The jump wasn't all that bad but once again I did manage to lose it after I landed down near the transition.

I called it quits and finished up the calculations that saw Bill finish first and Cannonball finish second. I was, quite naturally, WAY down the list thanks to my alpine and xc times as well as my jumping.

With the current weather forecast I don't if I'll get anymore jumping in before spring gets here or not. This is going to be my smallest winter of ski jumping no matter how you look at it. I don't think I have ever had a summer where I have had this few of jumps. It's just been a luck of enthusiasm, the weather...pretty much everything combined together into one has taken the steam right out of the ship. I guess my main goal anymore is to see if I can still pull off 120 consecutive months. I've got to get through December of this year without missing a month to accomplish it. Under the circumstances that could get VERY interesting by the time late fall into December gets here.

Keep the ski tips up,

Crash

Jumping Journal: February 07, 2010

2010-02-07T18:49:00.001-05:00

Not what I had expected or what I was thinking.

The talk after jumping Thursday evening was of possibly jumping the 50 sometime this weekend. The weekend has come and gone and haven't heard a thing more about it. Instead I got an email last night from Dr. John asking about the state high school jump meet coming up this coming Friday and he also made mention that he was in Concord and was hoping to jump the K25 in Lebanon today. I told him I didn't know for sure but I should by the time late morning came around.

I managed to make nice progress on the project I was working on so I decided I would go on up and do some jumping with him on the 25. I arrived at the hill around 1:30PM and very shortly thereafter he pulled in. After chatting a few minutes we grabbed our gear and headed inside to suit up.

We walked out and after taking a look at the landing hill we decided it would be best to do a little raking as it looked like right where the left ski would be going down the landing hill there was some ruts and chunks of snow/ice. After getting the raking done Dr. John went on to ride the landing hill and I walked on up the inrun.

Other than a small little curve about 1/3 the way down the inrun the rest of it looked pretty decent. I knew given everything it would be fast. The weather is still being very consistent. Their has been some more clouds the past couple of days but no snow and the temperatures haven't risen about freezing in a week or more now. We managed to miss the snow storm that hit the Washington D.C. area with two feet of snow earlier in the weekend. It does sound like, at least as of last night, that the area might get some snow on Wednesday into Thursday but the temperatures are to remain below freezing for highs.

As I put on my skis I noticed the inrun needed a little work right up in house. The ski tracks up on top were anything but level and the backside of the right ski actually needed snow to make it nice and level throughout. With the hardpack snow/ice I knew their wasn't anything I could do about it.

I got the signal from John and started down the inrun. I was playing it a bit on the casual side. I didn't sink right into my usual inrun position instead I lollygagged until I was all the way down. I got the takeoff and did a half hearted jump. Once I was in the air I quickly realized I was quite high in the air compared to what I had ever been before while jumping on the K25. The next thing I notice is I'm about to land on P, aka 20 meters, or even further down the hill than that. I was shocked and started pulling back. I'm not use to landing that far down the hill. I've only jumped that far once or twice in the 10 years I've been jumping. I landing and quickly find myself sitting back. I also finding myself saying, "I thought I was in Lebanon not Andover."

I walk up and flag Dr. John for his first jump of the day and then walk on up the inrun. This time I decided I was just going to slide off the end of the takeoff and not even trying to jump any at all. I put on the skis and got the signal. I headed down the inrun and pretty much slid off the end and moved into position. I ended up landing around 18 meters and I was still a bit more height than normal.

I walked up and flagged Dr. John once again. I made my way up the inrun thinking I knew I had to figure out what I had to do to get myself use to landing so far down the hill. I figured I would do the smart thing and bite it off a little at a time. I would add a little more into the takeoff each jump. I got the signal and headed down the inrun. I didn't think I really jumped at the takeoff but I must have. I got in the air and was high again. I saw myself heading straight for the blue line and I just kept holding the position until it was too late and I couldn't put in a landing. I ended up falling forward and naturally stuck one of my arms out to brace me, like a fool. I managed to catch one of my skis, that came off, with the other arm so it wouldn't get away from me. I came to a stop and knew I had managed to bang myself up yet once again this winter. This time I did the same thing, whatever that was, that I did back in 2007 when I crashed on the K90 in Lake Placid. This time it was to the opposite arm. It seems like its muscle related damage versus anything major. It just takes time for the pain to go away. I also managed to ding up the right knee as well. It has already started to swell up a little. I think I hit it with one of skis. I figure it will probably turn black and blue in a day or so.

I called it quits and kept flagging Dr John for a few more jumps before he called it a day as well.

I'm still not sure what the real culprit has been. Dr. John said on the last jump it looked like I was a big hill jumper moving out over the skis. I'm not noticing any difference in the move at the takeoff or the flight position in the air. I do know the inrun speeds have been faster and I think both Andover, back on Wednesday, and the K25 today had a bit of kicker on the takeoff. In well over a thousand jumps on the 25 in the past ten years I have never had that much height going through the air as I noticed on the first jump and again on the third jump. Ditto in the 50-75, roughly jumps I've taken on the K38 in Andover. Maybe its a combination of both the speed and the higher takeoff angle that is making way for me to get so high in the air. I didn't notice the height on the K50 Tuesday or Thursday evening. I was jumping further down the hill than I normally would given my lack of jumping on the hill since last winter. The speed and track are both in real good condition right now though so that would naturally help me get further down the hill.

I am starting to question whether I finally have jumped over the barrier and if I'm starting to make the move out over the skis finally or if its just the inrun conditions that are creating the effect. It's been the same way now all week long on three different jumps, both the conditions and the jumping.

I guess I'll have to wait until crappy conditions return and then go jump and see what happens. Right now I have a feeling I'll probably end up missing the rest of this nice streak unless the arm starts feeling a lot better, quickly. I don't think I want to risk it.

Crash

Jumping Journal: February 04, 2010

2010-02-05T03:47:00.003-05:00

Gee, is that what happens when you don't jump very often...or can you order up anymore sunshine in the forecast.

Woke up this morning to clouds and sun that gave away to wall to wall sunshine by 9AM. The forecast for the next week is for more of the same. The last time I remember this much during the winter months was in 2001 as New Hampshire was getting ready for a two year drought. We did get a light dusting of snow yesterday so the conditions tonight at the start of the evening wasn't surprising.

I wasn't planning on jumping tonight but looking at the forecast and knowing what the conditions have been like the past two days made me say the heck with it. If I'm going to be seeing this much consistent conditions I figure why not make the most of it and jump the crap out of it. Conditions like these, that last more than one day, don't come around very often, essentially never.

I arrived at Storrs Hill and made my way up the jump inn to find several skis already sitting outside the building. I noticed the name written on one of them, Sasha. I knew who it was, she's one of the high school jumpers from Hanover High School. I was surprised to see that she was thinking of jumping the K50. I figured I probably knew who the other skis belonged to as well. I opened to the door to find out I was right on one individual but wrong on another.

Dan, Sam and Chris was also joining the ranks of those planning for some nice jumps off the 50 tonight. I suited up and headed up the hill behind everyone else. I walked up the inrun and waited my turn in line. I decided to stick with bar three once again tonight for all but the last jump where I went on up to bar four, the top bar.

I put on the skis and got the signal from Nick. I started down the inrun and had a smooth ride down the inrun. It felt more like the end of the winter rather than the beginning. I normally don't have that solid of inrun position until later in the winter. Since I have hardly did any jumping this winter I really am surprised by how well my inrun position has been. I jumped at the nicely at the takeoff and had the ski tips come up quite nicely. I haven't had that kind of a reaction from the ski tips in quite a while. I had a solid stable quiet flight and landed around 32-33 meters. I knew right away the inrun couldn't be as fast as it was back on Tuesday afternoon.

I walked back up and waited my turn. I got the signal from Nick and had a repeat jump only adding an extra couple of meters before I landed. Again everything felt like it was the end of the season rather than the beginning.

The third jump again was a repeat of the previous jump. The fourth jump another repeat. The fourth jump I did find myself with a platform underneath for the first time. I haven't had the feeling a platform underneath until tonight. I've heard it talked about for a long time but I've never even come close to being able to stay I experienced it until tonight. I didn't take to the tips as there just wasn't enough time to think about it and make the move before I was going to land. I held the fourth jump into the hill the longest of any jump I've taken as well. It didn't make the jump go any further than the ones before it but I think it helped with the effect of having the platform underneath me.

I walked up for the fifth jump and once again it was another solid jump down to 35-37 meters. I essentially never have jumps back to back like this going that far down the hill. I believe it was on this jump I almost lost it when I hit a rut going across the bridge in the outrun. I can't say I've ever had that experience before even when jump under spring conditions when you would most expect it.

I took one more jump for the evening and went up one bar higher. I ended up jumping a bit late at the takeoff but I still managed another repeat performance landing real close to 37 meters maybe even a little extra. It was the longest jump of the night.

It does seem strange other than the last jump tonight and maybe a bit on the first jump, my timing was actually pretty decent all night. Normally it should take quite a few more jumps than I've had this winter to get the timing down and then it normally doesn't last long.

This has been a real strange start to the winter. Where it will go next is anybody's guess. I know this is the weekend that sets the rest of the winter in motion or kills the rest of the winter. My plan is to kill it. I keep wondering if that is why I'm having the jumps I've been having.

The mind is a terrible thing to play with..

Keep the ski tips up,
Crash

Jumping Journal: February 03, 2010

2010-02-03T21:47:00.000-05:00

Not what I was expecting by a long shot.

I remember sometime in the past couple of years when I went to jump at Andover, it may have been last year in fact, that I got to the takeoff and found an extra pile of snow not as high as the takeoff but within plane view. It caught me off guard as I had never seen it there before in all the times over the previous eight or nine years that I had jumped there.

I also remember a time several years back, probably Feb/March 2003 or 2004 I jumped at the takeoff and had a very weird feeling. It felt like I was jumping into a vacuum. I have seen some rather unusual conditions exist at Andover for the few times that I have actually jumped there.

One thing Andover has been known for over the years is having a higher takeoff angle that sends jumpers high into the air. For a small 38 meter jump it doesn't seem like you should feel like you are on a big hill but you do because of how much height you get on the jump.

Well tonight...decided I would take the skis with me and jump Andover once again before the next to last high school jump meet of the season. Normally I try to take three jumps with the kids as they practice before the meet.

I met up with the Sunapee High School team and rode over to Andover with them on the bus. I've been joining them going to high school meets since right before I started jumping in 2001. My first time seeing ski jumping in person was at the first high school meet of the season in January that year. It wasn't until a couple of weeks later that I started jumping myself.

We arrived at the ski jumps around 4:30PM. I suited up and headed on up the poma lift to the area around the takeoff. I noticed as I was getting on the poma lift that it appeared the transition was pretty much on the landing hill. In the past at times it has had a nice dip to it that would throw you if you wasn't prepared for it. The past two years or so I haven't noticed like I used to.

I walked up the trestle and waited behind some of the other kids. Andrew, one of the former Concord High School jumper and an eastern jumper for many years, came up the jump with a tracolator and some other tools. He did a little inrun work and since we have both known and joked with each other for years now he made the statement to me that he had completely iced down the bottom part of the track. I figured he was just kidding. He continued do some improvement work to the top of the inrun where kids had managed to knock the track out while getting out onto the bars.

I put on my skis and got the signal from the takeoff. I started down the inrun and found the inrun in about the best condition I have seen the inrun at Andover...ever. I jumped at the takeoff and then the usual Andover effect took control. I found myself WAY high in the air. I felt like I was jumping on a big hill instead of on a small 38 meter jump. I didn't think much about until I started noticing how far down the hill I was going. I ended up backing out since I wasn't used to make it to the blue line. I ended up landing no higher than 30 meters and maybe even further down the hill than that. Once again I had been caught off guard by the jump. I ended up landing behind on the jump and went over backwards and slid on my elbows until I came to a stop. I was VERY surprised by the jump I just took. I found myself commenting I didn't know I was in Salisbury. The jump meet on the K64 in Salisbury, CT is this weekend and it seemed like I was jumping down there instead of Andover, NH.

My goggles came off during the slide and after one of the other kids brought them to me I headed back up the jump. There ended up being a bit of a pause in the jumping when a kid fell and broke his wrist. He couldn't have much worse luck. He got a concussion earlier this year and today happened to be his birthday. Talk about the rotten luck.

I finally made my way back up top for another jump. I pretty much knew with the line forming and since I was getting cold that it would end up being my last jump of the day. I was hoping for a repeat of the previous jump only not letting myself get psyched out by going so far and backing out. I probably could have had another two meters or more on the previous jump if I would have just stayed with it.

I got the signal from the takeoff and headed down the inrun. I jumped at the takeoff but chickened out right from there. I was trying to backout from the start to keep myself from getting so high. I ended up landing much shorter than the previous. More in the range of where I normally land on the hill, around 25-27 meters.

Two nights in a row of real strange conditions. It hasn't been my jumping had changed any it's definitely been the conditions have just been top notch and tonight I still think the takeoff angle was on the high side. The kids were flying away from the hill versus following the shape of the hill. I know that is what happened on my first jump

The forecast right now, other than maybe some snow on Saturday, really questionable as to the track of the storm system right now, looks like nothing but sunshine and cool weather, highs in the low 20s and lows upper single digits to teens. I don't think conditions are going to change much anytime soon the way it sounds. It would be nice if we could get a nice snow storm to come through sometime in the next week and half to allow Ron and me to get the Newport jump in shape in time for Newport Winter Carnival but this forecast seems pretty much stuck right now on being very consistent.

Crash

Jumping Journal: February 02, 2010

2010-02-02T23:05:00.000-05:00

Will there be six more weeks of winter or not? By the forecast of that sly little groundhog there should be six more weeks of winter left here in the Upper Valley. The sun has been shining and the snow sure hasn't been falling much this winter. During the month of January there was really only three storm fronts that came through. Each of the three storms seemed the linger on for quite a few days. The New Years Day storm never seemed to go away and all it produced was flurries most of the time. Only 1-1.5 inches during the day and another 4 inches overnight eavh night. It stuck around three or four days before finally moving out. Two weeks later another storm, this time on Martin Luther King Holiday. It stuck around for two whole days before moving out. The all day rain storm hit last Monday and lasted all day long.

I've been spending the past month babying my left ankle. I guess you could more so say trying to get any kind of enthusiasm built up to jump. After the crash on January 5th my ankle finally did swell up about 24 hours later and to this day it still has a built of swelling left. It never has had any kind of pain but the swelling has been there the whole time. I think the swelling has mostly been a psychological thing more than physical. Like I said the enthusiasm to jump hasn't been there.

I've been out around the hills three or four days a week helping out at the Newport jump or going to high school meets or even going to the weekend competitions but I haven't been doing any jumping. I just haven't had the motivation to even want to jump.

Today I saw the plan was to jump the K50 at Storrs Hill before the send off party for Nick Alexander who is leaving tomorrow to head for Vancouver to represent the U.S. in ski jumping. I decided since I knew I was going to go up for the send off I might as well see if I couldn't manage to get the month of February off my list as well while the month is still young.

February 2010 marks the 150th consecutive month of ski jumping on the K25 at Storrs Hill. As far as it's known there is no other ski jumping in the world that has ever managed to make that accomplishment. Heck the K25 started jumping year round about the same time Nick Alexander started ski jumping. February would also mark my 110th consecutive month.

I arrived at Storrs Hill a bit late due to running several errands in the process of heading up to Lebanon. I found preparations were well underway for the send off party. The satellite TV trucks were already there getting equipment setup to send out live feeds during their newscasts. I walked over to the jump inn and saw a Dan take a jump. I knew something seemed a bit strange. I don't think I had ever seen Dan jump that far on the 50 before. It told me one of two things...either Dan was finally starting to get the idea or the inrun was fast. I didn't know which.

I suited up and headed up the hill. I was a bit surprised to Nick Burke flagging so early in the day. Normally he isn't around until the usual 6:30PM practice time and it was only 4:15PM. Given his occupation I figured he would have still been at the office.

As I got to the top of the knoll I saw someone was up getting ready to get on the bar. It looked like Bill. I rode the landing hill and it felt a bit strange. As I got back to the stairs I took a look and sure enough I noticed the toe of the right boots was trying to come up out of the binding. I had the same thing happen to me before heading down the inrun last summer on K25.

As I started up the inrun the jumper yelled for the signal and than started down the inrun. It wasn't Bill's voice. I didn't know who this masked man was. After I got up top Dan took his next jump and Sam was getting ready for his next jump. I asked Sam who the other jumper was. He said it was Walter. Gee, as it turns out Walter ended up grabbing his first two jumping in 23 years off a K50 this afternoon. It wasn't to be the end of the day a long shot...not yet.

I got the skis on and got the signal from Nick. I started down the inrun. I was playing it safe to put it mildly. I just wanted a rebuilder jump after all the jumps I had had so far this winter. I jumped at the takeoff and didn't go for the most convining jump. It was kind of a mix between jumping and sliding off the end. I found myself trying to back out in the air, not surprising given the first time off the jump in roughly 10 months. Again I needed a nice, clean, safe jump...nothing more. It seemed like a typical jump. I didn't really pay all that much attention to how far down the hill I went but it seemed like all the rest I've had over thepast six or seven year of jumping on the 50.

I walked back up for the second jump. This time I was feeling better on the inrun. I wasn't fully tucked but I was getting down much nicer. This time I jumped nicely at the takeoff. I did back out slightly in the air but not as much as before. This time as I landed I noticed I was way the heck down the hill. I was landing around 35-37 meters. The jump wsn't that good of a jump. I quickly figured out the inrun had to be awful darn fast. I knew the reason why Dan was jumping so far and it wasn't his technique had improved.

I walked back up for the third and what I had planned to be the final jump of the day. I got the signal from Nick and made my way down the inrun. I was getting set real nice in my inrun position. I jumped at the takeoff and managed to keep the arms under better control but still had a little arm movement in the air. I ended up a little short of the previous jump.

Instead of heading for the walk back up the jump inn I decided instead to ride the landing hill back to the stairs. I was going to wait and see what Sam was going to do. I started walking up the stairs figuring he would go for another jump. He decided to call it quits so I was going to the last jump to myself.

It was the best inrun position I've had in a LONG time. I ot nicely set. I didn't have the upper body up slightly like I normally do on the K25 during the summer months and like I did on the previous jump. Instead the chest was resting on the knees. I jumped at the takeoff and was smooth and clean through the air. The arms stayed at my sides nicely and I just rode it out until I landed. I was still in the 36-37 meter area but it was the nicest feeling jump I've had since sometime last winter and maybe even before then.

I changed clothes and headed on over for the send off party. It was good getting to see Nick again. I saw him back in the late summer but otherwise I haven't seen him in probably a year or more. As the send off party was winding down several kids and adults took to the K25 to do some jumping. I had thought about joining them but I didn't. As I was getting ready to leave I knew I had to go back over to the jump inn to pick up my jump suit. I had forgotten to take it with me after I finished jumping. As I walked over I saw someone go flying through the air. I decided to investigate and find out who was jumping on the K50. It turned out a couple of high school kids and one of the juniors was jumping.

I stuck around and talked with Tara and Kathleen on the coaches stand while they jumped. As they finished up Bill came over and said to keep the lights on as Mike and Colin were coming over to ride the landing hill. As it turns out Colin is the only jumper out of the whole clan of new jumpers that came out last summer that is still in the Upper Valley. The rest of them head out west for the winter months. Mike and Colin rode the landing hill and then Dan and Bill managed to talk Colin into jumping it for the first time. I stuck around and had to watch his first jump off the 50. Knowing how quickly he took to ski jumping I had to see his first jump. I was quite highly impressed but not highly surprised. He came back up and took a second jump before calling it a night. He was getting down 30+ meters right from the very first jump. Nice job Colin.

What jumping holds next who knows. I may practice with the high school kids tomorrow night before their next to last meet of the high school season. If not it may be a week or so before I jump again. Like I said the lack of enthusiasm isn't giving me any kind of a push to go jump.

Keep the ski tips up,

Crash

Jumping Journal: January 06, 2010

2010-01-06T22:57:00.001-05:00

It has taken how many years??? I can't believe I actually jumped that. It's easy to forget a few details when you haven't been around a particular ski jump in four or five years.

Well, I went to bed last night still feeling it quite nicely in my left ankle. The right knee had quieted down to real dull whisper. The ankle was still trying to let me know that it didn't like the tumble I took on the last jump last night.

I woke up and went to the bathroom a couple of times overnight and I was noticing a rather nice drop in the level of the pain/discomfort. I was pleased but I knew anything could happen between 3AM and 4:30PM.

By morning I could walk...for the most part with any kind of real limping/favoritism to the left ankle. The knee wasn't even present anymore. Later on in the morning I did a bit of shopping which seemed to help the ankle and I wasn't noticing it much at all. I was getting a bit more optimistic but I knew I hadn't put the ski boot on and tried to move in the ski boot to see what that might feel like.

After I got home I decided to put the ski boot on but first I decided to pull down the sock and see if their was any black and blue or swelling around the ankle. I was surprised given all the pain last night how nothing had come up. It seemed so unnatural to have pain that noticeable and to not have any swelling. When I pulled the sock down I did notice their was a small bit of swelling on the left side of the ankle. At this juncture I didn't know whether I would be able to get my ski boot on or not or if the swelling would be too much. It wasn't much swelling but I didn't know. I pulled the sock back up and went to put the boot on. No trouble getting it on. I walked across the kitchen. I got down in an inrun position and did a bit of a hop to simulate landing a jump. Nothing.

Now I was even in a bit more of quandry. I knew I was going to take everything with me to the school but I didn't know if I would end up leaving it behind in my car or not.

I got to the school and walked/jogged across the street to the local pizza joint to join the other guys who were over there eating before the meet. I knew by the way it felt during the small jog across the street in snow boots that I was going to take everything with me on the bus.

Plymouth has a rather unique jump in its own fashion. If you don't jump far enough you'll end up getting an extra bunny hop going down the landing hill. I heard two stories tonight from two different coaches about the reasoning behind it. One said the knoll is ledge rock and they can't do anything with it and the other was saying he heard it was unstable ground and as a result they could do anything with it.

Another interesting feature that it took me until right after my first jump to realize was the transition on the landing hill is also a bit on the sharp side. It took me a bit to remember that I had seen jumpers have trouble with it in the past. Tonight was only the third time I've been to Plymouth in the nine years I've been jumping and its the first time I've been there in four or five years. I think five years, actually.

The Sunapee team and I arrived to find we weren't the first team there like we were the last time I was at Plymouth, skiless like a crazy idiot, back four or five years ago. Kennett, John Stark, Hopkinton and Plymouth were already there. I think the only jumpers on the hill when we arrived were the Kennett kids. Everyone else was still trying to get changed and get their skis off the bus.

I had suited up mostly on the last bit of the drive there so I was pretty much ready to get off the bus when we parked. I grabbed my skis and a couple of the other Sunapee jumpers followed me back to the jump. I took a first look and said WOW! I didn't remember the trestle standing quite that tall the last time I was there. I had also forgotten the bottom 1/4 to 1/3 of the inrun was natural without any trestle. I definitely didn't forget the takeoff. The takeoff sits only about 6-10 inches above the knoll. I figured for sure it would make for a hard time telling where the takeoff was at. I had problems at Vermont Academy the first time I jumped there, several years back, telling where the takeoff was at. I jumped late every jump. Vermont Academy has quite a bit more vertical distance between the takeoff and knoll. Quite a bit more, but it still was less than normal.

After watching one of the Kennett newbie females take her first jump of the evening I walked up the inrun and waited my turn in line. I got the skis on and stepped over into the track. I was nervous to say the least. Thanks to the ankle I didn't know fully what to expect. I knew I wanted to play it cautiously and try to keep from crashing and maybe doing a lot more harm to the ankle.

I got the signal from one of the coaches and headed down the inrun. It seemed smooth. Compared to Lebanon last night it was really smooth. I put in a bit of a jump at the takeoff. I think I was somewhat late but not as bad as I figured I would be. I ended up landing on the knoll as the knoll sticks out quite far down the landing hill before the hill drops away. I rode the landing hill and about the time I got into the transition I lost it. I found my sliding nicely across the outrun. I was a bit surprised and even more so relieved at the same time. I got up and the next jumper came behind me and then the next one. I noticed the second one bounce quite nicely going through the transition. That's when I remembered the previous two visits I had made to Plymouth. I remembered seeing the kids getting worked in the transition and quite often going down as a result.

I walked back up and waited my turn in line and got the signal. This time I started down nice and comfortably. It was the smoothest feeling ride down the inrun I'd had so far this winter. I jumped at the takeoff. I was probably late more than likely but not noticeably late to me unlike Vermont Academy several years back. I landed and rode the landing hill, transition and outrun nice and smooth. It was a jump I needed real bad tonight.

I walked back up for what I normally end up making the third and final jump before a high school meet. This time everything seemed fine just like before. I had better timing and a bit more effort at the takeoff and went a little further. I still wasn't going much past 11-12 meters. During the comp most of the kids were either going 8-12 meters or they were going 17-22 meters. I saw only a handful of the 50-60 jumper during the three rounds of competition land between 12.5 and 16.5 meters. I rode the landing hill and then got nailed big time by the transition. I went down with a solid plop right to the left outer butt cheek, right where your wallet would normally sit if you had it in your left rear pocket. It would be the crash I would feel the rest of the night.

I walked back up the stairs rather slowly. After stopping to talk with one of the parents I met at the Newport Winter Carnival last year I walked on back to the bus and changed clothes before walking on back to the jump to watch the competition.

I'm hoping I don't end up with a nice black and blue butt cheek come tomorrow morning but it wouldn't surprise if I did. I think I'll probably stick around Newport tomorrow and help Ron and the kids get the Newport jump ready to jump come next week. I guess about the only thing that needs work is the bag snow and take it to the top of the inrun. I guess the lower 2/3rds of the inrun is okay but above there is bare so we're going to have to put snow into bag and take it up the inrun and pack out the inrun. Gee, this might end up being the second year in a row of jumping at Newport on all natural snow.

Until next time,

Crash

Jumping Journal: January 05, 2010

2010-01-05T22:14:00.000-05:00

A new decade. Oh yeah, same old jumping.

After the shortest December in history of ski jumping...one jump that I didn't even complete without falling. The rest of the month saw cold weather, not normal for December around here since I moved up here in the fall of 2000. January gets cold but December never drops below zero...at least not until 2009. Their wasn't much natural snow but the cold temperatures let the snow guns run like a mad man for days on end without stopping. The hills just never got put into shape. I think today was the second time anyone had jumped in Lebanon so far this winter. From what I heard afterwards it sounds like the 50 is in okay shape, I've also heard it needs some more snow on the landing hill between 33 and 43 meters. Not sure who to believe. Given the way we used to jump the 50 it is more than likely okay to jump now. I guess they are planning on jumping it Thursday evening. Not sure what I'll be doing yet.

I went for the wild trip tonight. It's been a long time since I joined the Sunapee High School ski jumping team for a trip up to Lebanon for practice. I don't think I have did that since 2001. Sunapee had typically been jumping either at the 'home hill' in Newport or at Andover. Ron wanted to get the boys off the K25 before the high school jump meet tomorrow night on a, roughly, K22 in Plymouth.

Ihey had moved my skis at the start of the regular ski season. Normally I just keep them in the entry way out by the back deck. They like to keep that area clean during the ski season so they had moved them elsewhere. I first tried the jump inn to find my key to the jump inn didn't work anymore. After I got back down to the lodge I thought they might have put them upstairs where some of the kids store their skis between jump sessions. I walked upstairs and sure enough their they were.

I suited up and made my way out to the hill. The kids were starting to ride the landing hill. I decided to wait and just head up when they headed up.

It was going to be the fun night of skiing in a track. Gee, kinda like summer jumping with snow, HA! After one of the kids set track I walked up and put my skis on. I notice most of his track was pretty decent except for right up top he didn't get into his inrun position very quickly and as a result one leg went out to the side and then came back in to where it should be. I decided to not follow his exact track up top and instead see what I could do to straighten things out.

I got the signal from Ron and headed down the inrun. Everything seemed fine until I was about 2/3rds of the way down. I didn't realize it until a jump or two later what was going on. Turns out there was a bit of a divot on one of the ski tracks. This was throwing quite a few jumpers off including me. From the 2/3rds mark on down I was trying to get back some symbolance of normallacy. I jumped at the takeoff and had a so-so jump, nothing spectacular by a long shot. I landed and did notice I was trying to drop the head and managed to pull it back up and ride out the outrun without any trouble.

I went up for the second jump, still not knowing about the divot. It ended up pretty much the same way. It was a small bit better but I was still losing it at the divot and letting the hands drops on the inrun. Ron commented about the divot and Nick commented dropping the hands. It was a bit of a surprise to see Nick coaching on the 25, normally he coaches on the 50.

Each of the remaining jumps the rest of the evening got slightly better when it came to getting used to the divot. I was still getting thrown by it and it causing me to lose a small amount of control over the skis. Right before my sixth and final jump of the evening one of the former Sunapee jumpers, Andrew, took the rake to the divot area. I do think he did help it out some.

I headed down the inrun and didn't notice it quite as much as before. I jumped at the takeoff and landed fine but somewhere around the transition I lost it BIG TIME. I ended up tumbling two or three times. At one point I could feel both legs on the verge of giving in. The only thought going through my mind was, "Will I be able to get up, yet alone walk, once I stop tumbling." I would have to say it was the second worst crash I've taken in the nine years I've been jumping. After I stopped moving I got up quickly but I wasn't moving quickly as I could feel it rather nicely behind my right knee and also even more so in the left ankle. Even now 3 hours later the ankle still hasn't swollen one little bit but I still feel it quite nicely. The knee is a dull roar right now to say the least. It still seems like it isn't in the ankle as much as around the the ankle, especially in front of the ankle.

I'm hoping I didn't get stuffed out again. I've been wanting to jump the Plymouth jump for years. I've had one goal to try jump all the currently, since I started jumping in January 2001, active jump towns in the northeastern US. The only two that I haven't jumped yet are Plymouth and Brattleboro. Brattleboro is mostly known for the K87 it has. That one doesn't bother me as much by a long shot as Plymouth does. I may miss it again this year. I'll have to wait and see how the foot feels tomorrow to decide whether I will try to jump it or not. As of right now, I wouldn't. Hopefully that will change overnight tonight. Time shall tell.

Crash

Jumping Journal: December 12, 2009

2009-12-12T18:25:00.000-05:00

BOY was I wrong! Talk about a rapid change.

Well, November passed by with only a few flurries back on November 4-5. Otherwise November quite frankly was WAY too warm for snow. Decemeber started even crazier. December 1st saw a high of 40, the 2nd 48 and December 3rd it hit 61 degrees. Seeing the forecast, BOY DID IT CHANGE!, I sent Dan and Bill an email asking them if they wanted to jumping on plastic on the 4th. I was looking at trying to save the streak on the K25 and it sure seemed like winter wasn't trying to arrive quickly. My thoughts were getting to the point that I'm going to have to jump this darn thing in the rain right before Christmas again this year to save the streak. There was no snow making weather in the forecast for the foreseeable future. I was even suggesting to someone that Storrs Hill might not be able to open the day after Christmas likes it always tries to.

December 4th the high hit 50. On the 5th the forecast caved in turned drastically wrong. High temperature was 37 and snow began falling around 2PM. December 6th saw 3 inches fall. It melted over the next couple of days cause it got into the mid to upper 30s for highs. Talk a stark contrast. Then December 9th hit. It brought 10 inches of snow and much colder weather. MUCH COLDER!

Guess I didn't know what I was talking about did I. We met up today at the hill and Dan had did some work earlier in the week getting the hill ready after the snow storm. The snow guns were running in full force. They were making snow in the outrun on the 50. It always sees the snowmaking first and then it comes over to the 25. Normally we jump on the 50 first and the 25 gets jumped on snow around Christmas. Only in 2005 did we jump the 25 before the 50. That is until today.

I woke up this morning and noticed I was having the usual effects from a fast I'm on. I never had these symptoms in a couple of previous fast. This one is feeling lighthead/fuzzy. I picked up the symptom back around day three or four. I've been on two other fast a 14 day fast in November 2008 and a 10 day fast back in early April this year. I never had the lightheadness like I've had this time. From what I've read up on fasting it isn't something unusual. Actually Dr. J explained today that it's simply low blood sugar caused by not eating. It made total sense after he said that. I know someone that has had low blood sugar for several years.

I also knew one of the problems with long term fasting is the possibility of going to stand up and getting so lighthead you end up fainting. Any sudden movement can trigger a fainting episode. I knew this could be a problem...a BIG problem when it came to ski jumping. The thoughts of passing out on the takeoff because of making the move forward and kicking could cause a fainting spell especially since I'm having the lightheadness anyways. The past day or two I thought I was actually getting away from the lightheadness. It had been getting weaker with each passing day and yesterday it hardly even noticeable all day long.

I was worried about jumping to say the least. Terrified might be more like it. After doing some hill work at the bottom of the landing hill Dan, Dr. John and I suited up for a late morning session of jumping, yes on snow.

Gee, it felt kinda strange putting a jumping suit on. I haven't did that since...March.

Before we headed up the landing hill we ski packed the area we had just finished raking and shoveling. I was surprised how well it packed down. The snow was quite soft and fluffy but it pack down nicely. We decided to help pack the landing hill a little and all three of us took and outrun. This is when I knew I was in trouble. Yeah, I had been noticing the effects all day, ever since I woke up. I put on my skis and was actually nervous about riding the landing hill. I stepped over to the spot where I was going to ride down. Well the extension that is put on for summer jumping and the leg underneath it were still in place. Cannonball jumped. He wanted me to make a jump turn. I knew not to. I knew that would turn out ugly. Talk about embarassing. He stepped over and gave me hand. I ended up knocking a ski off that hadn't set in the telemark binding correctly. Fortunately he caught the ski before it made its way downhill. I got the ski back on and turned around with Cannonball's and Dr John's help. I rode the landing hill. I manged to do it safely and not crash but I knew was in for the jump of my life.

To say I was worried at the top of the inrun would be putting it mildly. I knew the run down the landing hill was fuzzy most of the way down. I'm not sure how I stopped at the end of the outrun. Oh yeah, I slowed to a stop. There was no hockey stopping or anything like that. I don't think I could have reacted fast enough to. I didn't even think about. Admittedly, after jumping all summer and never having to try to stop does help some as well.

I put on my skis and after talking to Dr. John while getting the flag from Cannonball a couple of times. I finally headed down the inrun. I didn't move into my inrun position fast at all. I was probably 1/3 to 1/2 the way down the inrun before I was in a tuck position. That isn't normal for me, even on the 25, especially on snow. I noticed the lightheadnes slightly. It was there but it wasn't bad. I got to the takeoff and jumped. I went through the air and about the time I landed I knew I was going down. I actually landed on my feet but fell immediately afterwards. Dan commented later that it looked like I landed and then passed out. I was sliding on the snow while saving...this isn't safe. I'm done for the day.

I grabbed the skis that came off and called it quits. Both Dan and Dr. John continued to jump. Not sure what the future holds. Not sure how long I'm going to stay on the fast for sure. If I could get rid of the lightheadness I know I would stay the whole 40 days I have been planning on. I'm on Day 22 right now. I'm not sure if I want to even think about trying to jump again until after I start eating. It'll all depend on how the head is feeling. This could go down as one of the smallest months of ski jumping on snow for me in the nine years I've been jumping.

Crash

Summer 2009 Totals

2009-12-12T16:37:00.001-05:00

Summer 2009 Totals

Date                      Leb 25
Apr 26                    5
May 04                    5
May 18                    5
June 01                   5
June 08                   5
June 22                   3
July 13                   7
July 20                   4
July 27                   7
August 03                 6
August 10                 5
August 24                 5
August 31                 6
September 14              5
September 21              5
October 04                7
October 19                5
October 26                6
November 01               5
November 07               7
November 09               5

Totals 113

My second biggest summer of jumping in nine years.

Crash

Jumping Journal: November 09, 2009

2009-11-09T21:03:00.000-05:00

Not quite a normal finish to the summer jumping season.

After a fantastic weekend weatherwise today was only suppose to be better. Highs on Saturday were in the upper 50s and then the sunny skies helped to push the temperatures into the mid to upper 60s Sunday and today started out clear before high clouds moved in during the late morning. A strange wind hit the area around 9AM and I could feel the temperature rise very quickly with the wind. It was the eeriest thing I have ever noticed. From being cool one minute to down right warm the next isn't normal. It sure did happen today though.

The day continued to warm up into the mid 60s even though the skies had clouded over. I arrived at Storrs Hill for the final jump session of the summer to find Cannonball already doing an interview with the TV crew. A couple of kids were already there and by the time we suited up to jump there were two high schoolers, three juniors, Walter and myself out jumping. It seemed really strange to only have two adults out jumping. It's been a while since their has been so few adults jumping at a jump session. It must mean winter is coming quickly.

Everyone headed up the hill and I let the kids go first since they were all in jump suits I was jumping in blue jeans and a long sleeve shirt as usual. I decided to continue with the idea of working on the move at the takeoff like I had finished off the Saturday session with. The first jump seemed pretty decent. It didn't have much power which isn't unusual but it does seem like the body position is better compared to what I had been doing most of the summer.

Between continuing to work on the takeoff position and trying to toss in a V I continued on with the next four jumps of the session. They all seemed pretty much the same. The only thing different I really noticed came on the last two or so jumps. I was noticing that it seemed like my left leg was not only opening out for the V but it was also turning 'upward' like I was actually trying aerial stunt like you would see freestyle aerialist do off of moguls. My feet felt like they were actually turning to a 45 degree angle to the ground. I can't say I've ever had that feeling before. Other than that problem the final jumps of the season went uneventful.

It wasn't a bad summer season. It has to have been the second most jumped summer I've had since I started jumping in 2001. 113 jumps in over 20 session. Not shabby to say the least. Considering I normally end up with 80-85 jumps on plastic to finally see over 100 is a nice treat.

Now for the long wait until winter arrives. Hopefully it will be an early start to the winter and I'll be able to start jumping in around a month. Hopefully all the problems from last year won't come back this year and it will make way for a nice long winter of ski jumping.

Until snow flies,

Crash

Jumping Journal: November 07, 2009

2009-11-07T21:40:00.001-05:00

The Northeast Slopes crowd has shrunk in size but also increased by one.

Little did I expect another day just like the last time I was out jumping. At least I wasn't expecting it to occur until next summer but Mother Nature provided yet another opportunity to extend two season at once.

After what turned out to be a real nice morning/afternoon out having some fun I arrived at Storrs Hill around 4PM for the jump session prior to the fundraiser for Nick Alexander who is getting ready to leave in a couple of weeks for Europe to compete on the World Cup circuit.

Upon arrival I saw quite a few cars were already there. Jonathan was walking up to the lodge and Walter was outside starting to stretch with the lone high school jumper who showed up for the evening. I walked inside and changed my clothes and got ready to jump. I walked back outside and found Colin(1) was there as well. All of a sudden a new face had popped up on the scene. I didn't think I recoginized the face but I couldn't tell for sure. Turns out another of the Northeast Slope skiers had been talked into coming out and try ski jumping. Now I can add Tony to the list of the late 20/early 30 year old ski jumpers here in Lebanon. Yes, I can add another name to the list of people who have come out to try ski jumping for the first time ever and do it for the first time on plastic.

In discussion throughout the evening it seems several of the guys have already left for their winter getaways. In fact Jonathan was leaving out tonight after the fundraiser to head out to Utah for the winter. He is planning on coming back sometime, probably in February, to do some jumping on snow. It sounds like Colin and Tony will be the only ones left in the area come winter. They are all planning on being back out next summer though.

Walter started making his way up the landing hill and I quickly followed. In all their was one high schooler, two juniors, Walter, Jonathan, Colin, Tony and myself out jumping this evening. Several other faces like Bill, Dan and Mike were around during the evening but didn't jump.

After watering down the inrun I was the first person to go. I got the signal from Cannonball and headed down the inrun. I was just planning on spending the evening working on the telemark landing. The first jump seemed to go pretty smooth. I did manage to put in a bit of a telemark, not much of one though. Nothing unusual.

The second jump caught me off guard and I ended up with a nice jump and manged to get the arms swinging trying to back out of the jump. I would have went real close to 20 meters if I wouldn't have back out.

As could be expected I didn't repeat the same thing on the third jump, unfortunately. Instead I ended up landing a bit crooked and a quite a bit stiff. Tara took over coaching for Cannonball as he had to go inside to help get ready for the fundraiser. After my fourth jump she mentioned about how I was jumping a bit with the upper body so I ended up spending the rest of the evening working on it.

Jump five I had too much chest. Jump six I had lost the power at the takeoff even though I kept the chest down. On the seventh and final jump it seemed like I kept the chest the down and may have managed to split up the jump at the takeoff. Tara had mentioned that maybe I should try to make an initial move before giving to jump the full power. The takeoff on the seventh jump did seem a bit different. More than likely it wasn't, knowing my luck.

I decided to call it quits. I was going to to no more than five jumps this afternoon. Boy, how plans change. After changing clothes I walked on back out to the main room in the lodge and I was almost ready to leave when I thought I saw someone I knew that I hadn't seen in several years. I walked over and lo and behold if it wasn't who I thought it was. I haven't seen Ken in probably four years. Andrew graduated from high school four years ago and I don't think I have seen his dad since then. Turns out both Ken and Andrew were there. Next thing I know I start seeing quite a few faces I haven't seen in years. All people/former jumpers turning out to help Nick. I spent a couple of hours at the fundraiser talking with several folks I haven't seen in quite a while.

All in all it was one of the nicest days I've had in a long time. Now to get ready for the last ski jumping session of the summer coming up on Monday afternoon. WOW, another summer come and gone. It doesn't seem possible.

Keep the ski tips up,

Crash

Jumping Journal: November 01, 2009

2009-11-01T20:25:00.001-05:00

Expect the unexpected. Stranger things have happened before.

This year is starting to remind me quite a bit of the year that lead me into starting to keep this jumping journal. The year was 2005 and the boys at Storrs Hill were on a jumping binge. Jumping every week for 68 consecutive weeks. The strange time came in November. Each year prior to and since we had jumped normally on the first Sunday of November and called it quits until snow arrived. In 2005 we were jumping each and every week, right through November. 2005 led the way into moving jumping off of Sunday's and instead jumping during the week to keep the weekends open for everyone to do other things, including giving the better jumpers the chance to make a trip to Lake Placid to jump on the K48.

Last year we jumped midweek until early September. The lighting system got knocked down by a storm in mid July and with the sun setting earlier each night we switched back over to Sunday afternoons. This year everything has went much smoother and has allowed us to continue jumping into the wee early evening hours under the lights.

Due to the first of two fundraisers for one of the local ski jumpers that is travelling a lot in Europe on the World Cup circuit being this evening it was decided to jump in the afternoon before the fundraiser got underway. At first when the decision was made it seemed like it was going to be the last jump session of the summer as usual...until...

After a rather nice morning/early afternoon that I wasn't expecting to have I made my way on up to Storrs Hill and found myself following Dan into the parking lot. As I walked up to the lodge I didn't see all that many jumpers around. It was a rather unusual site. I was there right at 4PM so I figured I would see more jumpers. I was really surprised to see Walter wasn't there. Something didn't sound quite right for Walter to miss a session. Sorry Walter, can't help myself, LOL!!! :)

In the next 10-15 minutes several more jumpers showed up including Walter. All in all there was 2 juniors, 1 high schooler, and Walter, Dan, Kevin, Jonathan and myself out jumping this afternoon. Since today was the day we moved the clocks back one hour it did seem rather strange still jumping under lights at 4PM. Winter must be coming on fast.

Everyone suited up and headed up the hill. I decided I would see if I couldn't be crazy enough to pick up where I left off Monday evening...working on the telemark landing. I jumped about five feet late on the first jump but to my surprise it did seem like I had a small separation in the skis on the landing. I don't know if I really do have any separation when I think I do or not but it did seem like I should have.

The second jump was worse and it also felt like I was trying to land on my heels versus landing on the hole foot. I was surprised I didn't end up falling on the landing given how bad the landing felt.

Before the third jump Walter came up the trestle and made the joke that he would buy a beer for the guy who rode the furthest in the outrun. I was still managing to go right out to the light pole which is normally unheard of. Heck on my third or fourth jump I ended up putting in a bit of a hockey stop even to slow myself down. It hadn't rained all day long and the temperatures were still well into the 40s while we were jumping. I think the leaves must be providing the lack of friction that is allowing everyone to make it so far out the outrun before stopping.

My fourth jump had a real small separtion and I thought about calling it quits after number four but I decided to stick it out and take one more. The fifth and final jump of the evening gave me the best feel of separation I had all evening long. I'm not doing bent knee telemarks by any stretch of the imagination just a small separation of the skis.

I called it quits with 101 jumps so far for the summer. This is the second most jumped summer I've had since I started jumping in 2001.

Now for what I believe is going to be the final two jump sessions of the summer. Saturday is going to be a fundraiser at Storrs Hill for Nick and once again we are going to be jumping before the dinner gets underway. A couple of days later one of the television stations in the area wants to shoot some video of summer ski jumping. I think Nick has managed to stir the pot on getting them to come in and shoot the footage. Gee, more jumping than I planned this fall. I won't complain any.

Sagola,

Crash

Jumping Journal: October 26, 2009

2009-10-26T22:34:00.001-04:00

Final evening session until winter.

What was initially planned to be the next to last jump session of the summer of 2009 has now turned into just the last evening session with three more sessions being planned for the early November. Amazing how things change when you least expect it.

I arrived at Storrs Hill tonight to find a smaller than usual group of jumpers ready to hit the hill for the final after dark jumping session of the summer. Walter, Kevin, Colin and Jonathan joining one high schooler and one junior jumper. It was rather strange to not have a bigger crowd. Admittedly, this was a big crowd compared to what I normally would see this time of the year. I guess my reference point has changed thanks to all the jumpers that have showed up at the hill this summer.

As I was suiting up Nick Alexander walked in with his dad. Nick is pretty much on a shoe-in to be going to the Olympics in Vancouver this winter. He won at US Nationals earlier this month and he did quite well in Europe this summer earning himself World Cup points in the process. Nick first started jumping at Storrs Hill either the same year I started or the year before me, aka 2000 or 2001. Since the US Ski Team doesn't support the ski jumping program anymore any of the top ski jumpers in the country have to support themselves. Their are a couple of fundraiser coming up in the next couple of weeks to help fund Nick's jumping. He was also coming to inform some of the news media wants to come in and do a segment on summer ski jumping. Between the two fundraiser, one at Storrs Hill and the news media, the one jump session we normally do in November has turned into three jump sessions.

After suiting up we all headed up the hill and got ready to show Nick the way us lowly jumpers do it, HA!

My first jump was a nice solid jump. The past couple of weeks have definitely seemed much better than the entire rest of the sumer. It was around 16-16.5 meters. It felt quite solid.

The past two weeks has also found the outrun much faster than I can ever remember it being without it being wet. I'm not sure if it's the leaves on the outrun or if it by us jumping so late into the evening the dew is already starting to form and it's taking away friction from the ground that would normally be there. I was making it clear out to the lightpole tonight on most my jumps. I don't ever remember making it that far out before.

My second jump was the same maybe a closer to 16.5 than 16. The third jump was about the same. On the fourth jump I did a little work on the inrun position to see if I could get the upper body down a bit more and make myself have to jump harder at the takeoff as a result. It didn't seem to work the way I wanted it to. I also tried it out on the fifth jump. The jumps were still hanging out around 16-16.5 meters.

I had only planned on taking five jumps but after jump five I felt pretty decent and it still seemed 'early'. I thought if Walter goes back up for another jump than I will as well. Walter came down and it didn't look like he was too pleased with his jump so I figured he was going to be done for the evening. I was wrong. He walked toward the steps and I caught up with him and joined him back up top for one final jump.

He said he had to put in a decent landing tonight. He does such a nice telemark landing, at least at times, and he hadn't put in a decent landing all night long. I decide to join him and see if I could get myself to put in any kind of a tele at all. I got the signal from Cannonball and headed down the inrun. I thought to myself 'I will land in a telemark'. I jumped at the takeoff and had another nice flight around 16 meters. It did seem like I had a bit of a separation in the skis when I landed. Not a big separation by any means but more than I normally have. I was pleased. Given I normally don't bother even trying a telemark landing to have even the slightest hint of one is better than nothing at all.

Now for a couple of weekend sessions coming up over the next two weeks. First one is this Sunday before the first of two fundraiser for Nick and then the following Saturday before the fundraiser at the hill. Gee, only once have I ever jumped more than once in November... in 2005 when we were in the process of jumping 68 consecutive weeks. Between those two afternoon session and another on November 9th for the news media, hopefully I'll make that one, I may end up with three jump sessions this year in November. Time shall tell.

Keep the ski tips up,

Crash

Jumping Journal: October 19, 2009

2009-10-19T22:10:00.001-04:00

Brrrrrr. It's getting dark awfully early these days.

After having cloudy weather and much cooler than what I remember being normal temperatures for this time of the year for the past couple of weeks now the sun broke out big time today and I never saw a cloud in the sky the whole day. The temperature warmed up slightly at least they did get up to 55. That's about the warmest its been now in a couple of weeks.

I arrived at the hill shortly before 6PM and walked in right behind Walter. At first their wasn't many jumpers around. I was wondering if the cold weather scared everyone off. As the sun was setting the crowd started to show up and their still managed to be close nine jumpers in all, 1 junior, 2 high school kids, and Walter, Dan, Jonathan, Colin, Kevin and myself. I guess Kevin had tried out jumping a few weeks ago and it must have been one of the days I missed. I didn't recoginize him at all. I guess I missed another adult jumper at some point earlier this season as well named MJ. More adults keep coming out every single week. It really has gotten to be the craziest thing I have witnessed since I started jumping.

After doing a bit of stretching and talking I changed clothes and began to realize winter is on the way. It was a bit cold out. Even though I was dressed in a long sleeve shirt and had a pair of blue jeans on I was chilly the whole evening. Thankfully I had the steps to walk up on both the landing hill and the inrun. By the time everyone was getting up top for the first jump the sun had set and the sky was already getting quite dark. I'm not sure if I had ever jumped on plastic that late into evening before. I've jumped with the lights on and jumped after the sun has set, but I don't think I've jumped that late after the sun has set. It was getting quite dark by the time I took my first jump.

With no soap up top everyone was thinking it was going to be slow. Walter went first and it didn't look like he was going all that slow down the inrun. I stepped up on top with my skis already on and Dan found some soap. I knew the next time around it should be faster so I wasn't too worried about the speed. I got the signal from Cannonball and headed down the inrun. It actually seemed like their was quite a bit of speed compared to what I'm normally use to when we jump without soap. I jumped into the darkness and I was starting to think it was winter. I'm so use to jumping on snow under lights but I'm not use to jumping on plastic under lights. The jump went surprisingly nice. It seemed like I was down around 17 meters. It was one of the better jumps I'd had all summer long.

I walked back up for the second and after waiting my turn and chatting with the guys I finally get the signal from Cannonball. I head down the inrun and jump at the takeoff. Once again it seemed like one of the better jumps of the whole summer. It looked like I was in the 17-17.5 meter area again. The difference this time was in the outrun I noticed my skis starting to swing sideways on me...like I was trying to do a hockey stop. I've never had that experience before. The only thing I can figure is the leaves are helping to reduce friction more than the grass does. It seemed like I was going way further out on the outrun tonight than I ever have when the grass has been dry. The main difference is the leaves.

Jumps three and four were pretty decent as well. I did notice on jump three that I either jumped one legged or managed to pull up one of my legs in the air. It really felt weird. I haven't had a feeling like that in quite a while.

On the fifth and final jump of the evening. I ended up putting in a bit of V and also noticed the ski tips came up nicely compared to normal. I was quite pleased with the jump. Overall the entire evening had to be the best jump session of the summer.

Hopefully things will continue the way they went tonight. With two more jump session left before the break for winter sets in I'm still hoping to make 100 jumps for the summer. I only need ten more jumps and since I normally end up taking five jumps per session that shuld set me up to reach number 100 on the final day of jumping this summer. I think the only other time I've managed to get 100 or more jumps in during the summer was back in 2005 while Dan and I was keeping the consecutive weekly streak alive at Storrs Hill. Granted that summer I had close to 225 jumps on plastic. We was normally jumping two or three days per week. It was that summer that changed everything around and got us started on weekday jumping. Prior to that we only jumped in Lebanon on Sunday afternoons during the summer months.

Keep the ski tips up,

Crash

Jumping Journal: October 04, 2009

2009-10-04T21:25:00.000-04:00

September is over, why is this happening now. At least the weather improved quite dramatically from what it forecast last weekend.

Well, I managed to miss the usual Monday evening jump session this past week thanks in part to the weather and also being out doing other things. Granted I could have made it Lebanon for the regular session if it wouldn't have been for the sky looking like it was ready to rain and the radar was showing rain knocking on the door as well. I decided not to make the trip and wait until the jump session yesterday.

Yesterday came and my plans changed quite BIG time, very abruptly. Not only did it rain off and on most of the day but I was busy helping someone out as well all day long. Yesterday was going to be the practice before the competition today. A couple of master jumpers from Wisconsin contacted me earlier this summer and was wondering when we had a jump meet as they were wanting to get away from home and do some jumping in the eastern part of the U.S.

Due to competition schedules having two meets on the same weekend, one in Ishpeming, Michigan and then our meet in Lebanon on the second Sunday of September they asked us if it would be possible to move the meet. We decided to let them pick a date. They chose this weekend. Next weekend is going to the National Ski Jumping and Nordic Combined Championship in Lake Placid, New York. They figured they could come and hit out meet and then go over and do some jumping in Lake Placid and watch US Nationals next weekend.

Late last weekend I get an email from one of the masters that was going to make the trip and he decided due to travel problems that had come up that he wasn't going to be making the trip. It still sounded like the other individual was going to come but I didn't know for sure. The new glitch in the whole scene was the weather forecast. After having nice sunny skies for the past couple of weeks the forecast was changing to clouds and rain most everyday, including both Saturday and Sunday. It looked like both days were going to be a rainout, roughly one inch of rain forecast for each day.

I woke up this morning to mostly cloudy skies but it was dry. It fortunately would stay that way all day long. In fact by the time the competition was done the sun was out shining beautifully.

I arrived at the hill around 1PM and found several cars already in the parking lot. Quite a few of the regulars was already there, Walter, Bill, Cannonball, as well as several of the junior and high school jumpers. Slowly but surely 15 jumpers managed to show up for the annual Dion Cup/New England Summer Ski Jumping Championships. Included in the mix but deciding not to jump was Tom Moore, one of the two Tom's that was planning on coming from Wisconsin.

In all their was 9 masters, Dan, Bill, Cannonball, Walter, Brad, Colin(1), Jonathan, Todd and myself. Turns out Todd finally put the skis on the first time this summer...yesterday. Also their were 3 juniors and 3 high school jumpers to round out the field of competitors.

After spending some time chatting with Tom I suited up and made my way up the jump to grab a few practice jumps before the competition started. Each of the four jumps during practice were landing around 15-16 meter mark. I still can figure out why I'm jumping 2-3 meters shorter this summer than I was last summer. It has been consistent most of the summer with just a few exceptions. The technique hasn't changed but the distance sure has.

Once the competition started things pretty much continued the same. My first jump was 15.5 meters. Totally unbelievable. My second jump landed at 16.5 meters. It was a bit of an improvement but still left a lot to be desired. My third and final jump of the competition landed at 16 meters. The other guys that typically end up competiting against were jumping 17.5-18.0 meters. Normally I would be jumping the same distance as them but for some reason I keep on coming up short this year. I don't know why.

After the ski jumping results were calculated, the foot race was ready to get underway. For every point behind the leader in your age group that you finished you were given a 2 second penalty. My penalty 1:50. Turns out I had the worst penalty of anybody. Other jumpers finished with fewer points than me but so did their age group leader. I was going to bring up the back of the pack in the 1.4 mile foot race. Gee last year I think I was the third or fourth person off the start line, this year I was going to be dead last.

Turns out I managed to pass several of the people that started in front of me including the mighty Cannonball and I was on the verge of catching Walter before I lost it. I was making up nice ground on him but I just couldn't finish it off. The back of my calves still feel the tight. They were really tight from shortly after the start of the run. I ended up doing the run in 9:11 with an average of just a little over a 6.5 minute mile. Not bad for someone who has only run two maybe three miles in the past year.

Now to take tomorrow off and instead of taking Columbus Day off as has always been the case, other than just once back in 2005, it looks like I should probably be jumping next Monday. Hopefully I'll be able to get another 15 jumps in on plastic before snow flies. It would be nice to get another 100 jump summer in. I think 2005 is the only other time I've managed to get 100 jumps in during the summer.

Keep the ski tips up,

Crash

Jumping Journal: September 21, 2009

2009-09-21T22:55:00.000-04:00

Gee, only four jumpers tonight. OOPS! Try again.

After a long day yesterday and an even longer...unplanned day today I arrived at Storrs Hill this evening right about 6PM. As I pulled into the parking I saw very few cars and no cars with Vermont license plates. My initial response was "Where's Walter?" Mr. Enthusiastic surely isn't going to miss a night of ski jumping. I know he is from Vermont so not seeing any Vermont license plates gave me a pretty good idea that he wasn't there...YET!

I walked around to the hill side of lodge and found Dan and Cannonball there with a couple of kids gear sitting around. Cannonball made a quick count and only came up with four jumpers at the hill...SO FAR! Cannonball made the joke "You remember back when having four jumpers to a jump session was a big thing." Yeah, just a couple of years ago we would only have three or four jumpers out for a summer session most of the summer. Not anymore.

As I was about to walk into the lodge to change I saw a couple of the kids that he had already counted. I changed clothes and Dan was also changing clothes as Dan said Cannonball had his suit on. I looked out the window and sure enough Cannonball had his jump suit on. I knew he was going to have to get himself in a few jumps before Dion Cup in a couple of weeks. I just wasn't sure how soon he was going to start jumping.

As I was putting on my boots I looked out of the window and saw a rather familiar face...Walter. I knew he wouldn't let me down, LOL!!! This was going to be the beginning of the crowd showing up. Normally I'm the one showing up late not everyone else.

After a bit of chatting I headed up the hill with Cannonball, Dan, Walter, Colin, Jonathan and Brad as well as three high school kids and one junior jumper. Gee, this trend of having so many adults out jumping every session is starting to get monotonous...and quite predictible.

I wasn't expecting much from the evening as I was pretty much tired out from the day and didn't have all that much energy left for jumping. I knew I had to jump though. I had been waiting for this day for almost a year.

My first jump did surprise me a little as to how well it went. It didn't make it very far down the hill, 15-16 meters but it did seem to go pretty nice. The walk back up top afterwards showed I was dragging my heels due to lack of energy.

The second jump also surprised me by how high I got off takeoff. I haven't been that high above the ground while jumping the K25 in a long time. The jump still only took me down around 16 meters or so but I did have nice height above the takeoff.

The third and fourth jumps were pretty much the same. They were only going around 15-16 meters and nothing really spectacular happened with either jump.

The fifth and final jump was the nicest of the night...at least in terms of the move at the takeoff. I did have a much more distance but I did have the nicest move at the takeoff I have had in a long time. My inrun position was the best it had been in quite a while as well. I definitely was jumping more out than I typically do.

I decided long before hand that I was only going to take five jumps tonight and call it quits. I had thought about taking a couple of extra jumps but I decided to be smart and stop while I was still ahead.

Crash

Jumping Journal: September 14, 2009

2009-09-14T22:03:00.001-04:00

A nice evening for for flying.

Yeah, it was a real nice evening fro ski jumping tonight. The temperature was in the upper 60s with partly cloudy skies. You couldn't ask for much more from a late summer session of ski jumping. If you wanted a lot of guys to jump with, you had that as well. This doesn't seem quite right to have this many jumpers out at this time of the year. This is definitely one strange summer.

I showed up to Storrs Hill around 6:15PM after a rather dismal afternoon. You could say things didn't go quite as I had hoped they would go. Mother Nature just wouldn't cooperate the way I thought she was going to so I ended up with anything but what I had planned on for the day. As I walked up to the lodge I heard someone coming to a stop at the end of the outrun. As I got to the point where I could see who it was I wasn't a bit surprised to see it was Walter.

I changed clothes and headed up the hill to join Walter, Dan, Colin(1), Brad, Jonathan, 3 high school kids, and 3 junior jumpers all out jumping on the K25 this evening. Walter was definitely laying the jumps down the hill. He has managed to come back into his old form and tonight was working on adding the V into the flight position. His first attempt looked more like he was trying to go spread eagle rather than V style.

Tonight did seem a bit different then the past few weeks when I have been out. I didn't soap at all tonight and instead just relied on everyone else that was soaping to get the soap on the inrun. I was still managing to jump at 17 meters on each and every jump. Nothing with my technique changed...I wasn't jumping any harder or anything else. For some reason though I was going 2-3 meters further than what I had been jumping over the past several times I have been out. I don't know what the difference was.

Out of the five jumps all but maybe one of the jumps I managed to keep the hands up nicely going through the sawdust and out into the outrun. The new way of riding the sawdust does make for a much more comfy feeling. I still remember a couple of years ago when I jumped in Lake Placid on plastic and had the trouble because I was sitting so far back and always dragging my hands. At least I'm finally breaking that bad old habit and keeping myself a bit more upright.

Keep the ski tips up,

Crash

Jumping Journal: August 31, 2009

2009-08-31T22:39:00.000-04:00

What happened to summer!?

Yeah...two weeks ago today it was in the lower 90's today the temperature didn't even hit 70. It was in the upper 50's at jump time. What a difference a couple of weeks can make here in the Upper Valley. Granted this is the time of the year when fall starts to arrive. Oh yeah, did I say fall...the area is under a frost advisory for tonight as the temperatures are suppose to dip into the mid 30's overnight.

The sun was finally out as I arrived at the hill this evening. High clouds hung around until early afternoon and they helped to keep the temperature down. A couple of the high school kids were unloading their equipment and walkign toward the lodge as I pulled up. I was a bit surprised not to see more cars in the parking lot. Then again I did arrive pretty much on time instead of arriving 10-15 minutes late like I typically do during the summer months. It ended up being that instead of me arriving late several of the other jumps ended up arriving a bit late tonight.

After doing a quick bit of stretching I changed clothes and headed on up the landing hill. A nice crowd did end up showing again, very strange to see this many people out this late in the summer. Walter, Bill R, Mike, Brad(the one I didn't know his name last week), Jonathan, three high school kids and two juniors all were out jumping with me tonight. Another night of half a dozen adult ski jumpers. This is really unusual.

I decided to soap up and got the signal from Cannonball. I was once again a bit surprised by how short the jump was. Even with the soap I was still only getting down to around 15 meters. Something does seem strange about what is happening but I'm still not sure what is going on. Later on in the evening I watched Bill take one of his jumps and he seemed to be jumping short as well. I don't think it's my jumping as much as it is something going on with the inrun. The soap doesn't seem to be helping as much with extra speed like it always use to.

I went up and took a couple more jumps as everyone else was finishing up riding the landing hill and making their way up the jump. I was still coming in around 15 meters.

The evening as a whole remained pretty much the same. The last couple of jumps I did manage to keep from dragging the hands through the sawdust into the outrun like I always seem to do. I was quite glad that I was finally able to get myself to stay back but a bit more upright than what I have been doing for ages.

Also, on the last couple of jumps I did make a slight change in the inrun position. It seemed like I did get down a bit lower but when you jump late like I was doing on pretty much every jump tonight the response you get from being a wee bit lower in the inrun position doesn't really matter. I may have managed 16-16.5 meters on the last jump or two.

After I called it quits I got into a talk with Walterl and he informed me that he had noticed after jump he has seen me take I've been riding the inrun tilted to the right. It made me wonder how long I've been doing it. I didn't even realize I was leaning to the right on the inrun. Normally something like that I end up catching myself doing it and correct it quickly enough. This time around I haven't even noticed it once. I do wonder since Walter didn't take a jump after I made the small change to the inrun position if the change I made ended up correcting the problem or not. I did notice a difference in the feel. It felt like I was more forward/more crunched going down the inrun. It seemed like I should have had more power at the takeoff...if I didn't jump late. I'm going to have to watch next time I jump and see if I can notice myself leaning on the inrun or not.

Crash

Jumping Journal: August 24, 2009

2009-08-24T22:28:00.001-04:00

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

Jumping Journal: August 10, 2009

2009-08-10T22:41:00.000-04:00

Who the heck is that? Have we hit critical mass yet..if not I think we may be getting very close to it.

Well another evening of ski jumping. This evening wouldn't be quite as expected to say the least. The driest week in over two years has continued. I haven't seen any rain in over a week now. Better alert the news media a drought has begun, HA!! Yesterday was cloudy and most of today was cloudy until around jump time when the sky cleared out nicely and the warm humid air made for some rather sweety jumping conditions.

As I pulled into the parking lot at Storrs Hill I saw quite a few cars in the parking lot. I remembered that tonight was the club board meeting. I didn't think much about it and parked my car. I did notice two vehicles with Vermont license plates on them. The one looked familiar but the other one I didn't recognize.

I walked up to the lodge and saw Bill Ryan and Kim Farnham sitting on the picnic table talking with another guy I didn't recoginize.

Quickly I got the jist of the conversation was about the July 4th ski jump meet up in Lake Placid, New York. Something seemed very strange as the guy who was doing most of the talking was the same individual I didn't know. He appeared to be quite knowledgeable about the sport so I was very intrigued to find out who this guy was. I start hearing him talk about coaching the Holderness Prep School ski jumping team and everything tells me he's a former ski jumper but I don't have the slightest clue who it is.

Finally he goes to give Bill his email address and I quick realize who it is Walter Malmquist a former jumper from the area that jumped back in the 1970's and 80's. Turns out he had one of his kids up to Lake Placid earlier this summer and stumbled into Cannonball and said I got to do that again. He wasn't out at the hill just to visit...he came out to jump, for the first time since 1986.

I suited up as he was grabbing his equipment from his car. We headed up the hill and he rode the landing hill several times before taking three or four jumps. Mike, Walter, myself, one high school jumper and one junior jumper made up the crowd tonight. Yes, it's the summer doldrums. I know of one jumper that is at a three week camp that ends this weekend. This time of the year is always hard to get guys to come out and jump.

Turned out someone had gotten up on the jump and managed to throw the soap over the side over the past week. No soap...great:) I got the signal from Cannonball and headed down the inrun and jump, Cannonball said I jumped late and thinking back I would say I probably did jump late. I did have one of the nicest non soap jump of the season. I was a bit shocked when I landed down around 17-17.5 meters. I'm use to normally landing at or above 15 meters without soap. I'm not sure what was different about that jump.

I walked back up and took another jump with a bit better timing and landing about the same location. Afterwards some more soap was found and I skipped the soaping procedure since one of the kids was soaping up. I knew I could just use his residue and benefit from it.

Granted on the remainder of the jumps for the evening I was still getting about the same distance.

I did manage a real nice save on jump four. I landed with the skis quite a bit further apart than what I would typically like. As I went to sit back the ski tips went into a snowplow and I dug in my hands and managed to keep myself upright until I came to a stop. I'm not sure how I managed the sweet save but I won't complain about it.

I ended the night with the usual five jumps. The evening did make me question 'Have we hit critical mass in Lebanon'. I have said for years now you will know as a ski jump facility that you have hit critical mass when you get a female adult beginner out jumping regularly. Otherwise you will have to have a big number of male adults, both beginner adults and old times out jumping. Critical mass is simply the point where the program will feed itself and continue to grow rapidly as a result of what you already have as a base layer. They base layer will continue to draw in more people all the time.

What I have seen so far this summer makes me question if we have now managed to pull off critical mass in Lebanon or not. I have seen three 'new' adults come out and ski jump this summer. One, a former Olympian, still hasn't jumped the K25 but he has ridden the landing hill. The other two, Walter and Colin, have both jumped the K25. We picked up one new/former prep school jumper last winter. I haven't seen him this summer and I don't know if he even knows we jump during the summer months.

The key secret to growth is having an adult base. If the parents won't let their kids jump because they think the sport is too dangerous than you have no future. If the parents jumped as a kid than you have it made. Many of the former jumpers don't live around a ski jump anymore so you have lost the easy future jumpers. You have to replace that and the only way you can do that is to bring in new adults to the program. You have to get them jumping so they realize the sport is safe. You bring them into the program by showing them a big group of people their own age they can jump with. When you have a big enough base to feed off of it will grow on its own at quite a fast pace whether you want it grow or not. I call this effect 'critical mass'. I think we are getting real close to critical mass in Lebanon. I know of one female who jumped a few years back before hurting herself telemark skiing in northern Norway that wants to come back out and jump this winter. The next 12 months could be very interesting around the Upper Valley.

Crash

Jumping Journal: August 03, 2009

2009-08-03T22:29:00.001-04:00

The nicest day of the year.

It doesn't get much more summer like...at least not in this part of the country. After more rain and humid weather last week, some of it quite opressive today turned around very nicely and had to be one of, if not, the best day of the year so far. The humidity was low the temperatures were in the lower 80s and the sun was shining brightly with just the slightest of wind blowing. You couldn't ask for anything more...well, maybe a few more days like this before winter gets here. It sounds like Augst must be coming quick as the low temperatures are suppose to drop back into the upper 40s by the end of the week. I saw some Canadian geese today and I realize that is another sign that fall is coming quickly. DRATS!

I arrived at the hill this evening to find some of the outing club board members having a committee meeting but I didn't see anyone else. I saw several vehicles but no one was around. I noticed when I got in the right position that the door on the jump inn was open so I figured they must be over there.

A few minutes later I saw Cannonball walking back to toward the lodge with a pair of skis over his shoulder. As he set the skis down I asked him if he was planning on jumping tonight and he said they were for an old timer that is appearing might be making a comeback. Right behind him was Dan carrying a pair of skis that he wasn't planning on using and then a minute or two later came the old timer with his daughter and a friend from California.

I walked into the lodge and changed clothes and came back out to find both Bill's getting ready to jump. For the old timer he was just planning on riding the landing hill to get use to having jump skis on his feet for the first time since around 1981. He said he has only jumped five or six times since the mid 1970s and the last time would have been in the early 1980s. I just hope we can get him to continue to come out and take up ski jumping once again.

I grabbed the skis and headed up the hill with both Bill's, one high schooler and one junior jumper. After watching the newbies ride the landing hill I walked up the jump and soaped up the skis. I got the signal from Cannonball and had a pretty decent first jump. I wasn't quite use to going that far on the first jump of the evening. I haven't used soap for the first jump in about a month or so. I rode through the sawdust and came to a stop much further out the outrun then I have been. I still haven't figured out why the difference was present tonight. All season long I have been coming to stop much sooner than I did on any jump tonight.

Before the second jump I noticed that Tara had showed up and was sporting her new look, crutches. I guess in the past week or so two jumpers have taken nice crashes over in Lake Placid. Tara ended up breaking her knee and had one massively swollen knee to show off tonight. After I took my second jump I had the opportunity to see one of the most inflammed body part I think I have ever seen. She said it doesn't hurt but I don't know how it can't given how much it is swollen.

Jump three was bit timid since I was having problems with one of the cords on my bindings. I managed to get the cords repositioned/retied before I took the fourth jump and that helped to make things feel a bit more comfy. I was still jumping around 15-16 meters on each jump and each jump seemed like I was making further into the outrun than I normally would.

By the fifth jump I was also starting to notice I was getting myself turned a bit more going down the landing hill so I was staying more centered on the landing hill instead of heading off to the right hand side like I have been doing all season long.

On the sixth and final jump of the evening I decided to keep the head/eyes up nicely in the air and found myself getting even further to the left going through the outrun. It seemed like it was probably the best jump of the season so far even though I think their have been other jumps that were better. The fact of keeping the head up helped to make it seem like it was better than any of the other jumps I have taken.

In all is was one of the nicest jump session I've had all season. I hope there are many more like it between now and winter. Time shall tell.

Crash

Jumping Journal: July 27, 2009

2009-07-27T22:20:00.001-04:00

Summer has finally arrived. At least it sure has felt like for the past week or so now.

Gee, the temperatures have finally made it up into the 80's for several days over the past week now. The humidity has pretty much matched the temperature and it has made for some of the muggiest conditions I have seen in a long time. I'm not use to this kind of weather in New Hampshire. I don't normally think of breaking a sweat at 8AM in the morning but I have been breaking a sweat each day for the past week quite early in the morning. Definitely not normal, but I guess I can't complain too much...at least we are going to see something that kinda resembles summer before fall starts to make it presence known in a couple more weeks.

I arrived at Storrs Hill shortly after 6PM and found to my surprise that some of the high school kids were out. I didn't figure these kids in particular I would see again until the start of the school year if not the start of winter. They surprised me quite big time. It isn't normal to see high school kids have the motivation to come out and jump once the school year is over. This year things seem to be quite a bit different.

I walked into the lodge to change into jumping clothes and I saw my second surprise. Rusty Dan was going to jump tonight. I haven't seen him jump at all this summer. Rusty is a term we give to anybody that hasn't jumped in a while, typically anyone that you have jumped more recently than they have can be called Rusty.

The night ended up with Colin, Dan and I as the adults out jumping and three high school kids were out jumping from two different schools. Quite a nice sized fleet for the toasty warm/humid evening.

I headed up for my first jump and Dan had already soaped up so I knew I could just ride the inrun much quicker thanks to his soap job. The first jump both surprised me and didn't surprise me. I knew with the soap on the inrun that I would definitely go further than I had been in the past couple of jump sessions. The fact that I went from typically jumping 13-15 meters the past couple of sessions to jumping 17 meters on the first jump tonight still caught me off guard though.

The second jump was about the same but I started to notice I was doing one thing that I wanted to do a little work on. I wanted to look to the bottom of the hill instead of down between the skis. Since I have been having all the trouble all season long with crashing I haven't even thought anything about trying to keep the eyes/head up. I did spend the rest of the night working on keeping the eyes looking to the bottom of the hill and it did for some unusual jumps. I'm still not fully use to not looking between the skis.

After the fourth or fifth jump I watched as Colin came down and took a jump. Colin started jumping about a month or so ago. He's 28 years old. I think this was either his third or fourth time he's been jumping. I was amazed at his jumping. He was jumping better than anyone else tonight. He was landing most of his jumps around 18-20 meters. He is jumping with alpine boots, jumping skis/bindings. At least I think he is still wearing alpine boots. He reminds me of a jumper from several years back, Wes Wilson, who came out and started jumping and 6 weeks later he was already jumping the K90's. Colin reminds me of him all over again. He is picking up the sport very fast.

On my fifth jump I noticed that I wasn't cocking the ankles. I decided to correct that on the final two jumps of the evening. After wiping sweat from my forehead, like I did all evening long I managed to keep the ankles cocked for both of the final two jumps of the evening.

Not bad to have 7 jumps in quick fashion in the 7th month of the year. I had thought about taking another jump or two but decided not to. I was already sweating up a storm and decided I wanted to dry off.

Hopefully the weather will cool down a little before next week gets here. It would be nice.

Crash

Jumping Journal: July 20, 2009

2009-07-20T22:22:00.001-04:00

Summer has arrived, at least I think so.

The temperatures the past couple of days have hinted that summer may finally be here but the black flies still want to say its spring. I don't think I have ever seen black flies in the month of July until this past weekend when i was being swarmed by them. This past week has brought some much need dry weather as well. The forecast is suggesting that may change this week though, starting overnight tonight.

I arrived at Storrs Hill around 5:30PM and found Cannonball and Bill talking about the work party that took place this weekend. We walked over to the 50 and saw the change on the inrun that has been made to make snowing the inrun a bit easier than what.

After a while everyone suited up and headed up the jump. I was tired after having went to bed last night around midnight and waking up around 3:30AM and not being able to fall back asleep. I also had a quite a busy day which didn't help matter much so I was tired and I knew it was going to be a technical night of jumping since I didn't have much left to give me any kind of power at the takeoff.

I walked up top and put on the skis. I knew it was going to be slow since there was no soap laying around. I got the signal from Cannonball and headed down the inrun. Yes, it was slow and my jump ended up around 12 meters. It has been a quite a long time since I only jumped 12 meters on the K25 in Lebanon. I was definitely tired but thanks to being tired I was also too tired to crash.

I walked up slowly for the second jump. This time I did get back down around 15 meters before landing so I was highly pleased. I could tell it was all thanks to technique that I managed to make it that far. I didn't power off the takeoff like I have had in the past many times.

The third jump was about the same. The jumper right after my third jump had managed to find some soap and soaped up his skis. It did help my fourth and final jump of the evening. I was caught a bit off guard about how much extra speed there was on the inrun and how much further I managed to jump. I did end up with around 17-18 meters on the last jump so it was getting back toward more normal for me.

Now off to bed and hopefully make up for the lost sleep last night.

Crash

Jumping Journal: July 13, 2009

2009-07-13T22:48:00.001-04:00

Summer has arrived...or so it seems.

After missing the most recent jump session, two weeks ago, thanks to the weather forecast or something...I don't remember what the reason was for sure anymore I was hoping to make it out this evening for the jump session and get July under my belt.

To say the weather has been horrible this summer would be an understatement. From June 21st through July 4th the only day it didn't rain in the area was June 25th. Talk about a rather wet period of time. It hasn't made for much fun trying to do anything outside other than remembering to take dry clothes with you when you leave cause your going to need them before you come back home.

After a decent weekend, only some sprinkles on Saturday and nice warm sunny skies yesterday today started out nice and sunny as well. By 11AM some clouds were moving in but nothing that looked like it would amount to anything. Since I had been doing some outside work I noticed some sprinkles fall around 3PM but they didn't last more than a minute or so.

I arrived at the hill about 6:15PM to find only one other jumper there. I was shocked to see she was the only jumper to show up to jump other than myself. I quickly started to realize that summer must be here. Between vacation and starting to get into other things it seems like this is the time of the year when the numbers start to drop off. This year appears to be no exception.

We suited up and headed up the hill. She did some work on the landing hill and I headed on up the jump. With no soap up top I knew it was going to be a slow night and a short night. At least short, in terms of how far I would go on each jump. I figured with only two jumpers I should actually be able to get quite a few jumps in.

I was hoping for a nice smooth first jump of the evening to help set the pace. Turns out I ended up with one of the smoothest jumps I've had all summer. Everything seemed to go like it always use to go versus the way it has been going. I'm not going to complain any. Sure I only ended up going 13-14 meters thanks to having no soap handy. I definitely noticed the lack of speed on the inrun but at least it did seem like I didn't notice the trouble getting into a comfortable inrun position this evening that I have been noticing all summer so far.

I walked back up and took the second jump and it was another nice smooth jump. The third jump would turn out to be the weird jump of the evening. I started down the inrun and noticed it seem like my face was being hit by something. It was rather unusual. In the air I noticed the same thing and even riding the landing hill. I couldn't figure it out until I was slowing to a stop and I noticed that it was sprinkling out again. It has been quite a while since I last jumped with any rain falling. It only feel for a minute or so but...WOW!!!, what a difference a minute or so makes.

I walked back up top and got the signal for the fourth jump. I headed down the inrun and jumped at the takeoff. Everything seemed like the previous three jumps until I got on the grass and quickly remembered, by force that it had sprinkeld. Even with the lack of nothing more than sprinkles it had managed to decreasing the friction on the grass quite a bit. I wasn't prepared for losing that much friction.

I walked back up and took the fifth jump. As quickly as the sprinkles had moved in, they also moved out. On the fifth jump the grass had dried out already and was back to being just as sticky as it had been prior to the rain. I was finally making it down right the 15 meter mark but not any further.

The next two/last two jumps of the night were pretty much the same. Nice smooth jumps going about 15 meters. It ended up being one of the nicer jump session I've had all year.

Hopefully Mother Nature will continue to dry out, I doubt it but I can always hope. I guess time shall tell. Hopefully, I'll be out again next Monday evening.

Keep the ski tips up,

Crash

Jumping Journal: June 22, 2009

2009-06-22T21:13:00.001-04:00

Breathless.

After the potential for rain last Monday I decided to skip the evening and stay home instead. I watched radar and noticed what appeared to be a nice block of high pressure/dry air the rain couldn't penetrate sitting right over Lebanon. The rain kept getting forced to the south or was dying out. Turns out nothing much changed all evening long and the weather remained the same, no rain in Lebanon.

After a bit of sunny weather to start last week the clouds and rain came back in by late in the week and through the weekend and they have still stuck around. This time instead of the precip moving from west to east as it normally would, now the precip is moving from northeast to southwest. Yes, once again a nice block of 'high pressure' wouldn't let the moisture get into Lebanon. I had sprinkles throughout the entire day at my house 35 minutes from Lebanon. It didn't look like Lebanon got any of the light showers I saw earlier in the day. The blocking dry air kept right on blocking.

I arrived in Lebanon to find a few new faces I hadn't seen so far this summer and plenty of old timers as well. Bill, Mike and I were the experieneced adults out jumping, more on that later and then their was about five juniors and one high schooler out as well. Again a nice size crowd for this point in the summer. I did notice two other guys standing around and they got to talking to Cannonball right before I headed up the jump and it turned out they were planning on jumping. I didn't recognize either of the two of them. I asked Cannonball who they were and who the one girl was as I didn't recognize her right off the bat either. Turns out the new guys, yes adults, know one of the other female nordic combiners and they decided to come out and give ski jumping a try for the first time. Talking with them later they have been off the jumps in terrain parks but neither one of them has ever ski jumped until tonight. This was the first time I saw anyone actually come to jump for the first time ever, and they would be doing it on plastic. Rather unique.

I headed up for the first. After soaping up I got the signal from Esky. He was doing the usual of trying to remind me the simple basics. I simply told myself to make sure I didn't rush trying to get down before getting onto the sawdust. I headed down the inrun and jumped at the takeoff. I had a nice 17.5-18 meter jump. Esky afterwards said it was one if the best first jump of a session he has ever seen me take. I landed and went through the transition. I do remember feeling a bit off balance. I kept trying to regain my balance. As I hit the sawdust I still hadn't dropped down like I normally should/would have. The sawdust caught me and sent me flying forward. I tumbled quite nicely. I noticed as I came to stop that my one ski was already off. I started to take the other ski off and I was trying BIG TIME to catch my breath. I had the wind knocked completely out of me. I knew I couldn't say a word. I couldn't even hope to try to answer anyone and say I was fine. I got the ski off, quite quickly, compared to a normal crash. I stood up and moved out of the way and started brushing the sawdust off myself. I had sawdust covering me top to bottom.

As I finished cleaning myself off I was already starting to notice the bit of pain around my underarm. I'm not sure if I 'stabbed' myself with a ski as I went down or what happened. The rest of the arm feels fine but the armpit area is definitely sore, even now as I type this.

I decided to go back up and take another jump. I was surprised as I got back up top that I was noticing the side effects of the crash. I was definitely on the shaky side which made me think a little before taking the next jump. I knew it was from the crash, not from nerves.

I got the signal from Esky and started down the inrun and jumped and once again had a pretty decent jump. It wasn't quite as good as the one before it, probably closer to 17 meters. I did manage to pull it off smoothly though which was a much needed psychological boost. It still didn't feel natural though.

I walked back up for another jump. I had thought about calling it quits after two jumps. I knew I just wanted a nice recovery jump after taking the crash. Cannonball said on the second jump I had landed with my feet quite a bit apart and as a result I was trying to get my full balance instead of focusing so much so on getting down before hitting the sawdust.

I got the signal from Cannonball and started down the inrun. The jump went about the same and this time I definitely landed with the feet nicely together. As I was riding on the sawdust and into the outrun I still felt like I was trying to save it versus enjoying the ride. I came to stop and said "I'm done." I took off the ski and walked inside the lodge and changed clothes.

As I walked out I got to talking a bit with Bill and Mike before they headed back up the jump. I also got talking with one of the other parents. I was watching some of the other jumpers it turned out each of the three first timers on plastic were up top the K25 waiting to jump. The girl came down and had a decent jump but got sitting way too far back and she went over.

She did jump last winter for Vermont Academy but the two guys that were coming down next hadn't ever jumped before in their life. They were up top the K25 waiting for the signal. The first guy comes down and has a very standard first jump. He lands the jump probably 8-9 meters and you could tell looking at his face that he was scared/nervous as he made his way onto the sawdust. He came to a stop and took off his skis. It was at that point that I asked him if that was his first jump ever or not.

The second guys came down the inrun and jumped and landed 11.5-12 meters, maybe slightly further. I was surprised how far he went for it being his first jump. He looked even more scared right before getting onto the sawdust.

Who knows we may have two more adults out jumping with us now in the future. I think I did hear the one was just visiting the area and decided to come on out with his buddy so we may only end up picking up one new jumper. Time shall tell. Both of them looked pretty decent for it being their first time ever jumping...and they was doing it on plastic too boot.

I have a strange feeling I may be sore for a while thanks to the crash. It'll be interesting to see how bad things get. Right now it feels like I'm stretching the muscles in my underarm just so I can lift my arm. By the time morning gets here it could interesting.

Sagola,

Crash

Jumping Journal: June 08, 2009

2009-06-08T22:13:00.000-04:00

A big group of jumpers of all ages.

That pretty much describes this evening. Definitely one of the biggest crowd of jumpers of all ages that I have seen jumping during the summer months. Let's see. Their was two adults, 6 high school kids(most I think I have seen jumping on plastic), 4 junior jumpers, and 2 very young kids, I think they are age 8 and 9. It was one the largest crowds I've seen in Lebanon during the summer season. It seems strange having this size of crowd sticking around this late into the summer months.

I made my way to hill this late spring afternoon to find the crowd pouring in. I saw a few new faces that I had to be reminded what their name was even though I knew the kid. I just wasn't use to seeing them this time of the year. I arrived at Cannonball already was doing immo's with the kids. I changed into the blue jeans and long sleeve shirt I normally wear this time of the year. I headed on up the hill knowing their was no soap up top.

After the newbie and not so newbies had rode the landing hill I walked on up the inrun and put on my skis. Cannonball gave me the signal and I started down the inrun. I figured it was going to be quite slow given the lack of soap. As I started over the lip at the top of the inrun it seemed like I was going to be correct. I quickly ended up seeing that the notion was wrong though as I accelerated quite nicely. I didn't have as much speed at the takeoff as I normally would but it was maybe 1-2 mph slower at the most. I jumped at the takeoff and had a nice flight. I was quite pleased. I landed and for a second as I was coming up to the sawdust I was thinking am I ever going to get down. It seemed like I was doing the exact opposite of what I was doing earlier in the spring. Instead of getting down too quickly I was now waiting forever to get down.

I walked back up the jump and the crowd was starting to arrive. Gee, just how many jumpers can you fit on the K25, HA!! I put on my skis and waitd for the little and not so little kids to ride the landing hill. I got the signal from Cannonball and this time I had an even better jump. Without the soap on my skis or on the inrun I still managed to jump 17.5-18 meters. Gee, that's all the further I normally jump when I do have soap on my skis. Something hear doesn't seem quite right. Maybe this soap concept is just overkill. Maybe its just a head game.

By the third jump their had to be at least 10 jumpers jumping on the K25. Pretty much all the kids with the exception of only one or two that was out for their first day were up on the K25. The pace of getting jumpers off the hill had actually picked up very nicely. The past several weeks the pace of getting jumps was quite slow due to so many kids riding the landing hill all the time. Tonight with practically everyone jumping the pace picked up and I actually had five jumps in by 7:30PM. Last week it was closer to 8:00PM before I got all five jumps in and we started jumping about the same time tonight as last week.

Between the third, fourth, and fifth jumps I managed to keep the jumps further down the hill and managed to have one of the nicest summer sessions of jumping I think I've ever had. I was hitting down 18-18.5 meters by the end of the session. The fourth jump was definitely the best of the night and it seemed like I made a better move at the takeoff, jumping more out than I had been on any of the other jumps. I need to get back to working on thinking of jumping out since I don't have to worry about crashing all the time finally. I'll have to see what I can do about that come next week. Hopefully nothing will interfer and keep me from being able to jump next Monday.

Keep the ski tips up,

Crash

Jumping Journal: June 01, 2009

2009-06-01T22:58:00.000-04:00

BRRRRR!!!! WOW!!! The nickname finally didn't stick.

It has definitely been one of the coldest springs I can remember . March seemed like it was going to be an early spring after the snow melted off the earliest I have seen in the nine years I have lived up here. April came and brought a bit of continuation of the nice warm weather at least until mid month when it did seem like things started to return a bit more normal. May arrived and things kept getting more normal until mid month when the rain started falling and the colder weather set in. Each of the past couple of weeks I have seen overnight temperature drop into the lower 30s. I heard rumor floating around tonight that their was flurries falling in Lake Placid this morning. The overnight low in Lebanon last night was 33. It has definitely been a cold mid May in early June. Every time is seems like summer is going to finally arrive then another blast of late winter temperatures sets in. The temperature has only hit 70 degrees once in the past week.

I arrived at the hill this evening under cloudy skies and cool temps. The temperature was around 60 degrees. I found a few old faces and a few new faces had already arrived. After a brief warm up we stretched and did immos. All of us, 1 adult, 4 high school kids, 4 juniors and 2 under 10 years old jumpers were all out for the evening. A couple of adults made their presence known at the hill but had decided not to jump. I knew one of the high school kids was going to be there, he has been to each of the summer practices thus far but the other three really surprised. It was great to see I believe that whole high school team come out to jump on plastic. I guess the only week I have missed since summer jumping began one of the same kids had shown up to jump but the other two were getting their first tastes of summer jumping.

I must say I'm not used to seeing this big of a turn out come the first of June. Normally by now the numbers start to drift downward. They don't totally shut off until later in the summer and as school starts back up in the fall but to see eleven jumpers on a nice sprign evening out jumping was a nice treat.

I headed up the jump and was hoping that I might actually be able to pull off what I hadn't been able to pull off so far this spring...a nice, clean first jump without it ending up being a yard sale in the outrun. After soaping up I put on the skis and get the signal from Cannonball. I start down the inrun and jump at the takeoff. Not too bad of a jump. I landed around 16-17 meters and actually managed to ride it through the end of the outrun without creating a big yard sale. LOL!!! It actually was the best jump so far this summer.

I took off the skis and headed back up the landing hill. Everyone was commenting about how I had managed to finally to take my first jump of the evening without crashing. I walked up the inrun and waited for the newer jumpers to get a ride in on the landing hill. Finally it was the older boys turn to go. After a couple of jumpers had taken their turn I had my skis on and waited for the signal. I headed down the inrun and jump. Once again not a bad jump, and a nice smooth ride out through the outrun as well.

Jump three would be a rather strange jump. It went fine and I didn't fall or anything but I did find myself actually having enough time to think about trying to put in a telemark landing. The thought did come awful late though so I stuck with a regular landing. It did make me think a bit about before I even started down the inrun for the fourth jump. Heck on the third jump I managed to get around 18 meters as well. The jumps seem to keep on getting better, jump by jump. After the rocky start to the spring I can only hope they continue to get better.

Jump four and five were about the same, maybe half a meter less than the third jump but they were still decent jumps. I didn't have the thought/urge to go for a telemark landing on either jump unfortunately.

I called it night after the usual round of five jumps and left as the kids were still up top the inrun getting ready to come down. It isn't very often that happens. I guess when you have a nice night and the bugs are out biting nice like you kinda know when to call it quits. I don't think I can remember a time in the nine years I've been jumping when I have had the bugs biting when I have been out to jump. Tonight was the first time.

Keep the ski tips up,

Crash

Jumping Journal: May 18, 2009

2009-05-18T22:28:00.000-04:00

Pete and Repeat were sitting on a fence and...

Yeah, I know. Don't remind me.

Another evening of jumping on plastic. Could it get any more predictable than this. Surely not. But it did.

After a rather cool cloudy day I headed up to Lebanon late this afternoon to grab some more on the K25 this summer. Gotta get at 80-85 to keep up with the past summers. I arrived a bit late after making a stop to pick up a couple of things I needed for a project I'm working on around the house. Cannonball already had the boys stretching so I joined in. After stretching and doing some immos we all suited up. Three kids and by the end of the practice session there was also three adults, Bill, Mike and me. Mike was making his first jumps since he took a nasty crash before Mud Meet. It was real good to see him back out again.

I headed up the hill with the rest of the jumpers. While most rode the landing hill I skipped that as usual. I headed on up after soaping my skis. After getting the inrun watered down I was given the signal and headed down the inrun. I jumped at the takeoff and had a nice 15-16 meter jump. I landed and it seemed like I was possibly off balance right after landing. I ended up going down before I reached the sawdust. It wasn't that I got down too quickly like I have been doing in the past but I went down on the first jump for the third jump session in a row.

I walked back up and as I passed Cannonball he didn't say anything. I wasn't surprised. I soaped back up and got the signal. I headed down the inrun and jumped. The jump didn't seem quite as nice as the one before it but unlike the first one I didn't manage to stay on balance and kept myself on my skis until I slowed to a stop. As I was taking off my skis I started laughing, thinking. Pete and Repeat were sitting on the fence and Pete fell off...who is left? It sure seems exactly like two weeks ago when I jumped the last time.

Jumps three and four were about the same. After flagging a few kids for Cannonball since he had to leave early I walked up for my fifth and last jump of the session. One of the parents gave me the signal and I started down the inrun. I jumped at the takeoff and noticed a camera flashbulb go off. I jumped more direct than I had all spring thus far. I haven't jumped that direct on the K25 in quite a long time it seems like. I landed around 17 meters. As I was coming a stop I was thinking the mother ended up shooting a picture of me taking my best jump so far this summer.

Hopefully, this may end the streak and Repeat will fall off the fence now, HA! I wouldn't mind that happening. It's time for jumping to return to normal once again. I guess I'll have to wait two weeks as their is no jumping next Monday due to the holiday.

Keep the ski tips up,

Crash

Jumping Journal: May 04, 2009

2009-05-04T22:45:00.000-04:00

Gee, I thought winter was over. Guess anyone can be wrong can't they.

Okay, so maybe winter is over. Tonight sure seemed a lot like winter. At least I didn't get home from ski jumping until 9PM. Normally during the winter months I get home from jumping by 8:30PM.

Late this afternoon I headed up to Lebanon to do some jumping. I was hoping/figuring everything would be back to normal and their would be no problems. I had one objective in mind and other than the first jump I never even thought about the idea the rest of the night.

After a warm up run around the parking lot and doing some stretching everyone suited up. Their was 5 juniors, two 'pre' juniors and myself out to jump this evening. The weather was cloudy and in the low 70s by 6PM when we met up. It has been cloudy for the most part ever since Saturday and it sounds like its going to remain that way for a well with rain forecast for tomorrow.

Most of the kids headed straight for the landing hill of the K25. The two newbies to jumping, neither one has jumped before on anything more than tele equipment, both of them headed for the K10 landing hill. The girl has XC skied since she was a baby but has never alpine skied. Her younger brother did ride the landing hill on the K25 once after getting used to the K10. His sister wouldn't ride it though.

I went up for my first jump of the evening. I was wondering if I would have the same fun I had last Sunday or not on the first jump. I knew last Sunday was a bit strange. To find myself sticking on the inrun, whether I had put soap on my skis or not, it hadn't occured before. I had soaped up my skis down at the takeoff and after waiting around for ten minutes or so for the kids to ride the landing hill and the telebump I finally had my skis on and noticed that the soap may have dried on the bottom of the skis a bit as it seemed like I was sticking a bit on the top of the inrun. I got the signal from Cannonball and started to head down the inrun. Yes, at least before I dropped over the edge onto the steep part of the inrun it seemed like I was sticking again. Once I got onto the down hill side of the inrun I was fine. I jumped at the takeoff and had a decent jump. I landed and made my way down the rest the landing hill. I dropped down to stop and once I hit the sawdust...I hit the sawdust. I startled tumbling all over the place.

Once I stopped moving/tumbling I grabbed my skis. I was irritated. I hadn't been having any problems like this since the summer of 2002 and some into 2003. I shook the sawdust off me before I headed back up. I was almost ready to call it a night with just the one jump.

Cannonball mentioned that I was abruptly getting down to slow down/stop and as a result I was also getting my weight too far to one side or the other and that was causing me to fall over.

I soaped up and headed back up the stairs. After another wait I got the skis on and Cannonball gave me the signal. I started down the inrun and had another nice jump. This time though I waited a bit longer and didn't rush getting into the position. Gee, it ended up being the best outrun of the summer thus far.

Jumps three, four and five all were pretty much the same. I think I did jump a bit early on the final jump of the evening but at least I wasn't rolling around in the sawdust like I was last time I was out or more so like the first jump I took tongiht.

Now hopefully things will start to act more normal than how they have been behaving so far this summer.

Crash

Jumping Journal: April 26, 2009

2009-04-26T22:25:00.000-04:00

The BIG day...finally here. Who was that ski hall of famer?

I truly didn't think it would happen. Sometimes you just think it's not possible. You got the goal in mind but it just seems so unrealistic that you can't believe it is possible until you have no other choice. After having one of the two goals for this past winter og by the wayside thanks to one problem after another it kinda helped reinforced the expectations that something was bound to go wrong for before the other goal could be achieved.

Today was the day for the second goal to be achieved. The goal of jumping for 100 consectutive months. I don't think anyone else has ever put together 100 months in a row of ski jumping. The thought is just so unfathomable that I kept waiting for something to happen. What else can you expect?

After one of the earliest finishes to winter ski jumping in recent memory, March 16th, it wasn't long before the snow in my backyard was totally melted. By my birthday, April 7th, I had lost all the snow in my backyard. I don't think I've lost the snow that early in the spring before. Normally its mid month and back in 2001 I didn't lose all the snow in my yard until May 3rd(yes...naturally fallen snow, not where I shovel it to get it out of my way). The temperature have remained relatively normal to a bit on the milder side than normal...at least until yesterday.

Yesterday the forecast had been for highs to be in the low 80s. I headed down to Brattleboro, VT for the annual Eastern Division Ski Jumping & Nordic Combined Spring Meeting. After the meeting was over I walked outside and about had my breath taken away. It was 92 degrees out. I think its the first time I have ever seen the thermometer hit 90 degree in New Hampshire in April and I've lived up here nine years now. I guess from what I have read it was setting record highs all over the place.

I woke up this morning to overcast skies with some sun trying to peek out at times and it was still close to 70 degrees at 7AM. Very unusual weather for this time of the year. After working some on a possible Eastern newsletter I finally left to make a couple of stops on way up to Lebanon to jump.

I arrived at the hill around 2:45PM and found Cannonball and Esky getting the hose stretched out between the bottom of the K25 and the top of the 'get the feel for plastic' on the K10 landing hill. We talked for a several minutes while waiting for other jumpers to show up. In all, considering several jumpers that would have been out had their clubs end of the year party this afternoon, the turnout wasn't bad. Bill and I ended up jumping while Dan was helping out due to some injuries from playing hockey and Mike was still sitting it out after he rattled his head pretty good about a week before Mud Meet and still hasn't come back to it fully yet. There was also five junior jumpers and one high school jumper that rounded out the field. Not bad for the first day of jumping for the summer. BUT...there was another surprise to be found out about after my first couple of jumps was taken. There was another well known figure present.

We did a warm up run and proceeded to stretch afterwards. While the kids were doing immotation with Cannonball I walked over and grabbed my equipment from the jump inn. I walked back into the lodge to changes into my 'jump suit'...err blue jeans and a long sleeve t-shirt. As I walked in I noticed one of the jumpers was in there sitting on a picnic table. I hadn't seen the jumper since we reached the turn around point on the run. She never stretched with us and I had wondered where she disappeared to. In talking with her I found out what was going on and managed to talk some sense into her and we suited up and headed on out to jump.

After the newbies had taken a couple of rides on the K10 landing hill to get use to the idea of stopping they headed on up to the K25 landing hill and rode the landing hill. I stood by the takeoff until Bill came back up and we headed on up the jump to grab our first jump of the summer season.

I rubbed some soap Bill had with him on my skis and then stepped up on the raised platform on the top of the jump and put my skis on. Bill watered down the top of the inrun. I got the signal from Cannonball and started down the inrun. I quickly grabbed. For some strange reason I was sticking. I was shocked/surprised to say the least. I wasn't expecting that to happen. I kept sticking about half way down the inrun. I was way off balance but managed to come back around right before I reached the takeoff. I had a crappy jump as a result. I managed to land and ride it out without any trouble.

I walked back up and watched Bill come down and he was sticking a little as well. It was definitely noticable. The only I could figure it had to be the soap. We have used both liquid and rub on soap for the past several years and have never had any trouble sticking on the inrun. Even when I haven't used soap I haven't had any trouble sticking, only a lack of speed going down the inrun. The lack of speed was consistent all the way down the inrun and not like I would be sticking. This was a totally new experience for summer ski jumping.

Bill brought up some of the liquid soap from the lodge kitchen and by the time the new kids had taken their first jump off the telebump Bill and I was soaping up our skis with the liquid soap when Bill said something to me. I didn't fully hear what he said so I had him say it again. He said Bill Koch just put in a sweet telemark landing over on the K10. He said Bill Koch was one of his 'idols' when he was a kid. I kinda laughed. I hadn't seen anyone jumping over there since Celia had taken a couple of landing hill rides. I looked over and saw a man walking up the side of the jump with his skis on. I still figured Bill was pulling my leg.

Now I have to admit, like I said at the top of this entry I spent last night/early this morning looking into possibly doing an Eastern newsletter. I had looked at the way Don West had put up the old Eastern newsletters on www.skijumpeast.com previously. I saw one of the old issues this morning that showed the picture of Bill Koch receiving the award for being inducted into the Ski Hall Of Fame a few years back. I had always thought he was dead. Since the Bill Koch Youth Ski League is named for him I figured the only way it was named for him was for him to be dead. Seeing his picture earlier this morning from a 2005 newsletter kinda proved that theory wrong and now I was being told that Bill Koch was at Storrs Hill at the very moment!

I got the signal and headed down the inrun. For the first 10-15 feet everything seemed fine. Then I hit one single sticky spot once again. I was really stumped when that occured. I jumped at the takeoff and landed and got onto the sawdust in the outrun and found myself tipping over sideways to the right. This was also rather strange.

As I was walking back to the stairs the guy comes down the landing hill on the K10 and I see him 'jump' and put in a REAL NICE telemark landing. He comes over and we chat for a minute or two and he introduces himself as Bill Koch. I admitted to him that I had always figured he was dead and he said I would be surprised at the number of kids that meet him and tell him the same thing. After chatting a for a couple of minutes and Bill Ryan joining in the conversation we both take off and head on the landing hill. Bill Ryan said he was going to take one more jump and call it quits.

After soaping up again I got the signal from Cannonball and headed down the inrun. Fortunately, the stickiness had come to end, at least for the rest of today. I jumped at the takeoff and had a decent jump, considering it was March 16th when I last jumped. I rode the landing hill and then did the same thing...only biting it sooner on the sawdust. Man...sawdust doesn't taste very good, LOL!!!

I walked back up and took another jump and was joined this time by the high school student as none of the other kids felt comfortable enough to try jumping the K25 just yet. I had the same results on the sawdust again. I was really stumped. I knew it seemed like I was always getting tipped over to the right everytime. Each time I tipped over it seemed like it was getting a little nastier.

I walked back up the landing hill and as I was going up I saw Bill Koch riding the K25 landing hill and put in a small jump and drop into a full tele. I haven't ever seen anyone ride a tele like that on a landing hill of a ski jump. NEVER! I was very highly impressed.

As I pass by Cannonball he tells me that I was leaning too much to the right...like I didn't already know that. He did suggest trying to to keep the feet a bit further apart. I walked on up and got the signal from Cannonball for the last jump. I headed down the inrun and jumped. It still wasn't anything as nice as most of the jumps I was having last summer but at least I did manage to finally stay on my feet the whole way through until I came to a stop.

I looked off to the side and Bill said you finally managed to get it right. I walked over and we chatted again for probably 10-15 minutes while watching the last of the kids jump. Three of the newbie junior jumpers ended up taking their first ride off the K25 as their last ride of the day.

All in all it was a rather interesting day for the 100th consectutive month of ski jumping. The jumping was some of the wildest and craziest jumping I've had in a long time and seeing a former Olympian with the skis on and putting in gorgeous tele's just made up for the bad jumps I ended up taking. Hopefully next Monday things...on the jumping side of the equation, will return to normal.

Keep the ski tips up,

Crash

Winter 2009 Totals

2009-04-26T19:29:00.000-04:00

Date Leb 25 Han 32 Leb 50 Nwpt 25 Nwpt 32 And 38 VA 35

Dec 27 9

Jan 01 9
Jan 04 13

Jan 06     2
Jan 10    20+
Jan 13     1

Jan 17 11

Jan 20 3

Jan 21 7 2

Jan 23 1 3

Jan 24 2

Jan 26 1 9

Feb 03 9

Feb 04 3

Feb 05 9

Feb 07 7

Feb 10 6

Feb 13 1

Feb 15 13

Feb 24 7

Feb 26 6

Feb 28 6

Mar 03 7

Mar 05 5

Mar 07 1

Mar 13 5

Mar 14 4

Mar 16 8

Total 78+ 11 37 9 45 4 6

Total 190+ jumps in 28 days or 6.78 jumps/day. Total jumps and number of days jumping was

the smallest I've had in any winter since I started jumping.

This was the first time in many years I had more jumps on the K25 than on the K50. Yet alone

having more jumps at Newport than on the K50.

Definitely the strangest winter ever.

For a year by year comparison check out 2006(scroll down to the second entry)

or 2007(scroll down to the second entry)

or 2008(scroll down to the second entry)

It's Been A Long Time In The Making

2009-04-07T19:50:00.000-04:00

Ever since I fell back in love with winter in the early 1990s one of the things I thought would be fun to do was ski jumping. While living in the Ohio ski jumping wasn't really feasible. It would have been a five hour drive each way to get to Norge, 6-8 hours into southern Wisconsin, and 10 hours up to Ishpeming, MI. Too make matters worse the weather around the lakes region during the winter months wasn't the best thanks to lake effect snow which would make driving not all that great.

I never really thought I stood a chance at ever getting into ski jumping. Heck, I figured the only way I would ever see ski jumping was on television. Boy...was I ever wrong.

Even when I started ski jumping back in January 2001 I couldn't have ever imagined jumping as much as what I have since then. Typically, unlike this past winter, I have been getting fifty or more days of jumping on snow each winter. Heck, I have been generally getting 400+ jumps on snow each winter. This winter has humbled me BIG TIME. I'm SO glad it's over!

During the summer months I have always been jumping at least once a month. Sure I may only get 80-85 jumps in each summer, unless we decide to be crazy and try for 52 consectutive weeks of jumping at Storrs Hill. Even though I don't get all that many jumps in during the summer I still jump at least once a month. Yep, I've jumped them all since I started jumping. 99 consectutive months. April 2009 will mark 100 consectutive months of ski jumping for me.

I know of only one other ski jumper, Sam Burke, who has put together any kind of lengthy streak of consectutive months. Sam's streak ended somewhere around month 60-65.

What is it that makes this so hard accomplish? Could anyone ever do it again. What would it take to do this again? Let's take a look.

Hill availability

Storrs Hill Ski Area in Lebanon, New Hampshire is pretty much the only ski jumping site in the world right now jumping 12 months a year. April 2009 will mark its 140th consectutive month of ski jumping on the K25. In the past Lake Placid, NY had jumped year round, but due to budgetary constraints they cut back to 10 months a year. Park City, UT jumped 12 months a year for a few years until the 2002 Winter Olympics were over and they had their budget cut as well. Now they typically jump 9-10 months a year.

The two months that seem to be the hardest to jump is always April and November. Both April and November provide the challenge of having to get snow made or melted, and having water pipes being thawed out so you have a source of water to wet down the plastic. Granted you can always jump in the rain...I did that to keep the K25 streak alive a few years back in December after a warm up came and shut down any snow making chance on the K25. We had already been jumping on the K50 but no one had jumped the K25 for the month of December, so on December 23rd I jumped it with light rain falling. Who said it had to be warm to jump in the rain?

Two years ago we jumped all snow on the K50 on April 13th and 14th...less than two weeks later we jumped the K25 on all plastic. I've also jumped all snow on the K25 Thanksgiving weekend 2005. I typically jump April and November on plastic but will jump either month on snow if their is snow available. Your best bet is to be able to jump both months on plastic and not worry whether or not its going to get cold enough or if a snow storm is coming so you can jump on snow.

Having a group of volunteers running the hill instead of a paid staff also makes it easier to have hill availability. You could pretty much say its a requirement...when money speaks people listen...they don't jump. In Lebanon it's totally a volunteer staff. Heck several times in the past it has been just two of us out jumping/flagging each other keeping the streak alive.

Most places have to put chicken wire, lathe or something along those lines on the landing hill to keep the snow from sliding down the plastic all the way to the bottom of the hill. The one nice thing that helps Lebanon out is we haven't ever had to do that. This has helped us out to be able to jump 68 consectutive weeks and 140 consectutive months. We don't have the extra hill work to do in April and November. We just have to wait for the weather to melt all the snow or get cold enough so we can make snow.

Having someone like Cannonball that has been a ski jumper and still ski jumps really helps out as well. Without someone with an active interest in ski jumping makes the feasibility drops off dramatically. In this day and age the sport is so much about kids that the adults don't/won't put on the skis and do any jumping. They may want to encourage the kids on but it isn't the same as when you are out there jumping yourself and wanting to be out there jumping. The desire to be out there jumping always has a tendency to get you to help out on the hills to get them ready so you can jump.

Having a location where the snow melts fairly quickly helps us get down to plastic within two to two-and-a-half weeks. From what I've heard Ravenna, Finland used to, or still does, host the Finnish National Championships in April. Due to the weird/slow snow melt because of being so far north they don't jump there in May.

There have been several months over the past 8+ years when I have been the only person to jump in November. April seems to bring quite a few jumpers out to try out plastic for the first time ever or for their first time of the summer. November on the other hand tends to have very few jumpers come out to jump. November typically has everyone sitting around waiting for snow to be made so they can start jumping on snow. Typically out west, Park City or Steamboat ends up jumping on snow in November, not always though. It depends on what Mother Nature has to say about it. Neither one of the jump sites jump in April.

You almost have to jump a small hill in April which causes another problem I'll talk about down below. The bigger the hill, the longer it takes to get the hill ready to be jumped, both in November and April. This means the easy way to assure yourself of being able to jump either month is to be jumping on a small hill. I'm more willing to take a bigger risk on a smaller hill than a bigger hill as well so if conditions get to the point where they are between snow and plastic.

The bigger the hill, the faster the inrun, the more that can go wrong when you have dicey condition. I've seen some pretty wild conditions while jumping on the K25, conditions that I wouldn't even consider jumping on the K50 if the conditions existed. The risk simply isn't worth the reward. Hence why I say you pretty much have to go back to a smaller hill so you can feel comfortable jumping no matter what the conditions are like, even half snow/half plastic or water puddled up on the ground right about the fall line. I jumped the K25 under both of these kinds of conditions.

2. Age requirements

Okay, that sounds rather strange/stupid to say their is an age requirement. With the tradition of ski jumping their pretty much is an unwritten age requirement if you want to pull off something like jumping 100 consectutive months. You pretty much have to be an adult jumper to achieve it. Their are many difficulties with kids trying to obtain something like this. Let me explain.

First, December through March and then again May through October you pretty much have it made. Hills are open all over the place, all the time. On the other hand in April and November quite often you only have one day in the month when you can jump. If your parents are too busy with work or have too many other things going on you will end up missing your chance to jump that month. I have seen it happen with quite a few kids over the years. Having to rely on someone else is a major problem. As an adult you can make your schedule ahead of time and unless an emergency creeps up you'll have no trouble keeping to the schedule. Having to rely on mom and dad to get you to the hill is a major set back for any kid ever being able to pull this off.

Second, as I mentioned above you pretty much have to come down to a smaller hill. Right now the only hill being jumped in April AND November EVERY YEAR is a K25. Kids get wrapped up too much in the competitive nature of the sport of ski jumping. The competitive nature is always about going to the next bigger hill, and then the one beyond that. To be competitive long term you have to always be jumping a bigger hill. To reliably jump 12 months a year you have to jump a K25, theirs no way around it. Sam Burke's streak came to an end when he moved out to Park City so he could jump the K120 all the time. Since they don't jump in April his streak came to a grinding halt.

Most adults I know tend to get into things for the pure fun of doing them. They aren't involved in a particular sport for competition, rather they are in it for the recreation of doing it. They don't mind one day paddling a class V steep creek and then paddling a class II-III river the next day. For adults its all about being out there and not about competing. This is one of the reasons the sport of ski jumping has such a hard time recruiting adults into the sport. This is the reason why their are very few jumpers who have been ski jumping regularly for 30-40 years. They all get burned out by the competitive environment and quit. For me over the years it has been about jumping, not competing so I don't mind the idea of jumping a K90 and turning around the next day and jumping a K25. Am I jumping or not...that's what matters most. The more I jump, the more I like it. I would much rather be out taking 10-15 jumps on a mid winter Saturday than be at a jump meet getting 5-6 jumps. I'm in it to jump, not to compete. You have to have that mindset if you ever hope to jump 100 consectutive months otherwise you won't be able to come back down and jump something like a K25. Your coach will complain if you do because your suppose to put the focus on keeping big hill form and you can't do that on a small hill.

The competitive nature of the sport also makes you want to push beyond the feasible limits of the sport. When you get too far forward over the skis you end up in big trouble. Big trouble can mean you end up injuring yourself ask well. Any injury can quickly kill any ski jumping streak. This is one area where I have been fortunate thus far. Other than one concussion the only thing I have managed to do is give myself black and blue mark from all the crashes I've taken over the past nine years.

Admittedly I've seen just as many kids show up to hang out at practice and chat with their fellow jumpers when they have been hurt playing soccer. Kids always seem to be playing a number of different sports, any of which can sideline them, sometimes for months on end. It doesn't take ski jumping to hurt you...it can happen in the car, on the soccer/baseball/football field, or anywhere else. Kids do have the tendency to hurt themselves more than adults because they don't know their limits. Any injury can end a streak.

No matter how you look at it, not missing a month of ski jumping in 100 months is definitely one of the harder things to do. I'm still shocked most of the time to realize that I have managed to pull off such an unthinkable feat. I've had times when I really was worried I was going to be forced into missing a month. It was the fear of the potentially missing a month several years back that got us boys to jump 68 consectutive weeks in Lebanon. I can't miss a month if I don't miss a week. The nice thing is now I'm typically not travelling much on the weekends and we aren't jumping during the summer months on the weekends anymore like we always use to.

Now onto month 100. Or is that February 2010 when Storrs Hill will mark 150 consectutive months of ski jumping. Or is that Decemeber 2010 when I'll mark 10 years without missing a month. Oh...the streaks continue.

Keep the ski tips up, err ski you later,

Crash

Jumping Journal: March 16, 2009

2009-03-16T22:50:00.001-04:00

If it ain't one thing...than it's another.

Well, I figured Saturday was pretty much going to end up being the last day of the season unless we jumped early Sunday morning. The forecast for Sunday was highs in the low to mid 50s. Monday was to be in the 40s and Tuesday once again in the 50s. Sunshine all three days. No one wanted to jump on Sunday so I figured the season was done. I didn't figure the K25 or K50 would last through the Sunday, yet alone Monday to be able to jump it anytime else unless we ended up getting a nice snow storm.

Late this morning/early this afternoon I got an email from Dan saying he checked the jump and the inrun looked great and was wanting to know if anyone was wanting to jump this evening or not. I was fair game. With only 29 jumps off the K50 so far this winter I knew I needed more. I don't think in my first year of jumping of the K50, 2003, I had this few of jumps and I didn't start jumping on the jump until mid to late February. It has been a pathetic winter.

I left for Storrs Hill around 5PM with the plan of making a stop to take care of an errand on the way up. I ended up seeing Bill heading home from work, at least I think it was him. I'm still wondering why the old timer was heading the wrong direction. That's not the way to the hill, Bill, LOL!!!(Yeah, Bill reads the blog all the time so he'll see this).

I arrived and saw Dan's car already in the parking lot. I wasn't sure if anyone else was going to show up or not. I walked to the jump inn and I noticed the snow was already starting to setup quite nicely. The high temperature was 53 degrees but it had dropped back down into the low to mid 40s by the time I arrived at the hill.

I walked into the jump inn and picked up my skis to take them and set them outside to cool off. As I walked back in Dan said he had some wax if I wanted to wax them. I decided why not rub some wax on real quick like, might as well. I rubbed some wax on and them set them outside. After talking a coulpe of minutes we were about to start suiting up when Nick walked in. We both were happy to see we was going to have a flagger/coach on hand tonight instead of having to flag each other.

We suited up and proceed to head on up the landing hill. Nick went to turn of the lights even though they wasn't necessary just yet. He wasn't having any luck getting the lights to come on. I guess last week they was having trouble as well one evening. Dan and I both knew time was of the essence. We both rode the landing hill and I was a bit surprised to see nothing on the outrun in terms of any slow spots. I figured for sure I would find something, but there was nothing! The only thing was the snow already starting to melt at the end of the outrun. Normally the first place to melt is just on the far side of the bridge but this year is going to be different. This year the first place to melt is out toward the top of the outrun.

We walk back up the to the knoll and start up the inrun. Dan steps out onto the inrun does a quick bit of tracolating at th takeoff to make sure there is no water or slush right at the takeoff. He picked up the piece of wood he sit up to act as his guide for running the tracolater down the track. I walked on up thinking Dan also just made himself the last of the two of us in the round to jump. DRATS!!!

I get my skis on and hop out onto the top bar, house was totally melted away so the highest option was top bar. I get the signal from Nick and head down the inrun. I was a bit cautious, not knowing if I was going to hit and slowness on the table or not. Turns out things had setup REAL NICE. The speed was great, the track itself was in great shape, the landing hill was in great shape and given all things considered the outrun was in great shape as well. I was kinda mad at myself for pussfooting the first jump knowing daylight was wearing thin quickly and I would probably only be able to get three jumps, maybe four if I was real lucky.

I walked back up and knew this time I wasn't going to be so cautious, to say the least. I started down the inrun and timed the takeoff quite nicely. I jumped and got into position and knew I was having a decent jump. I ended up landing down around 35 meters. I was pleasantly surprised by the jump.

I walked back up and told Nick I wanted him to watch and see if he noticed any pause on the next jump. I had been wanting ever since late last summer to try the outloud count on the K50 that I tried last summer on the K25. I wanted to see if I would pause on count or anything like that. I didn't do it on the K25 but I knew I had jumped way too much on the K25 over the past nine years. Admittedly, it doesn't seem like I notice the 'blackout' much on the K50 either.

I headed up and put on my skis. As I was up there Dan walked down into the judges tower and managed to get the tricky switch to work correctly and was able to get the lights on. I get out onto the bar and get the signal from Nick. I start down the inrun and then start counting. I continue right on counting without any bit of a pause at all. Also amazingly enough I managed to time the takeoff pretty decent and also managed to jump pretty decent. I landed pretty much in the same area as before, maybe a meter or so back up the hill.

I jumped late on both the fourth and fifth jump. I was still landing pretty much in the same area but I would have been going further if I was jumping on time.

Jump six and I started thinking more about jumping more aggressively. That didn't seem to help much.

Jump seven ended up being the best jump of the night, distance-wise. The power at the takeoff was the best of the night as well even though it did seem like I was still a bit late. I ended up with a nice 38 meters jump roughly. I was pretty much landing right around the windows on the jump inn.

I went up for the eighth jump, figuring Dan was going to come back up for another jump. I watched him take his jump and then as he started back across the bridge he headed for the left side of the landing hill instead of the right side...the left side you walk up through the snow to the jump inn and the right side you walk up the stairs back to the trestle. I was a bit upset. I was hoping for another jump or two besides the one I was about to take. Dan was ready to call it a night though.

I put on the skis, kinda thinking, if this is the last night for jumping the K50 this year, then I'm going to end up being the first person to jump the hill and the last person to jump the hill this year. Heck, this would mark my fourth consectutive year of being the last person to jump the K50. I headed down the inrun and jumped at the takeoff. All the jumps tonight...except the last one, had been nice and very quiet in the air. Some of the quietest jumping I've had in a long time. The last jump I ended up jumping from the heels versus the whole foot and it through me off and I noticed my left arm swinging in the air as I flying along. I landed around 34-35 meters and headed on over the left side and took the skis off.

I don't know if this was the last time I'll jump on snow this winter or not. So far in the past week I've been wrong every darn day it seems like. I guess time shall tell if this is the season finale or not.

Crash

Jumping Journal: March 14, 2009

2009-03-14T23:30:00.001-04:00

Gee...this winter is REALLY getting old.

The famed Mud Meet. Not just another day of jumping but the rather unusual day of actually putting on a pair of alpine skis and running gates for a few seconds, before using the alpine boots to race a 1km cross country course. Before switching over to jumping skis to do some jumping. Yeah, a full ski meister event. So in 2009 fashion, what could go wrong...

Plenty to say the least.

I arrived at the hill shortly around 9AM and found Cannonball working on finishing up getting the K10 and K25 ready for the competition. Pretty much the idea for an early morning session on the K50 had went by the wayside. It didn't surprise me. After a while the crowd started showing up. I went to work showing the ladies doing registration/scoring how to use the computer program I had written up for the scoring Mud Meet. Turns out I would spend the bulk majority of the day on/around the computer. This has become the norm over the past couple of years since I said I would help get a scoring program setup for scoring Mud Meet.

When things looked like they was going pretty good with the registration process I headed outside to grab my alpine and XC times for the competition. To say I suck, and suck consistently would be an understatement. I placed 27th in both the alpine and XC out of 45 competitors total.

I headed back in and once the events had closed down and it was time to head over for the fun two jump jump off on the K50 I ended up heading inside instead to help with inputting the times for the XC and alpine competition. It probably would have worked smoothly if the laptop was working correctly.

The laptop wasa donated laptop given to the club a couple of years ago before Lebanon hosted Junior Olympics. The mouse on the laptop has a mind of its own and at times it works just like it should and at other times it will do whatever it wants to do no matter if you like it or not. I had designed the program the best I could around the fact the mouse was a pain in the butt. I made the program so about the only thing you ever used was the Tab key on the keyboard. You didn't use the mouse for anything.

Well, if that wasn't enough of a pain in the butt problem then during the data process on the alpine times the computer just shut itself off. For no reason at all the computer turned itself off. It did it once later on right after finishing up entering the jumping score. All in all the computer created for another nightmare setting at Mud Meet...the third year in a row now.

Once the competition started on the small hills I suited up and headed on out from the three competition jumps. I heard the talk that it was slow, especially on the table to the takeoff. After waiting through the other jumpers I finally got my skis on and got the signal from the knoll. I headed down the inrun and found the inrun slowing down the closer to the takeoff I got. I wasn't sticking but I was slowing down. I jumped and was a bit hesistant thanks to the sticking but I still managed a 16.5 meter jump.

After talking some down at the bottom I walked back up for the second round jump. It was looking like the competition could get quite close by the time things was finished, little did I realize how close. After waiting around the knoll for the line on the trestle to get worked through all the old timers headed on up the jump. Their was a total of 12 masters jumping on the K25 and several more jumping on the K10.

I joined the group and walked on up the inrun and once it was my turn I headed on down the inrun. Once again I noticed the slow down. I jumped and had a bit of a better jump and landed down at 17 meters. I ended up with another 17 meter jump on the third jump of the competition as well. It didn't seem like I noticed the slow down quite as much as on the previous two jumps.

I headed inside and helped to get things started on entering the jumping scores into the program. Normally the jumping scores would be entered into right as the competition was going on but the ladies doing the data entry decided they wanted to watch the competition so they wrote down the judeges scores and distances while outside watching everyone jump.

After getting them started on the data entry and it seemed like things were going alone smooth I started to walk back outside to see how much longer before the hoop of fire was going to be lit. So far I haven't missed taking at least one jump through the hoop of fire each time it has been sit up since I started jumping. As I walked by the window I looked up toward the knoll and saw the hoop was already ablaze. I ran outside and grabbed my skis and made my way on up the inrun.

By the time I was the next one in line the fire had almost went out. I managed to get my jump through it without any troubles as usual. It did seem like the hoop was set a little closer than normal to takeoff. I should have taken a look and seen if it was or not. Curiousity has the best of me.

Right after I landed and I started to take off the skis I got the call that they were having troubles with the computer. Sure enough the darn computer was acting up again. I managed to get it straightened out and knowing I could do the data entry faster than the ladies could I went ahead and entered in the rest of the jumping scores. I printed out the final results and then was going to print the extra copies of final results when the computer decided for the second time to shut itself off. After rebooting I managed to get the extra copies printed and got the html file copied over so I could email it to Don so he could put it on the eastern division webpage. I shut down the computer and changed clothes while Cannonball was handing out awards.

Turns out the Colt brother won once again. Jeff finished first in each event and his older brother Willie finished second in each event. Not bad to rule the event. Third place came in as a three way tie between Cannonball, Tom Dodds(who had did so much work over the past week and a half trying to keep the K50 jumpable), and David McCrillis. Dave's brother Bill came in from Illinois for a ski club dinner tonight and brought his equipment along. Bill ended up in 7th overall. I knew David and Bill were former ski jumpers from Newport but I didn't realize how strong of alpine and XC skiers they were. Boy...was I ever surprised.

Not much jumping...just like the rest of the season but a nice day and fortunately a much better program to work with than stupid Excel. Excel is not designed for scoring a jump meet...not by a long shot. Now just to get a more reliable laptop, LOL!!!

Crash

Jumping Journal: March 13, 2009

2009-03-13T23:52:00.001-04:00

Not a chance...did I say that??? Couldn't of. No way. I wouldn't ever say that.

Last Sunday...same as Saturday warm and for the most part sunny. It was quite obvious the damage was going to be incredible to the jumps. Two days in a row of warm sunny conditions wasn't going to do the jumps any kind of good at all. Two days of low to mid 50 degree weather wasn't going to keep jumps jumping when the K25 is all natural snow on the inrun and landing hill.

Monday saw a high of 43 and a low around 30 with 4.25 inches of snow. Yes, wet, heavy, sticky, sloppy kind of snow. I haven't seen snow like this in a LONG time. Monday night a group of us got together to work on the K50 to see if we could get it in shape to jump Tuesday evening. Trying to cut a track on the inrun was a pure joke. The snow kept sticking to the track cutter blades and you just fought yourself more than making headway.

After getting a halfways decent track cut we decided to let the inrun setup over night and jump on Tuesday evening. Tuesday saw a high of 41 and low of 21. It didn't really cool off until late evening. I went up to the hill thinking jumping might be possible but I was mostly going up to try to drop off the computer and make sure everything was setup for Mud Meet on Saturday. Some of the kids jumped the K25 after waiting around a while for it cool down so conditions could stabilize and freeze back up. Tom, Dan and Sam jumped on the K50 and I just about joined them. Heck I had put on my jump suit and was putting on my boots when Dan opened the door of the jump inn to head up the hill and yelled down to Tom and Tom said he stuck in a couple of places. My mind started to change. I finished putting on my boots and watched Tom take his next jump. I had pretty much already called it off. When he landed aroudn 25-26 meters and he would normally jump at least 10 meters further, I said this isn't worth it. I changed back into my regular clothes and left.

Wednesday saw freezing rain and rain with a high of 51 and a low of 36. I knew the K50 was done for the winter. Not a chance it would be jumped again without a decent snow storm coming through.

Thursday turned colder with a high of 34 and a lo around 22. I went up the hill figuring I would help get some work done on the K25 to get it ready for Mud Meet. I knew it was going to take work on the landing hill at least. I figured since they covered the K25 inrun and the top of the landing hill with plastic before the rain hit on Wednesday the inrun should have been pretty decent and part of the landing hill should have held up.

The inrun wasn't too bad other than up in the house where it was down to plastic. Pretty much the entire inrun still had usable snow depth on it. The landing hill was going to take some work. I helped Esky roll up and put the plastic away while Tom and Sam were being crazy jumpers over working on the K50 inrun. After we finished up on the K25, most of the work was going to be saved for Friday evening instead, I went over to see how things were going on the K50. On the walk over my guess was simple...not a chance of saving it.

I knew their would be enough snow but trying to do anything with it thanks to freezing rain/rain/freezing temperatures was going to make it near impossible to do anything. The worse matter was that by the time the jump off was scheduled to happend on Saturday the temperature was already forecast to be in the low to mid 40s. Not looking good.

Tom and Sam was right up around the bar starts working on trying to fill in the top of the jump. I helped out a little bit before going back down and getting into a conversation with a former ski jumper who is looking at making a comeback thanks to seeing other guys his own age out here jumping. We both thought Tom and Sam was insane. We talked awhile before we both headed home. After eating supper and working some more on the scoring program for Mud Meet I got an email from Tom...it came about 11PM, saying they had just finished up prepping the inrun and was wanting to get back over there Friday afternoon to cut a track and try to jump Friday evening. I was shocked! I couldn't even respond right back to him. I realize Tom is a perfectionist, but there was no way he could have ever gotten that inrun prepped for a track to be cut today. When I left around 7:30PM or so Thursday evening they were still around the bottom of the bar starts. It took them about an hour to make it 20 feet down the inrun. No way they could have made it rest of the way down in another 3 hours.

I left around 2:30PM for Storrs Hill this afternoon. Figuring I would be spending most of the rest of the day there helping get the jump/s ready for the meet tomorrow. I arrived to find Tom and Sam walking over toward the jump inn. I talked with Cannonball and he made it sound like the initial focus was going to be trying to get the track cut on the K50. I was surprised until I got over there and saw Tom and Sam did one hell of a fantastic job prepping the hill last night.

We set out and got everything setup and cut a new track on the inrun. It was looking super by the time we finished cutting the track. I next went over and started helping out to snow the top of the inrun. Polish snow storms, you gotta love'em. By this time it was getting close to 6PM, time for the ski hill to open up and Jay, who typically runs the hill on Friday evenings still had grooming work to do so he ask if one of us guys would go over and run the lift for him. I...shall you say...got the job. I headed over and spent the next 1-1.5 hours running the lift. Tom and Sam had comeback from supper and Jay finished up grooming the bottom part of the landing hill and outrun on the K25 and all the landing hill and outrun on the K50 and came back to relieve me telling me Cannonball said it was time for get over to the K50 and jump. I knew I had one thing to do first...warm up. I was freezing my butt off. I wasn't dressed to be standing around in one place for 1.5 hours. I was dressed to be working for 1.5 hours. I went into lodge for a few minutes and warmed up enough to walk over to the jump inn. I warmed up nicely over there and suited up. Tom, Sam and Dan were already out jumping.

I walked up the hill and it was looking great, given the conditions of the past week or two, it was looking SUPER. Tom and Sam did one sweet job on getting it back into shape. I walked up the inrun and after Tom took his jump I moved the bar and decided to take the first jump from the top bar instead of going from the house on the first jump. I got the signal and headed down the inrun. I caught myself early on trying to look at the bottom of the inrun like I did last Saturday. I shifted my focus back to where it rightfully should be. I jumped, I think late, at the takeoff and didn't go very far. The takeoff seemed weird. I think it was the fact the snow looked more like ice at the takeoff, colorwise. It seemed like their was dip right at the takeoff...like I said I think it was visual perception because of the darker colored ice on the right ski right at the takeoff. I landed and rode the landing hill into the outrun. Everything went smooth. That's what I wanted more than anything else.

I walked up for the second jump. After Tom went I removed the bar and put on my skis in house. I got the signal and started down the inrun. I jumped late again at the takeoff. I was still being 'thrown' by the ice at the takeoff. It was another short jump but it was a bit longer than the one before it.

The third jump was further yet and I didn't really notice the ice effect anymore the rest of the evening. I knew I was still jumping late so I decided to work on the timing on the next and final two jumps of the evening. Jump four was better yet. I was feeling a bit more comforatble/confident...something that has seemed to be missing this winter. The timing was better but could still be better.

The fifth and final jump of the evening was I believe the latest I've had. It had to be 8:45PM when I took the final jump of the evening. I don't think I have ever jumped this late into the evening before. I had the best timing of the night and the best jump of the night. I was finally get down around below 30 meters again. The rest of the night I was at or above 30 meters. Definitely a short, distance-wise, jump session for me.

Dan and I finished off the night by spending the next 45 minutes to an hour helping Cannonball snow the landing hill on the K25. With a little bit of raking working as it warms up tomorrow morning it should be real nice for the jumping portion of the ski meister event tomorrow at Storrs Hill.

Can't wait...I've always enjoyed Mud Meet, and hopefully given everything involved...I'm looking forward to the hoop of fire once again. I'm still untouched on that feat. Every time it has been lit and someone has jumped it...I've also jumped it. Tomorrow should be no different.

Ski you there,

Crash

Jumping Journal: March 07, 2009

2009-03-07T18:39:00.000-05:00

Heads up...spring is coming. Nothing good ever last long.

That about sums up the day today REAL well.

After jumping Thursday evening the skies clouded over and I did hear a couple of raindrops hit the roof on my house Friday but we didn't get much out the storm other than a change in wind direction, to the south, and the start of a big warm up. Yesterday saw highs in the mids 40s. Today was suppose to be even warmer. Last night it only got down to 31 degrees after the skies had cleared back out.

I left for Storrs Hill around 9:15AM and when I stepped outside I was a bit taken back by how warm it was out already. I drove up to the hill and by the time I got up there it was alreayd 48 degrees. I knew with the combination of the weather yesterday, last night and this morning that it was going to make for interesting conditions.

After doing some work on the inrun and landing hill Cannonball, Dan, Tom, Sam and myself all suited up. It seemed like conditions were holding up pretty good considering how warm it was out. As could be expected the sun was shining brightly.

I headed up to the knoll and decided to play it safe and ride the landing hill. I knew I hadn't waxed since sometime last winter and I also knew the trickiest area on the jump is typically the bridge. The sun shines down on the bridge with full intensity and has a tendency to create sticky spots before anywhere does. I started down the landing hill and everything seemed fine. I got onto the bridge and did notice a bit of a sticky spot. Not as bad as what I expected but it was sticky nonetheless.

I walked back up the stairs and headed on up the inrun. Dan jumped first and went from house. I guess he got a bit wobbly in the track. I didn't see it but that's what Cannonball said. He decided to go from the top bar instead of house. After he went with no signs of any trouble. I put on my skis and decided to stick with going from top bar. I scooted onto the bar. I noticed the bit of a slight curve and correction in the track and decided to keep myself prepared for it. It was down around the top to the middle of the transition. It wasn't anything to normally think about but with the conditions I was going to play it 'safe'.

I got the signal from Esky and started down the inrun. For some dumb reason right from the second I started down the inrun I started looking at the curve. I haven't did anything that stupid in years. I kept going down and kept looking at the curve. As I got into the transition and the curve I found my head and upper body leaning WAY far forward. I thought I was going to go down on the inrun head first. I was WAY far forward. I didn't notice any stickiness or I probably would have went over for sure.

I hit the takeoff and got into the air. Ahhhh, the first bit of relief. At least I didn't go down on the inrun. I dropped the ski tips and the next thought I had was I was going to dig a tip into he knoll. I managed to keep from doing that. Save number two for the jump.

I landed and managed to get things straightened back out for the most part on the landing hill but I did end up losing once I got onto the bridge. I ended up dragging my hands to come to stop. I was surprised I managed to pull it off so well. I'm not sure how I did it but I did. Definitely one of the more impressive/scary jumps I've had in quite a while.

I walked back up the stairs and was starting up the inrun when Dan came down for his second jump. I only had made it up four or five steps when he came into the top of the transition. Cannonball was above me by ten to 15 steps at the most. Both of us watched as Dan stuck coming through the curve. It was a very noticeable stick. He pulled off a nice save since he did rock forward quite a bit from sticking. Cannonball said "That's enough for me, I'm done for the day." I thought for only a second and I said the heck with it as well. I wasn't about to risk it any further, especially since I hadn't waxed anytime recently.

The plan was to get everyone over to jump the K25. Cannonball and Esky headed over that way while Sam, Tom, Dan and I stuck around the K50. Tom went between Dan and I and he didn't notice any trouble sticking. He decided to go up and take another jumper. Tom normally is the conservative type. Today wasn't the norm.

He came down and he didn't really stick as per say but it was a constant slowdown in speed as he got closer to the takeoff. He told Sam it was time to go over to the K25. He came back up and after talking a while and thinking things through he decided to go up for yet another jump. I do have to fess, according to Sam's mom and Tom they waxed on Thursday so they was having some extra benefit from the fresh wax.

He walked back up and took a final jump. He was slowing down again on the inrun and after he stopped he said he did notice one or two sticky spots when he was coming down. He called it quits as well.

I went over the K25 and saw Dr. J and Cannonball talking and I asked Cannonball how much worse it was compared to the K50. I know the K25 gets much more direct sun exposure, especially on the inrun and landing hill than the K50. The K50 is tucked more into the trees the K25.

Cannonball said it was a lot worse. He only took one jump on the K25 and called it quits. Turns out Dr. J wasn't having any luck either. He was waxing as I got to the hill this morning with high floro wax. He was sticking on the inrun and on the end of the outrun.

Everyone bagged it much earlier than expected.

The high today was 55. The clouds moved in during the afternoon hours. It's suppose to rain tonight and be mostly sunny and back into the 50s tomorrow. Tomorrow night into Monday their is a chance of snow. I've seen one forecast suggesting 2 inches. A big chunk of that two inches is supposed to be during the day Monday when the temperature is suppose to be in the mid 30s??? Lower 40s and sunny Tuesday. Rain and around 40 on Wednesday and then partly cloudy and mid 30s Thursday through Saturday. Hopefully Mud Meet won't be a repeat of last year's MUD, err slop meet. It's next Saturday. It could be interesting. We may end up jumping on plastic on the K25 for the first time in nine years at Mud Meet this year. I think I was seeing some plastic showing through when I left this afternoon. I'm not sure if that was plastic or not though.

Crash

Jumping Journal: March 05, 2009

2009-03-05T22:03:00.000-05:00

Plans are always changing. Why should now be any different.

Okay...back on Sunday the plan was to spend Tuesday and Wednesday night out backpacking on the Appalachian Trail in western Vermont doing a nice 23 mile round trip hike. One thing lead to another and I delayed those plans by one day. Knowing its now March I knew the odds of much more winter hiking wasn't going to happen this year thanks to warm weather. The forecast was looking real nice through early into the day on Friday. The freezing rain/sleet/snow mix kept moving closer and closer in the forecast to the point where it looked like I was going to see it overnight Thursday night into Friday morning. I planned to tough it out and stay out on the trail and just hike back to my car no matter what. Little did I know the mistake I was about to make.

Monday the area saw a snow storm come through. Around here I only got 3 inches. Looking at weather radar it looked like the area I was planning on going hiking got somewhere around 6-8 inches. Things looked great. Until I got to the trailhead.

I pulled in the parking lot an I was shocked...where was all the snow. At the trailhead it looked like it only had 2-3 inches of fresh snow. I debated whether I wanted to take the snowshoes with me or not and finally decided to leave them in the car.

The two miles were great adn then the snow started getting deeper and deeper. In some spots I was breaking through up to knee deep. Where were those darn snowshoes.

As I got to the campsite last night I knew the snow seemed like the further north and east I got the deeper it got. I know I would be heading that way today. I also knew the weather forecast for tonight into tomorrow and I made the decision instead of hiking further north I would head back to the car in the morning and then spend the evening tonight jumping in Lebanon. I knew the extended forecast was showing nothing but much warmer temperatures moving in and I figured this would probably be the last decent night for jumping on the K50.

I woke up this morning and walked the 7.5 miles back the car and drove on home. While catching up on things on the computer I was questioning whether I really wanted to even think of leaving the house to drive up to Lebanon and jump. To say my butt was whooped would be an understatement.

I decided to head on up figuring I would take at the most two or three jumps before calling it quits...if I didn't call it quits after the first jump. I drove on up and found Dan, Bill and Matt already out jumping. I hadn't seen Matt out since this time last year. I was rather surprised to see him out jumping. I saw one of his jumps from right outside the jump inn. He laid down a nice 39-40 meter jump. I knew by the suit color it could only be one person.

I suited up and took the icy walk on up to the takeoff to find Bill getting ready to leave. Matt and I walked on up the trestle. I let Dan go first and then Matt. I was whooped. I had nothing in me at all. After waiting around for five minutes or so the bar cleared out and I put on the skis and slid partway out onto the bar. I noticed Dan had picked up the tracolator and decide to do a little work at the takeoff.

I found myself on the bar questioning whether I really wanted to even attempt to jump or not. The conditions looked great and I felt like CRAP. Dan came walking up the inrun and I told him I was thinking about not even jumping, even though I was already sitting on the bar. He said it's easier to go down on your skis than on your feet. I told him I wasn't worried about conditions I was worried about my own safety. The chatting helped break the paralyzing thoughts going through my mind. I don't ever remember a time when I have quite felt like I did tonight.

I...still a bit reluctantly, got the signal from Nick and headed on down the inrun. I got to the takeoff and pretty much didn't even try to jump. I figured I would just slide off the endand move into position. The flight went smoother than I figured it would and riding down the landing hill and through the outrun was much better than I expected. At the best it was a 30 meter jump on a 40+ meter night. I had nothing in me thought to try to jump at the takeoff.

I walked back up the snow covered stair and Nick commented on hte jump and I told him not to expect much more under the circumstances. Oh, little did I know.

I got up top and didn't wait around as long before I took my second jump. This time I did jump, fairly close to on time at takeoff. I didn't have that strong of a jump but it did carry me nicely down the hill. I landed close to 40 meters on the jump. I was very surprised at how well the jump went. I was saying to myself going to the end of the outrun that their had to be a kicker on the takeoff cause the inrun isn't that fast and that jump wasn't that good. It didn't seem like it to me at least. I told Tom, jokingly, who just rode the landing hill to, watch out for the kicker on the takeoff. He had showed up with one of his high school kids.

I walked up for the third jump. I ended up jumping a bit late on the third jump and didn't have as much in the jump as the previous jump. The fourth jump had even less in it and I was now landing back up around 32-34 meters.

I decided I would take at least one more if it was a nice smooth jump I would call it quits. I was back to dragging my feet on jump four up on the inrun. Taking my good old time letting myself rest in between jumps. I put on the skis and knew I wanted to see if I could get myself to jump on time at the takeoff. I knew if I did that then I would have a nice jump. Without any real jump at the takeoff I knew I could still get the down if I jumped on time.

I got the signal from Nick and started down the inrun. I started my move at the takeoff and knew I was going to hit the takeoff beautifully. I pretty nailed the timing right on the money. If I would have had any kind of power in the move I would have seen my longest jump ever on the K50 by several meters. As it was without any real power in the move I still managed to land around 36 meters.

The nice thing about each of the five jumps tonight was how quite I was in the air. I don't think I have ever seen myself so quite in the air before and be able to do it so consistently. I guess having the energy zapped from your body must be useful for something, LOL!!!

Well...yes it is March. The weather forecast is for the snow/freezing rain/sleet mixture to arrive tonight and last through early morning tomorrow before the warm air arrives. Highs for the weekend now are suppose to be in the lower 50s with the mid and upper 40's most of next week. I think tonight was the pick night for me this year for jumping on the K50. I haven't seen conditions that good on the K50 all winter long nad probably not since February last year sometime. Hopefully Mother Nature will hold out and not do much damage over the next several days. I am planning on jumping Saturday morning on the K50 before the temperature gets too terribly warm.

Crash

Jumping Journal: March 03, 2009

2009-03-03T22:44:00.001-05:00

T minus one and counting. This is March...it feels more like January.

Well, as the rest of the season has been thus far...expected the 'expected'/unexpected. The plans for jumping Sunday got canned thanks to the rain on Friday. I wasn't all that surprised to see the jumps in Lebanon bulletproof with no chance at all of us jumping them.

Sunday night into Monday was suppose to be rather interesting weatherwise. The forecast was for 7-14 inches of snow. Some forecasters were talking about how this would rival the ice storm we saw back in mid December. When I went to bed Sunday evening the snow hadn't arrived yet. I woke up a couple of times overnight and looked out the window toward the restaurant that sits right beside my house. I didn't notice any snow falling as I looked toward the light on the building. I woke up around 5:30 and found it had started to snow. I had gotten around 1 inches or so by sunrise. By 9AM it had pretty much stopped snowing. I did get a little bit more snow throughout the day off and on, mostly off. To the west of me was another story. The weather radar made it look like western Vermont and eastern New York got pounded. The snow was mostly moving north/northeast and it kept its distance about 50 miles to the west of me all day long. I ended up getting a total of three inches out of the storm. Talk about a dud.

Now the cold weather has settled back in. It's 8 degrees right now at 10:15PM. Some places nearby was even colder than that this morning. It sure doesn't seem like March.

Thanks to the expected snow storm yesterday all plans for jumping in Lebanon last night got cancelled. I checked out the Newport jump this morning and it is pretty much finished for the season since the trestle is just about snow free up top. I was surprised how little snow it had on it.

I headed on up to Lebanon this evening to hopefully get some jumping in since I know I probably won't be around either of the next couple of days. I arrived to find quite a few people there and everyone was getting ready ot head on out and jump the K25. I didn't see any lights on the K50 when I arrived. After doing some chatting I suited up and headed on up the jump.

The first jump wasn't bad. I was kinda feeling things out more than anything else. I won't say I really tried to jump or anything. Jump two was a much better jump. Pretty much one of the better jumps I've taken this winter...at least...until I landed. I landed very stiff legged. I noticed it big time. It's been a long time since I last landed that stiff legged. I managed to pull it off but I was a little worried.

The third jump and I found my luck running out. Once again it wasn't a bad jump at all. I landed a little bit better but was still stiff and I ended up going down and clobber the back of my left leg quite nicely. I almost quit for the night after the jump. It took a minute or so get the leg so it wasn't sore.

Gee, just what they need another jumper hurting himself. Mike, one of the adults managed to give himself a slight concussion on one of his jumps before I started jumping. I didn't see the jump so I don't know what happened for sure.

I walked up and decided to not give in just yet. Jump four was better. I did manage to land it fine. I wasn't quite as stiff legged but there was something else going on and I didn't understand it until jump five.

When I landed jump five, like most of the rest this evening, somewhere around 19-20 meters I noticed as I rode through the transition that I was quickly switching over to a snowplow. I'm not sure why I was trying to stop by going into an early snowplow.

Cannonball noticed and mentioned the same thing when I went past him as I was heading up for the sixth jump. He said I should also jumper higher at the takeoff.

I decided to give it some more pep for the next jump and ended up with the best jump of the evening. I landed somewhere down around 21+ meters I would guess. I still was fighting stiff leggedness and trying to snowplow very early.

I walked up for one last jump for the evening and naturally it wasn't as long as the previous jump but since I did get by without crashing or anything like that I decided to stick with my original game plan and call it quits.

Right now I'm guessing it won't be until Saturday before I get back out again since I won't be around tomorrow or Thursday. Instead I'm planning, as of right now, to be out enjoying some time away playing in the snow. The forecast for the weekend is looking like things are maybe turning around finally. Saturday and Sunday are looking to be in the lower 40s and then by this time next week it should be in the 40s as well. There isn't much let of winter but hopefully I will get a little more jumping in before the snow melts away.

Crash

Jumping Journal: February 28, 2009

2009-02-28T21:02:00.001-05:00

If I try to make up for lost time...I'll pay for it.

Gee, the last day of February. Gee, a nice warm 50+ degree day yesterday followed by rain last night. I wonder...

That could only mean trouble. T.R.O.U.B.L.E. Hold that's one too many letters. I only got six jumps in today not seven.

Before I left today I came to find out it has been since January 2003 that I last/first jumped at Vermont Academy. After the old jumps at the prep school in eastern Vermont fell in to complete disarray a former student wanted to leave the school some money but didn't want it go into the general fund and someone knew his brother or some relative had jumped for the school. He decided to put the money toward rebuilding the ski jumps. They got rebuilt and used for the first time back in 2003. I was at the meet and learnt on that memorable day what was meant by the phrase "the agony of defeat". Yes, I pulled off a agony of defeat slide of my own on the first round of competition on the 35 meter jump. In 2004 I didn't go for the meet as I was pretty much not jumping at any jump meets, kinda like this year. Since 2004 the hills have pretty much set idle since the person hired in to take care of them was more interested in cross country skiing and didn't want to put any time into getting the jumps ready to be jumped.

This year Lebanon's famed Jon "Cannonball" Farnham decided since he lived rather close by to the school to see if he couldn't try to restart the program since the former coach left and went to a different teach at/run the winter sports program at a different prep school. Cannonball got the go ahead and has been having jumping practice at the hill this winter three days a week and has a few of the local kids and maybe one or two of the prep students out jumping. This was the second meet of the winter that he hosted.

After tracolating the inrun on each of the three jumps three times yesterday everything got the chance to setup overnight when the temperature dropped back down to the lower 20s. This morning cleared out nicely and the east facing jumps managed by practice time to turn soft once again even though the temperatures was only right at the freezing point.

I arrived at the hill and saw no one out jumping. I got there about 30 minutes after practice was suppose to start. I was wondering why no one was out practicing yet. I walked into the registration area and found only a couple of people had even showed up thus far to jump.

A short time later Dan comes walking in and he manages to fully coax me into competing. I was planning on it anyways and at the same time I wasn't wanting to as well. Call it one of those days under one of the situations where you are fighting yourself wishing you had just stayed home and at the same time glad you came.

After lunch practice finally got underway. I headed out and rode the tow rope up to the takeoff of the jump and walked on up the inrun. I had forgotten how narrow the landing hill was. It seemed like it was much wider than it is now. Amazing what you can forget in six years. I also thought the K15 and K25 meter jumps were further off to the side of the K35 than what they are. I had forgotten an awful lot of the jump site. I thought the vertical separation between the knoll and the takeoff was much closer together as well.

After waiting for the other jumpers to go I put on my skis and get the signal from the takeoff. I headed down the inrun and actually jumped halfways reasonably on time at the takeoff. I say that because back in 2003 I couldn't time the takeoff at all. I jumped late and normally quite late on each jump I took back then. I figured it was because of the knoll and the takeoff being so close together...now I wonder.

I jumped at the takeoff and didn't have the best of jump but for the first time off the jump in six year it wasn't bad. I landed and started down the landing hill and the next thing I found myself sliding on my behind across the snow. I think I just got sitting too far back and got sucked down as I went through the transition. My right ski came off and went sailing. After getting up and taking off the other ski I followed behind one of the prep school jumpers that was walking to getting my ski. Turns out the ski traveled a long ways across the snow before it came to a stop. It also somehow managed to get a nice right hook as it traveled. It didn't go straight out the outrun. Instead it went off at about 45-60 degree angle from straight out and finally came to a stop on pavement some 200- 300 feet beyond where it came off my boot.

I headed back up the lift and waited in line for my next jump. By this time all but one of the master jumpers for the day, six in total, five jumped the K35, were up jumping and all the kids were out jumping as well. I put the skis on and got the signal and started down the inrun. I hadn't realized yet that I was sitting back too far while going through the curve on the landing hill. I jumped at the takeoff. I probably added another 1.5-2 meters to my jump. I landed and at first it seemed like it was going to be fine. Right before I got to transition I lost it again. Down for the count.

The first crash I ended up banging my shoulder...nothing serious but enough that I knew I had banged it. On the second crash I managed to get my foot back too much against my boot and still as of 8:30PM have a nice tender spot on my calf right where the back of boot sits. Gee, could my luck get any better.

I headed up for the third and final practice jump. Before I stopped sliding on the previous jump I already knew why I went down. I decided to make the focus the rest of the day to stay more on top of the skis after landing. Normally it's not a problem but it seems like the landing hill at Vermont Academy is steeped than the other landing hills I normally jump. It might be my imagination or it may have just been the weird snow conditions today that made it seem that way.

I got the signal and headed down the inrun. I had a better jump than either of the first two. I landed and started riding down the landing hill focusing on staying more upright. I partially lost it again. This time I didn't lose a ski like both the previous two times, and I didn't go all the way down. I did end up dragging my hands quite nicely and lost a glove that I had to search for as well. Ohhhhh, the joy.

I walked back to the registration building and waited for a while for the jumping on the small hills to get completed. I and the other jumpers all walked on back to the jumps and headed up the hill. The kids went first and than Dan had the pleasure of being the first master to jump. The meet was going to be trial and two to count instead the normal for a smaller hill of best two out of three.

I was right behind Dan. I got the signal from takeoff and headed down the inrun. I jumped at the takeoff...yes, no agony of defeat slide today, LOL. I landed at 23.5 meters, the longest of the day...naturally. I started down the landing hill and got through the transition fine and was snowplowing to a stop in the outrun. I'm not sure if I caught an edge or what but I went down. I was wayyyy past the fall line. Granted it didn't count anyways since it is trial and two to count.

As I pick myself up and am getting out the way the next jumper, Tom Dodds comes down and almost hits Dan and I trying to stop. The next jumper Jared King, ends up falling down at the end of the outrun as well. Cannonball does manage to stay upright.

To say the landing hill outrun was a bit dicey...a bit unusual...rather rare...would be an understatement. I haven't seen conditions that weird before, not even when doing any alpine skiing. It was spring and winter skiing wrapped up into one.

All of us headed back up for the first competition jump. After Dan goes 24.5 I get the signal and ride down the inrun. Something did feel a bit strange so I was kinda hesistant/late at the takeoff as a result. I jumped and when I land I know that it wasn't as far as the previous jump. I was right, I landed at 21.5 meters. Oh well...what else is new. It must be comp time. I ride the landing hill and get through the transition fine. I start snowplow and almost make it all the way but I lose it again and the ski comes off and goes for the building at the end of the outrun.

I head back up for the last jump of the day. Gee...could I actually stay upright or should I have stayed home and not bothered wasting the time going jumping today.

Dan once again goes 24.5 meters. I get the signal and head down the inrun. This time everything seemed better. I jumped much closer to on time and end up going 22.5 meters. I make it down the landing hill and start snowplowing. I actually come to stop...on my feet. Everyone is clapping and commenting about the fact I actually managed to pull it off without going down yet again.

Ended up in fourth place out of five amongest the master. What else is new. I know better than to get into a competition.

It sounds like I might be going for an old fashion day of ski jumping tomorrow. I'm not going to know what to do. It's been a couple of years since I last did any weekend jumping on the K25 in Lebanon. The talk is about going for it. I'm not sure how the inrun is going to be. With the rain and now the cold temps it may take a decent amount of work to even get it back into shape. Granted if I can ski the K50 when its soft without a track than I can ski the K25 with icy conditions without a track. Tomorrow should be interesting.

Gee........4 days of jumping in one week??? When was the last time I pulled that feat off...last winter. Boy, has it been a long winter.

Crash

Jumping Journal: February 26, 2009

2009-02-26T22:56:00.001-05:00

Only 19 days. Gee...no wonder I was nervous.

After warmer temperatures today than forecasted, forecast in the mid 30s in reality it hit the mid 40s, this evening started cooling off and had made its way back down to the freezing mark by the time I got up to Lebanon tonight. The talk was that Dan was going to do packing work on the inrun and then run the tracolator down the inrun and set the track this afternoon so we could show up and jump tonight.

He managed to get the inrun pack down but hadn't gotten the track set. When I showed up at the hill I walked to the jump inn and got the first scare of the night. I opened the door and there sitting on the couch changing into his jump suit was an old timer I hadn't seen jump in two or three years. Turns out Tom had brought one his high school kids over to see if they could jump the K50 tonight. Tom had been out of jumping for a couple of years thanks to hip replacement. He said he had taken a few jumps on the K20 at Hanover and he was going to grab a couple of jumps on the K25 with his high school jumper and then they were hoping to jump the K50.

Dan showed up and I found out he got the inrun pack but didn't set a track on it. We decided to go ahead and just be real ski jumpers and ski the track in. Heck this would be the first time since the end of last winter I had jumped with a skied in track on the K50. It would be the first time in an even longer time frame since I had been the first one down the K50 without a track on the inrun.

I went back out to my car and grabbed my equipment and suited up and waited for Dan and Nick to finish up raking out a windrow on the landing hill left behind by the groomer. As Dan was suiting up I walked on up the side of the hill and was noticing the snow. It was soft but it seemed like it was trying to harden/ice over. I was thinking this might create a rather interesting situation on the inrun.

As I got up to the knoll I saw Tom and his school kid walking over from the K25. I asked Tom how the conditions were on the K25. I was mostly interested in how much it has started to freeze over more than anything else. I was guessing if it had started to freeze over it could make it very tricky trying to set any kind of track at all. Tom made it sound like it shouldn't be an issue.

I walked up the jump and was noticing what you would normally think of being death cookies on the inrun...all over the inrun. It was looking VERY interesting. My mind was going off at me big time. The only times I've had my mind act up like this ever since I started jumping was both the first time jumping the K48, winter and summer, in Lake Placid. Otherwise I haven't experienced any real kind of nervousness about jumping.

I got up top and was debating starting from a bar or starting from house. I put my skis on up in the house. The more I looked down the inrun the more I thought if you want to make sure you set a nice straight track than you should go from a bar so your skis are already straight when you leave the bar. I grabbed the bar(4 inch PVC pipe) and stepped down to the top bar. I hopped on the bar and got the signal from Nick. I stood up and got into my inrun position and the ride down the inrun I was kinda surprised I wasn't noticing any of the death cookies. In hindsight they hadn't frozen over yet so they was nothing more than soft fluff. I pretty much only slid off the end of the inrun and landed just on the downhill side of the knoll.

I definitely was much more worried about the jump than what I needed to be. I guess when it has been 19 days since I last jumped the K50 it what I can expect, LOL!!! A couple of jumpers later and it was Tom jumping the K50 for the first time in three years. He made Dan and I's first jump look like crap. Ahhhhh, the benefits of ski jumping as a kid.

I went up for the second jump and it went better than the first jump. I went from house the rest of the night. It was quite noticable to me that I didn't cock my right ankle. I still wasn't going anywhere down the hill but given the conditions I wasn't complaining. I was having good, safe jumps.

The third jump was rather strange. Nick said I jumped way late and I thought I jumped way early. Normally if I think I jump early on the K50 than I have actually jumped on time. I know I definitely had movement in the air as a result of thinking I jumped early. I wasn't nice and quite like I am most of the time anymore.

The fourth jump was much better. I was starting to get back down the hill toward 30-32 meters. I was much more comfortable on the inrun and was jumping at the takeoff.

The fifth jump was the best of the night. I managed 32-34 meters and it really started to feel like I was ski jumping instead of just slidding off the end of the inrun like the first couple of jumps. As usual it would happen to be my next to last jump of the evening.

I wasn't going to take another jump until I saw Dan walk up the landing hill stairs and I thought okay I'll take another one, why not. The sixth and final jump and of course I manage to screw it up so it doesn't go as well as the jump before it. What else is knew? I still had 30-32 meters on the jump but it wasn't as nice as the one before it.

As February is winding down it kinda is obvious this isn't going to be a normal winter for me. No 300+ jumps on the K50 like I have had the past couple of years and definitely no 50-50+ days of jumping like the past 5-6 years. Definitely has been one strange winter.

Forecast now is for rain and mid to upper 40s tomorrow...upper 30s and sunny on Saturday with snow Saturday night into early Sunday before turning sunny for the first half of next week. The K50 inrun will definitely hold up. It may take some work to repair it but their is so much snow packed up on the trestle it ain't funny. I'm not sure what the conditions are like down further south. Their is supppose to be a jump meet Saturday. I think it will happen but I'm not sure how much breathing, err melting, room is built into the jumps. I'm not sure if I'm going to go to the meet or not. If not it'll probably won't be until next week sometime before I see anymore jumping. Hopefully it'll be either at Newport or on the K50.

Crash

Jumping Journal: February 24, 2009

2009-02-24T22:48:00.000-05:00

Ice and snow...thye just gotta go.

Yeah...this has been the worst winter I've seen in a long time. Definitely the worst winter I've had since I started ski jumping. Talk about things that just don't want to cooperate worth a darn. That's what this winter is all about.

After the jump meet last weekend Bill and I talked about the possibility of trying to jump on Monday. Monday came and the word came down from Cannonball that we should try to get the inrun raked out on the K50 so we could cut a track on it on Tuesday evening. Bill and I spent Monday evening pounding the ice on the inrun trying to get rid of the old track. Granted we didn't realize what was to come over the next several days.

Tuesday I showed up figuring we would end up taking some jumps on either the K25 or the K50. Nice thought. Instead the weather forecast had made a nice change. It was suppose to snow starting Wednesday night...6-12 inches worth. It was decided instead to get the inrun on the K25 prepped since it needed some snow tossed up on it to fill it out to the sideboards. We spent the evening doing that and a little work on the landing hill so the incoming snow storm could take care of the rest of the work for us.

Wednesday saw 5 inches of snow fell overnight with another 1.5 inches on Thursday. Any thoughts of jumping at Newport ended as the school kids didn't want to come out and jump.

Thursday I was hoping to get in touch with Cannonball in person so I went up to Lebanon and as I actually figured...he wasn't there. Everyone was pretty much finishing up doing any hill/getting ready to leave by the time I arrived. I spent all of 10 minutes there before I left.

Friday-Sunday everyone was going to Lake Placid for a jump meet. I wasn't going and instead I spent the weekend at home waiting for the Sunday afternoon through pre-dawn Monday morning snow storm to arrive. This time dumping 10 inches of snow on the area.

After spending 10 hours shoveling snow yesterday I figured no one was going to be out doing any jumping anywhere so I didn't even bother leaving home. Smart move.

Today, almost decided to stay home again but I knew I needed to get in touch with Cannonball plus I had an errand or two to run so I left a little later than planned and headed on up to Lebanon. I found Cannonball doing some work on the K25. Nothing was happening on the K50. It looked like the jump was pretty much ready to be jumped. I walked in the lodge and saw one of the kids already suited up and walking out the door toward the hill. I decided I would take a few jumps to keep this no jump streak from going any further.

I walked back to the car and grabbed the gear and went back inside and suited up. I walked on up the top of the inrun and found Mike getting ready to take another jump. He has started jumping nicely in the past couple of weeks. I put on the skis and get the signal for the first jump. It wasn't the best but given the new snow and the slower track conditions it wasn't all that bad until I got into the transition and almost ended up face plant into the snow in the outrun. I managed to hold on and stay on my feet...I'm not sure how. Mike thought I had stuck and I said no I just let myself get too far forward. Normally I do just the exact opposite.

I walked up and the second jump was smoother than the first, at least in the air. In the transition it was the same situation again.

The third jump on things felt much better in the air. It was seeming like I was back to normal once again. The third jump I also changed and ended up almost sitting down going through the transition. The next three jumps I was mostly back where I started from, getting too far forward on the skis.

On the seventh and final jump of the evening I ended up with a pretty decent jump and I did have a much better position going through the transition and out into the outrun.

Hopefully may get a chance to jump coming up on Thursday. If it's anything like the rest of this winter I won't be holding my breath.

Crash

Jumping Journal: February 15, 2009

2009-02-15T23:02:00.000-05:00

A day goes as planned.. That's unheard of.

Spent yesterday morning and early afternoon at the Newport jumps trying to get the K32 ready for the jump meet today. Since Mother Nature had warmed things up so nicely only to drop the temperature right back down the simple problem was all the slush had turned to ice...including the slush on the inrun. Cutting the track would turn out to be, by far, the biggest task of the getting the hills ready for the meet. Normally it would only take 10-15 minutes to cut the track but instead, thanks to the ice, it took well over an hour to get the whole track cut. After getting the hill painted we called it a day and decided to do the last little bit of decorating the hill this morning.

I arrived at the hill to find quite a few cars already in the parking lot. It sounded like their could easily be 20-30 jumpers at the meet and to see as many cars in the parking lot so early I was tending to think it was going to happen. I suited up right away and then waited for the hill to open for practice.

It was great seeing several faces I haven't seen around a ski jump in a few years. Some were adults and others were kids I have jumped with in the past but they have went off to college and I haven't seen them in years.

Newport is well known for having the wind funnel right up the jump and today was no different. In the fashion of the past several days while working at the hill the wind was blowing straight up the hill quite nicely. This was a big change from Friday evening at state meet when the wind was blowing straight downhill at Andover. The sunny skies from late Friday had held through the whole weekend and the temperature was right at the freezing point midday today during the competition.

Everyone started heading up the jump and I followed behind. After several jumpers had taken their first jump it was my chance for the first practice jump of the session. I got the signal from Dave McCrillis and headed down the inrun. The track was pretty decent. It had a few small wobbles in it but nothing compared to when we cut the track the first time this winter. I saw the flags on the takeoff blowing straight up the tressel before I started down the inrun. I had forgotten about them until I got in the air and was getting hit head on with the wind. It really caught me off guard and I reacted and didn't hold onto the jump like I should have. I ended up landing somewhere around 24 meters maybe even a little higher up the hill than that.

I walked back up and the second, third and fourth jumps were each getting better but I still wasn't getting the distance I knew I could/should be getting given the conditions. I'm not sure what I was doing wrong but I was getting it more and more correct with each passing jump.

By about jump five I was starting to get back down the hill once again. I found out yesterday morning I had been wrong. I thought I had been jumping 26-27 meters on a good jump at Newport. When I helped get the tape measure stretched out so Ron could paint the landing hill I found I was actually jumping closer to 28-29 meters usuaully. I knew it looked a little strange seeing the tree where the hill record(34.5 meters) is/was located and seeing the light pole where I was normally landing(I thought it was 27 meters, turns out its 29 meters) and thinking they were a whopping 7 meters apart. They aren't.

The rest of the practice session was nice and solid. All the jumps were going down around 28-29 meters. I couldn't ask for more solid jumping under the circumstances even if I tried.

After taking a bit of a lunch/registration break the competition got underway with the small kids and continued to advance on up to the Out of School class, yes the ol timers.

My first jump during the competition wasn't all that hot. I ended up with only a 25.5 meter jump. I was ay short of the light pole. I wasn't surprised. I always seem to choke whenever it comes to a competitive environment.

The last person to come off the jump for the first round was the older brother of the current hill record. Chris Jones has won two of the past McCrillis Cup competitions. His brother Danny set the hill record two years ago. I ran back up the stairs to the 34.5 meter mark. There was no one there marking yet until I said something. Chris jumped and had one of the nicest looking jumps I've seen in a long time. He came down right at 34.5 meters. After getting back up to the knoll he said he had no interest in breaking the record he wanted the record to be known as being held by the Jones brothers.

My second jump was slightly better than the first but I still was ending up short of where I normally would land. I ended up with a 26 meter. I wasn't the happiest with it but I wasn't surprised.

Chris came down and bobbled in the air and landed at 33.0 meters. It almost gave the feeling that he intentionally screwed up the jump to keep from breaking his brothers record.

My third jump ended up being the longest of the competition at 26.5 meters. It felt the smoothest of the comp round jumps at least.

Before heading up for the final jump Chris said he was thinking of telling his brother to take a hike and he would go ahead and break the record. He came down for his final jump. Several markers were all standing right at 35 meters, me included. I watched his beautiful jump come in and land right at 35 meters on the mark. It was one of the sweetest jumps I have ever seen.

All in all Chris ended up winning the overall meet as well as the Out of School class. I ended up coming in third in the same class right behind Bill Ryan. 23 potential competitors showed up for the meet, one(a newer jumper) decided the hill was bigger than what she was willing to try just yet. One of the former Sunappe High School jumpers took five or six jumps in practice. He crashed on his first two jumps and banged up his shoulder and decided not to compete. That left 21 competitors to compete for the McCrillis Cup that Chris ended up winning.

Definitely one of the nicest, most relaxing jump meets I've been to since I started ski jumping. At least things went as I thought they might go for a change. Hopefully this is a sign of things to come the rest of the winter.

Crash

Jumping Journal: February 13, 2009

2009-02-13T22:58:00.000-05:00

Where's Jason...It can only be bad luck it you have triskadekophobia. Must be Friday the 13th.

Okay, so it wasn't bad, it was just cold as you know what.

After a warm day Wednesday and yesterday today the weather turned a bit more seasonable. First I had to get through yesterday.

After running ar errand into Newport around 1PM yesterday I got home and as I was walking into the house I was thinking if Ron had any brains he would get out to the jump this afternoon and we would get the inrun ready for the jump meet Sunday...by Saturday the snow is going to be pure ice and you won't be able to move it.

I walked on inside knowing Ron is a school teacher and he wouldn't even get off work for over an hour...I forgot he was running the state high school alpine race at the Mount Sunapee yesterday. I continued working on a computer program for scoring Mud Meet that I've been working on ever since last winter. Around 2PM or so I hear a noise at the front door. Next thing I hear someone coming in my house. I quickly get up out off the stool I sit on in front of the computer and head over toward the door. I can't see the front door from where I'm sitting. As I get to the doorway Ron says something. Immediately I say, "YES, he's thinking the same thing I'm thinking." Turns out I was right. I get the shoes back on and head on over and meet him and one of his high school jumpers at the jump and we spend until 4PM or so getting the inrun ready while the snow is still soft and movable, unlike this afternoon.

We leave knowing Mount Sunapee was going to bring a groomer over to groom the landing hill and outrun for us at noon time today. I decided to go over and help out, if nothing else for moral support. Ron was going to take an hour or so off from teaching to come and make sure everything got groomed correctly.

I arrived at the hill shortly after noontime. Ron was there but the groomer wasn't there yet. It was across the street at the airport doing some grooming for ski jouring competition tomorrow. It was doing it first and then coming on over to do the ski jump.

It finally showed up and got the landing hill groomed and looking good. It was discovered when we arrived that the inrun was solid as a rock. Hopefully the track cutter will be able to get through it tomorrow when Ron and I go to cut the track. Ron left and I went ahead and locked everything up for him before heading on home. Boy was I glad to get away from that hill side. The wind was coming right up the hill and with the temperature only in the lower 20s it was down right cold on any exposed skin. It helped me decide to do things a bit differently when it came time to pack up for the jump meet.

I spent about an hour at home before heading on to meet and the high school team at the local pizza shop across the street from the where everyone meets the bus to go the high school jump meets. After chatting we got on the bus and headed on off to Andover for the final high school meet of the season.

We arrived at the hill and I suited up quickly as some kids were already heading up the jump. I was surprised at how long the line was by the time I got up top. I already started thinking about only taking one jump and calling it quits. I knew I was going to freeze my butt off standing around 20-25 minutes in between jumps.

I finally made my way up top and put on the skis. The inrun looked the best of almost any inrun I've seen all winter long. I got into the track and got the signal with a nice cross wind blowing. I started down and jumped at the takeoff. It wasn't a spectacular jump by any means but I was quite satisfied with it. As I rode through the outrun, I, for the quickest of a split second thought about going up for another jump and then came to my senses and headed straight on for the lodge. After warming up my hands and talking with one of the judges for the evening I almost went out and took another jump. As I was watching the kids jump all of them was heading back for the lodge and I figured they must have told the kids it was their last jump. Instead I changed clothes and spent the rest of the evening cheering on the kids and talking with some of the high school coaches I have known now for years.

Thankfully the wind didn't play a bigger factor in the evening then it did. A few years back they ended up postponing the state meet due to the wind. It was questionable while at the Newport jump at noon time whether they might have to postpone the meet this year or not.

In a rather unusual situation the kids from Kennett HIgh School ended up winning the team title this year. For the past several years, I think as long as I've been around the Hanover High School has always had the strongest team in the state. This year the individual champion, Jeff Colt, was from Hanover but they didn't finish in the top three. Instead Concord High School came in second, and they could be a major power house come next since they don't have anyone graduating.

Tomorrow will be another work day at Newport before taking a ton more jumps. It sounds like maybe quite a few guys I haven't seen in a long time may be there jumping Sunday. It should make for a fun meet. Hopefully...in the year where you have to expect the unexpected...nothing will happen to make thing turn out different then they are planned. I REALLY HOPE!!!

Crash

Jumping Journal: February 10, 2009

2009-02-10T22:12:00.001-05:00

Sooo....you do that with a needle...what else is new, it is the winter of 2009 isn't it?

Once again the plans come unglued. This has been the worst winter I've had since I started ski jumping. Plans keep changing constantly and more often than not they changed against me getting any jumping in.

The plan, or so I thought, was to jump last night on the K50 in Lebanon. I received an email from Dan mid afternoon yesterday that he wasn't going to be able to jump. I did some checking around Bill and he wasn't going to jump either. I tried to ge ahold of one of the junior jumpers but had no luck there. I decided since I was planning on spending the rest of the week jumping around home/Newport I would go up and pick up my skis.

The plan...jump at Newport this afternoon. Actually have a mid day jump session at Newport on a weekday. It was going to be the first time I would ever pull off a daylight jump session, non weekend, at Newport. Well...

I arrived at the hill around 3:30PM after running an errand nearby. As I was parking my car I noticed the porta-john had been knocked over. I took my equipment out of the car and walked to building which a couple of weeks ago had been spray painted with some graffiti(sp?). As I got to the hillside of the building Ron said "You might as well put the skis back in your car". I was a little surprised. After setting the equipment down I walked on over to see what Ron was talking about. Some kids had come since we last jumped the hill and slid down the inrun dragging their butt hard through the snow. In a couple of spots you could see the cleats sticking up through the snow. Someone had also rode down the landing hill on their snowmobile and left marks in the snow that had frozen over since we have seen some nice thawing/refreezing action over the past several days. They rode into te outrun as well and did a couple of circles in the outrun. Naturally that had frozen over nice and hard as well.

It was pretty much decided that jumping in Newport was done until hopefully the meet their this Sunday. That's where the weather comes into the equation. The forecast right now is for partly cloudy tomorrow with highs in the mid 40s. Rain tomorrow night lows in the upper 30s and rain turning to snow and rain on Thursday with high in the lower 40s. Cooling down finally on Friday through the weekend with sunny skies into early next week.

The jump at Newport only has natural snow so any rain could quickly be very detrimental to keeping the snow around. It's questionable right now whether the jump meet this coming Sunday will happen or not. It sounds like Saturday, if possible/needed will be a long work day at the jump.

I drove on home after the cancelled practice and started thinking about going on up to Lebanon and jumping the K50 tonight. I spent some time at home on the computer and then left for the unplanned drive up to Lebanon. I arrived and found the lights were turned on on the K50 but no one was around the jump. I did see Cannonball in the lodge as I walked by it. I figured Dan or Bill would show up to jump, maybe even Tara would come over if she wasn't coaching on the K25.

I got there shortly after 6PM and practice doesn't normally start until 6:30PM. After waiting around for 10 or 15 minutes Nick Burke showed up and we started chatting. Still no one showed up. We kept chatting, and still no one showed up. I had already said that I was going to jump if anyone else showed up otherwise I would probably go over and join the kids on the K25. Finally about 7PM we both gave up waiting and decided to call it a night. I went up and shut off the lights before walking back to the lodge. Right before I got to the lodge I saw Mike take a jump on the K25. He came over around the lodge instead of heading back toward the steps. I said "You quitting already?" He said, "Just taking off a layer, I'm not use to jumping when it's this warm out."

I decided the heck with and suited up and headed on out to join him for the remainder of the evening. I walked up behind and after watching his first jump I got the signal and headed down the inrun. I wasn't planning anything special. I figured it would be another run of the mill jump. I jumped at the takeoff, nothing impressive. I flew through the air...nothing impressive. Then I landed. I was a bit shocked by how far I made it down the hill. It seemed to be much further down the hill than normal for me on the K25. It seemed like it was below 20 meters somewhere. I couldn't tell for sure but I knew I had much less landing hill left than normal.

I walked back up and Cannonball didn't say a word and neither did Nick, he had walked over to shoot the breeze with Cannonball after we gave up on jumping on the K50. After Mike took his next jump I got the signal and started down the inrun. I figured in typical fashion for me I would end up having to take several more jumps before I would get another one as nice as the first one. I was wrong! The second one ended up being even better and further down the hill. I had to be getting down near 22 meters...maybe further. It didn't seem like I did anything different. The results were better though.

The next two jumps weren't quite as nice as the second one but I was still below 20 meters on the landing. On the fifth jump I ended up getting way back on the landing and went down. The jump had some nice power to it and I was looking to the bottom of the hill. I was also finding myself watching the ski track mark right around 20 meters. It was drawing my attention right to it as I was in the air. I think my attention drawing to was causing me to sit back on landing which caused me to go down.

On the sixth and final jump I did pretty much the same thing as the previous jump except I managed to stand the jump instead of falling down. I noticed on the jump the fact my attention was getting drawn to that one spot on the landing hill right I had landed a couple of times before. It's a scenario I'm going to have to watch out for in the future.

RIght now I won't take a guess as to when I'll jump next. I think I have given that concept up until next winter. Depending on weather it could be Thursday night in Lebanon, it could be Friday afternoon before the state high school meet, it could be Sunday at McCrillis Cup or it could be some time next week, somewhere. Too many variables to deal with right now.

Keep the ski tips up,

Crash

Jumping Journal: February 07, 2009

2009-02-07T18:35:00.000-05:00

Unplanned but not unexpected.

After thinking it through I kinda thought I might get a day in of jumping this weekend. I didn't know for sure but I thought I might try. I knew my original plans for this weekend, starting yesterday was to go out and do some overnight hiking on the Appalchian Trail once again. I knew my plan was to head up the Hanover, just across the interstate from Lebanon. I pretty much also knew thanks to the weather forecast for tonight and tomorrow I was only thinking of making just an overnighter and not spending two nights out. That's when I started to think I might be able to pluck off another jump session this afternoon. I didn't know for sure who all was going to head down to Salisbury for the jump meet this weekend but I figured Dan wasn't going to go. I thought after I got off the trail I would call him from the hill and see if he wanted to jump or not.

Then came yesterday morning. I hadn't left yet for Hanover, wasn't much out of bed yet when the email from Dan arrived asking if anyone wasn't planning on going to Salisbury and wanted to jump today. I sent back the email saying sure I would and I would give him a call once I got to the hill.

Later in the morning/early afternoon, seeing I wasn't getting out of the house as soon as I had hoped I sent him another email telling him I would definitely be there by noon time. I figured I was going to have a little more time this morning hiking out than I did. I figured I was going to get on the trail around 11AM to noon time yesterday...in reality I hit the trail about 2:15PM. I didn't hike as far in as I had planned as a result so I knew it was going to make for a quick hike out this morning.

I woke up this morning to a nice clear sky morning around 6 degrees or so. After packing up I started the hike out and got to the road even quicker than I thought I would. I was already thinking up ways of how I could kill time.

I made my way back to the car and then headed on down to Storrs Hill. I ended up getting into a nice chat with the club president who also helps run the kitchen at the hill. She managed to kill most of the time I needed to kill until Dan finally arrived.

Dan and I walked to the jump inn and after doing a little work on the inrun we suited up and headed up the hill. The nice clear skies from all day yesterday straight into this morning had turned quite cloudy and looked like the forecast for snow/rain tonight and tomorrow could very well be correct. I was first to jump and once I got up top I come to realize why I had the trouble putting the skis on the first time I jumped the hill two and half weeks ago. The pile of snow up in the house is the biggest I've ever seen it. It's a good 10-12 inches deep. Normally it's only about 4 inches deep if that much.

I put on my skis and I looked down the inrun...wondering if I would notice that same crazy feeling I had the last time I jumped the K50 two weeks ago. I saw the mind seemed to want to run away with me again like it was before. I decided to watch and play it safe on the first jump and see just how much I was going to notice the weird feeling. I couldn't figure out what was causing the problem in the first place.

I got the signal from Dan and started down the inrun. Strangely enough, I wasn't noticing anything. I had only noticed it up top but I wasn't noticing it going down the inrun. That was a very positive sign. As I got to the end I got caught slightly off guard by a bit of a curve in the track and I managed to jump late. The jump wasn't anything to write home about. I probably made it down to only 26-27 meters at the most. The real problem came as I started to go through the transition. I had barely started to go through it when I found myself uncontrollably going into the snowplow. I managed to pull myself through it but it was still quite a surprise. I hadn't ever experience anything like that before.

I walked up and flagged Dan for his first jump and then made my way on up top for the the second jump. The second jump was better than the first jump but not by a wide margin, probably in the 28-29 meter range. Once again I noticed the same problem, more aggressively, going through the transition. I had to fight a lot more to keep from going down.

The third jump was the same way, all the way around.

The fourth jump is when things started to get better. I was getting more comfortable and found myself going down more toward 32-33 meters. I also didn't have the same trouble going through the transition. I did find myself, though, with the skis much wider apart then normal going through the transition.

The fifth and sixth jumps were the best of the day. The fifth jump is when I started to get more round the knee and the sixth jump I jumped much closer to on time and with more power as well. The fifth jump was down around 35 meters and the sixth jump was probably around 37-38 meters. It was nice to be back down that low on the hill again. Also, I didn't notice the snowplow effect on either jump but I did notice my skis further apart than normal.

I went up for the seventh jump and I figured I would end up flagging Dan from down by the bridge. I thought he would come up for one final jump. Turns out I was wrong. I ended up jumping late and found myself landing back down around 30-32 meters. Incredibly, I also found myself being forced into a snowplow going through the transition.

As Dan and I walked back up the jump inn side of the landing hill I was noticing how deep the snow was down in the transition. I think the much deeper than normal snow depth through the transition is causing the problem I was noticing. I know on jump two or three it seemed like I was finding a sharper curve to the transition than I have noticed in a long time.

I left my skis at the hill knowing that unless Mother Nature plays a dirty trick on me I should be back up there jumping again Monday evening. Hopefully with some more nice jumps and without the problems in the transition I was having today.

Crash

Jumping Journal: February 05, 2009

2009-02-05T23:03:00.001-05:00

Shocking and solid. It's one thing when someone tells you you have been robbed...but its another thing when your telling yourself you are being robbed while the robbery is taking place.

Not much more can be used to describe tonight. I arrived at the Newport jump around 6PM for a rather cold night of ski jumping. The temperature was already in the single digits by the time I arrived at the hill and was only getting colder as the evening wore on. The nice and rather unusual thing tonight was the total lack of wind. Newport normally has a bit of wind floating around and the jump always seems to collect all the wind and funnel it right up the hill. Tonight was crystal clear skies and dead calm winds. You couldn't ask for much more.

After suiting up I headed up the hill for the first jump of the night. I figure it would be an okay jump more than likely and it would end up taking two or three jumps to really get any kind of decent jumps occuring.

I got the signal from Ron and headed down the inrun. I jumped at the takeoff and thought it was a pretty typical jump for me. I was going through the air thinking the same thing. Next thing I know I'm still in the air and just going by the light which is roughly 27 meters. I think to myself, WHAT??? I didn't think the jump was that good. I landed somewhere below light pole, roughly 28-28.5 meters maybe a slight bit more even. Going through the outrun I was shocked to have that jump all night yet alone on the very first jump of the evening. I didn't have the slightest clue what the rest of the night was going to hold. Talk about starting the night off on a good note. That never happens.

I go up for the second jump. It definitely was nowhere near as nice or as long as the first jump. The third jump was getting back down real close to the light pole, err 27 meters again. Most the rest of the evening I was landing in pretty much the same location.

The landing hill and outrun tonight had returned to good old fashion ski jumping material...hard pack. I would love to see the soft, yet hard pack, snow return that was around Tuesday evening and a few other times earlier in the season. I don't think I'll ever see conditions like that again.

The next several jumps were all pretty much the same. I had one jump where I thought I was going to go down on my rear end as I was going through the transition on the landing hill. I think it was the third jump of the evening. I pulled off a nice save. The last jump of the evening I pulled off another nice save after I almost went in head first but pulled it off.

The best jump of the evening and the most irritating jump of the evening was jump eight, the next to last jump of the evening. The previous jump or so I had started working on lifting my head up in the air and looking toward the bottom of the hill. On the next to last jump I jumped at the takeoff. I real nice jump, not the typical slide off the end with a small amount of effort, instead this jump had some real nice effort to it. I got in the air and I wasn't stopping the move in the air like it seemed I had been doing earlier in the evening. I kept right on going with the move until I started to get down around the lights and then I let the ankles go so and I saw the tips start to drop. I was still in the air already getting mad at myself. I knew I lost 2-3 meters on the jump easily by not holding the position all the way into the hill like I should have. I could have easily went 30 meters on the jump if I would have held the position.

I have noticed that my jumping seems to have improved quite a bit compared to the past few years but tonight was going to be the night I would be informed by Ron that it had improved. After taking the above jump I walked back up to the knoll where Ron and one of the parents were standing talking to each other. Ron made the comment to me, "I keep seeing you walk up the stairs but I never see you jump, at least not anyone that jumps like you". I had to laugh. I didnt jump much around Ron at all last winter since the Newport jump never saw any jumping action last winter at all.

It looks like I should have a few days off and hopefully will get my next chance to jump the K50 in Lebanon on Monday evening. I may see if I can get lucky and jump it this weekend but I'm not sure what everyone is planning on doing at the present time. Most jumpers will be down in Salisbury, CT for the jump meet but a few, like me, will stay behind.

Crash

Jumping Journal: February 04, 2009

2009-02-04T22:03:00.001-05:00

Can you say BRRRRRRRR! Gee...another two days in a row of jumping, unthinkable...at least this winter it has been.

It must be getting down to the wire for the high school jumping season once again. When I find myself travelling to jump meets on a school bus and I find myself at the Proctor Academy ski jumps I know it's got to be getting toward the end of the season for the boys and girls.

I hopped on the bus with Ron, the kids and one of the other parents for the 20 minute drive over to Andover for the pre-state high school meet. It's the next to last jump meet of the season for the high school kids.

We arrived at the jump site and got everything off the bus and I suited up quickly, hoping to get in three jumps before the tressel got crowded. It's been my normal Wednesday evening routine for the first six weeks of the new year pretty much since I started jumping. The past few years I have waited until they start jumping 25 meter hills or bigger but I generally always practice with the kids. I know the local kids and some of the kids from other school districts jump in Lebanon on the weekends during the winter at the eastern division jump meets. I typically get to know the the kids that jump both high school and eastern division the best.

I headed up the landing hill and walked on up the tressel with a decent number of kids already on the tressel. After waiting for my turn I hopped on the bar and got the signal from one of the coaches on the knoll. I started down the inrun and jumped at the takeoff. I got the shock of a lifetime the second I started to make my move at the takeoff. Turns out their is a big pile of snow right underneath the takeoff that had never been there before. You couldn't miss seeing it no matter how hard you tried. For a second I thought I was going to hit it...it was sticking up that high from the knoll. I reacted to the sight of it and I noticed the right ski made a sudden abrupt jerk that was very unnatural.

I managed to keep my wits about me and landed the jump and rode through the transition. Normally Andover has had a sharp transition that you have to watch out for. Last year it seemed like they did a better job at smoothing it out. This year was much more improved over last year. I didn't notice any sharpness to the transition like I have in the past.

I rode the tow back up to the knoll and walked on up to the jump where the line had gotten longer. The temperature were in the very low teens if not 11 or 12 degrees during practice. The sun was setting at the time and the wind was kicking up on occasion made for some rather cold conditions to be out jumping in, especially when you are standing around wait in line to jump.

After freezing for about 8-10 minutes it finally came my turn for my second jump. I got the signal and headed down the inrun. This time I knew to expect the pile of snow at the takeoff so it didn't bother me like it did the first time. I jumped at the takeoff and it seemed like I had made a bit of a move around the knee but the jump still seemed short compared to what I was expecting. I would say I probably only went 24-25 meters.

I got back up top for the third jump and the line was even longer. Now to add insult to injury the line was almost stationary as well as everybody was going from the same bar instead of spacing themselves out. No one wanted to go from a different bar and they didn't want to put their skis on until the person in front of them went. It made the long line MUCH, MUCH, MUCH longer. I was freezing my rear end off. My feet were one step below being numb, and I kept pulling my finger inside my gloves to try to warm them up. The wind would just bite right through you without blinking an eye.

I finally got up to the top and grabbed the bar higher than everyone else was jumping from and managed to get my third, and thankfully, last jump of the night in. It wasn't quite as nice as the second jump distance wise even though it seemed like it held up reasonably well technically. I was probably aroudn 24 meters on the jump, very rough guessing. I couldn't tell for sure how far I was down the hill but by knowing how I jumped I figure I didn't make any further than that.

It sounds like I may be jumping tomorrow evening again...WHAT??? LOL! Yep, another high school practice in Newport. Gee, I'm to make up for lost time in Newport this winter it seems. I don't mind the conditions in Newport are the best I've ever seen them. Ron was commenting on the way to Andover this evening about how weird the conditions have been this winter. The snow is well packed yet very soft. It's the same thing I've been saying. I can't remember a time in the past eight winters when I have seen conditions like they have been this winter. Hopefully the conditions will stick around for the rest of the winter as well.

Crash

Jumping Journal: February 03, 2009

2009-02-03T23:06:00.000-05:00

T minus 2 and counting. A first in many years. Can it get any worse...don't answer that! PLEASE don't answer that!

The worst winter since I started ski jumping seems to keep on getting worse by the day. If it isn't one thing to stop me dead in my tracks than its another.

Last Monday on the short hop, skip and jump to Newport to jump I had a rather fun(YEAH RIGHT) experience. I lost the power steering in my car. It was the first time I've ever driven without power steering. Talk about a new experience.

Tuesday I dropped the car off to get it looked at and got the call later in the day that it was the power steering pump and they was going to have to order it and it may come in on Wednesday depending on if the truck was able to make it in from the Boston area since the whole area was suppose to get 12-18 inches of snow starting early Wednesday. Wednesday morning I wake up and the snow had already started falling. I figured with as light as it in the early part of the day that the truck probably had made it in. I was right. I got the call later on in the afternoon that they got pump and got it put in only to find that the pulley in the steering unit had three cracks in it as well. I decided to have them replace it instead of hoping for the best. The pulley wasn't going to come in until Thursday, as long as the truck could make it in. The high school meet in North Conway had been cancelled(actually postponed but I didn't find out about that until tonight) on Wednesday thanks to the snow storm that dumped 9.5 inches at my house. Thursday the pulley managed to come in and I got the call late in the afternoon that the car was ready. I was pretty much dead thanks to all the shoveling I spent the day doing. I decided to wait until Friday to pick up the car. That canned any possibility of jumping or working on jumps Thursday. Friday through the weekend everyone was up in Lake Placid for the jump meet I had long before decided I wasn't going to go to.

Sunday morning I did get an email from Dan asking if I wanted to jump the 50 sometime on Sunday. I had already made other plans that I was really looking forward to and decided with the rest of this crappy winter to stick with my other plans. I spent the day/night and first part of the day Monday out doing some winter backpacking on the Appalachian Trail. A nice refreshing change of pace to say the least.

Monday after getting home I sent Dan an email to see if there was any plans of jumping the 50 in the evening. It sounded like the hill should pretty much be in shape and be ready to jump. It sounded like we was going to have three or four of us there to jump. I headed on up to Lebanon to find out that landing hill still needed grooming work done to it and we figured by the time it got done it would probably be too late to jump. Yet another strike. Gee, unless I have been injured this now put me at the longest stretch I've seen during the winter months without jumping in the nine winters I've been jumping.

Today was looking like it might finally happen. The plan was to jump at Newport. I knew the hill was ready other than cutting a track on the inrun. I arrived at the hill shortly before 6PM to find Ron and one of his students in the jump inn. Turns out things were even more prepped than I thought. Ron was just going to have us be real ski jumpers and ski the track in instead of cutting a new track. I loved the sound of that. I would much rather ski a track in than jump with a cut track.

Turns out their was going to be five of us jumping tonight. 3 high school kids, one junior and myself. I suited up with the other kids and then headed on out and headed up the jump. I was third jumper to go and the two kids before me, both first year jumpers did a nice job setting a straight track. I was a bit surprised and quite pleased with what I saw.

My first jump wasn't the best. I managed once again to have the same problem as last week of having one ski tip want to come up hard. I'm not sure why that has been happening recently. I was surprised by how soft and smooth the landing hill was. I'm not use to seeing that anywhere yet alone at Newport. It was well packed but still nice and soft not hard hitting like I have always come use to seeing at Newport.

I found more rhythm on the second jump and managed to make it further down the hill. It still wasn't anything like last week but it was better than the first jump. The third was better than jump two but still was lacking the distance and something just didn't seem right with the jump but I couldn't quite put my finger on exactly what it was. As I got back up to the knoll Ron made mention of me almost finishing the jump but I would end by throwing the knees out the back. The more I thought about the more it made sense that this is what I was seeing.

The fourth jump I managed to start getting myself to jumping correctly. It was feeling more like the jumps I have been having this winter rather than the first three jumps tonight did. I did get further down the hill, around 24-25 meters but it still wasn't down where I was jumping last Monday. This continued for the next several jumps.

Before the eighth jump Ron mentioned something I kinda new already. I was being a pussy and not really jumping at the takeoff, just going through the motion with nothing behind it. It has seemed like this whole winter has pretty much been that way. Then again, why shouldn't it be. I came down and had a jump nice at the takeoff and ended up with the best jump of the evening. I was down around 26-27 meters and had the best move I've had in a while, then again it has been over a week since I last jumped.

I walked back up for the final jump of the evening and in usual fashion I manage to make the next to last jump of the evening be the best jump of the evening. I ended up not giving as much at the takeoff and only made it down around 25 meters.

Not a bad session even with a nice snow shower going on during the second half of the practice session. Fortunately/strangely I think I should be jumping each of the next couple of days. At least that is the way things look right now. Admittedly, this is the winter of 2009.

Expected the unexpected.

Crash

Jumping Journal: January 26, 2009

2009-01-26T22:09:00.000-05:00

Forgetfulness can lead to some different experiences.

I spent yesterday morning drilling new holes to be filled with wooden dawl rod that I would screw into to hold the the front throw down. I managed to get the holes drilled and the get the wooden dawl rod glued in place and let everything set up nice and dry overnight.

This morning after getting up I managed to screw the front throw back onto the ski. I worked on a few other projects and one thing I did do was hang the ripped pair of sweatpants up on the 'clothesline' over the heater so they could dry off. I figured I could use them by just turning the hole facing forwards. I did duct tape up the jump suit as well during the morning projects.

I left just shortly before 6PM to head on off to the Roland Trembley Ski Jumping Complex, err the Newport ski jump. I arrived right behind one of Ron's high school kids. The lights were turned off which seemed rather unusual. A minute or so later another one of the high school kids pulled in. Turns out the minor problem that occured sometime right after the meet Friday evening hadn't been taken care of yet. The lights for the Newport jump have their main shutoff point down by the ice hockey rink quite a distance from the ski jump itself. In the past some of the guys from the ice rink have accidently shut off the breaker for the lights, fortunately they have never did while anyone was jumping. Luckily they waited until after meet Friday night before they threw the switch that is marked and duct taped over to be left turned on. Ron found out Saturday morning when him and I met at the hill so I could pick the boots up for Chris Hastings. He forgot to call the person in charge over the weekend so he had to give him a call tonight.

Ron came pulling in a few minutes later and turned on the lights and I grabbed my stuff and headed for the jump inn. After I walked in I opened my bag and found out I had forgotten to put hte sweatpants in the bag. I was now facing an interesting dilemma. The temperature was already into the single digits and dropping quite quickly with the clear skies and lack of wind. I had several ideas in my mind and nothing sounded all that good. I figured I could just put the jumpsuit on over top my blue jeans and jump that way. I knew I had the ski bibs I normally use for hill work out in the car and I thought about putting them on. I also thought about just jumping with nothing on the lower half. I also thought of just not jumping. I didn't like any of the options at all.

The kids suited up and went out to ride the landing hill to find it was pretty much ice and needed to be raked. Ron had planned on having it all raked by the time we got there but he had to get the lights turned on. I was still inside trying to decide what I was going to do.

Finally I decided to go with option one and hope that I would even be able to get down into an inrun position without ripping the butt completely out of the suit. I knew the blue jeans would provide for superior protection if I did fall.

I suited up and headed outside. I decided to do the evil thing I have only did one other time so far this winter. I rode the landing hill. I wanted to see how much I was going to be able to get down into an inrun position. Turns out it wasn't bad. The only problem was the front throw on the ski I replaced it on needed to be tightened down some.

I walked on up to the K25 and decide to jump it first. I wanted to see if I was going to same response I had been having the past couple of times I've jumped. It's not something that is easy to explain. It almost seems like the mind won't let you control the body to do what you want to do...kinda like your in a fuzzy state of being there but not being there. I noticed the same thing the last two times I ice skated on the Newport common, as recently as yesterday.

I got the signal and started down the inrun. I noticed no signs of the past problems whatsoever. The only I noticed was the bumps in the inrun. I jumped at the takeoff and had one strange jump. I haven't dropped a ski in quite a while. Tonight I dropped a ski on each of the first two or three jumps. It ended up being a short jump but a nice safe jump.

I walked back up and moved on over to the K30 side of the tressel. I got the signal and headed down the inrun and jumped at the takeoff and while in the air I had the left ski drop while the right ski came up harder than I've seen a ski come up in a long time. After landing I started questioning if it was the blue jeans causing all the trouble.

The next jump was a little bit better but I still had trouble controlling the ski like I normal am able to anymore.

The next jump is when things really started to change. I came down the inrun and jumped at the takeoff and everything seemed normal until right before I landed. I was shocked by how far I made it down the hill. I knew I was back into the game once again as I was easily in the 26-27 meter range. This is about the farthest I've ever went on the Newport jump.

I walked back up and the next jump wasn't quite as good, the direction wasn't quite as well right on the money as the previous jump. I still had 25-26 meters.

The next several jumps were all pretty much the same, right down to where I was landing. I was starting to get back into jumping around the knee. Not quite to the point where I could really feel it but the response in the air was suggesting I was getting real close to jump around the knee.

On the next to last jump(I was initially going to have it be the last jump after I took it but I caved in and went for one more) I ended up with the best jump I've ever had at Newport. Everything with the jump went real well and I ended up down between 27 and 28 meters.

I couldn't resist the temptation. The other kids were going up for one final jump and I decided to join them. It turns out I should have listened to my original advice and quit on the previous jump as what turned out to be the final jump of the evening wasn't as nice as the one before it and I ended up with only around 26 meters at the most.

All in all it was the best jump session ever at Newport and one of nicest jump sessions I've had anywhere in quite a while. If I'm remembering correctly I took more jumps tonight alone at Newport than I took in all of 2007 and 2008 combined at Newport. I am liking the hill more now than I use to like it. That's a major plus.

Hopefully I'll be on the K50 in Lebanon tomorrow night and than after that??? It'll all depend on the weather. Sounds like another snow storm coming during the day on Wednesday which may end up cancelling the jump meet in North Conway, New Hampshire. I hope not but it isn't sounding favorable right now. I enjoy jumping that jump even though I've only jumped there twice thus far.

Crash

Jumping Journal: January 24, 2009

2009-01-24T17:50:00.000-05:00

Gee maybe I should take up playing the lottery. I sure called this one right on the money.

Yes, I said it correctly with the last sentence I wrote yesterday "If the rest of the season has been any kind of indication as to what tomorrow will bring...it should be interesting what reality will hold for me."

Why should I not have been surprised one little bit by what happened today.

After stopping by the Newport jump to pick up some boots that the Chris Hastings was wanted to borrow from Ron for the Ford Sayre kids I drove on up to Lebanon for the annual Winter Carnival jump meet this morning. Their had been a fresh dusting of snow overnight and the skies were gradually beginning to clear our to what was going to be a beautiful day, even though the wind was a bit brisk.

I arrived at the hill and after a while Chris stopped by and I let him pick from the boots he thought he night need. I waited around for a while as no one was wanting to jump the K50 yet and I wasn't going to bother jumping the K25. A few takers showed up and we still had no real flagger/coach for the hill and everyone else was pretty much anxious but still not willing to move.

Finally as the second round of the competition on the small hills was getting underway some jumpers started to work their way over to jump inn. We suited up and headed up the hill. Since there was a group of three seniors about 5-6 high school kids and oe junior jumper present we decided to flag each other. The flow of jumpers coming up the hill was going to be plenty.

We headed up the jump and I stayed behind to flag the first couple of jumpers. I walked on up the tressel and after waiting on a couple more kids and Bill, I put on my skis and got lined up with the track. Everything to this point seemed totally natural.

I started down the inrun and I noticed something really weird. You could say it was the spookiest experience I've ever had ski jumping. I won't call it nerves but the mind was playing all sorts of tricks on me. It almost like the mind didn't want me jumping.

I hit the takeoff and managed to grab somewhere around a 30 meter jump. I knew the jump wasn't worth a crap. I also knew the thoughts going down the inrun were very unnatural.

I walked back up and I got my turn once again. I started down the inrun and things seemed better but it still didn't seem like normal. I jumped at the takeoff and it was a better jump than the one before. I landed and I'm not sure what happened but I ended up going down. I started sliding and the skis came off and I saw that it looked like one of them, if not me, was going to go in the brook. I ended up staying on the bridge and one of the skis came to a stop on the outrun side of the brook right after it cleared the bridge. The other started rolling back down the small bit a drop toward the transition and stairs. It was looking to go off the side of the bridge. I got up and ran and grabbed the ski. All this same time I could tell I had made the hole in the suit much bigger than it was before. Also this time I had managed to rip the more than just the suit.

After grabbing the ski I noticed the front throw was missing. I looked back up the outrun and saw it laying there. I knew my day was over. I walked over and picked it up. Their was only one screw still in it. I picked up the other ski and started the walk back toward the jump inn. After getting to the jump inn I changed clothes and saw I went through everything. The hole in the suit was more noticable, the sweatpants I had on had a big hole in them and my underwear underneath the jump suit had a hole in the butt on them as well. Now I also had none of the screws remaining from the front throw. I knew my day was over. I didn't really care.

I guess I called it pretty good yesterday, "If the rest of the season has been any kind of indication as to what tomorrow will bring...it should be interesting what reality will hold for me." So far the winter has been the crappiest winter I've had for ski jumping in the nine years I've been jumping. No consistency of getting out to jump as one thing or another always ends up interrupting. I always seem to get cut short no matter what. It just hasn't been the winter that I could have ever expected, wanted or planned.

You could say I find myself right now saying "Is spring here yet." Yeah, I'm ready for this winter to be over. I have a very strong feeling I only have two more weekend days of jumping left this winter. McCrillis Cup and Mud Meet. Otherwise I think I'm going to end up doing other things this winter on the weekends. Why fight a losing battle.

Crash

Jumping Journal: January 23, 2009

2009-01-23T22:47:00.001-05:00

As with anything...plans don't always go quite as expected.

Instead out jumping at Newport last night like I had planned I instead found myself flagging/coaching for Ron, the Sunapee High School coach as he was doing hill work getting the hill looking good for tonight's high school meet. Anotherwords...I didn't see one single jump last night. I had the jump suit on and the skis were restig by a tree just a few yards from me but that's all the further they ever made it.

I figured today would stand a much better chance at getting a few jumps in and I was right, to a certain extent. I arrived at the hill around 1:30PM to help Ron finish up getting ready for thekids to arrive around 4:30 for practice before the 6PM start of the jump meet. Between finishing up painting the lines on the landing hill, recutting the bottom half of the track on the K30 side of the tressel, doing some inrun decorating, it pretty much ate up the time we had available. Admittedly, locking the keys in the jump inn, err locking us out didn't help any to save any extra time. LOL!!! It can happen to anyone.

As the kids started to arrive from the schools that were going to be competing in the meet I suited up to take some jumps with them during practice. I normally jump until the tressel starts to get crowded and then I let the kids have the hill for the remainder of the practice. I normally end up getting 3-4 jumps in as a result of doing it this way.

I walked up and decided to jump the K25 side first, just for kicks. The jump I took left more than a lot to be desired. I think have the decorations on the tressel kinda threw me. It's been quite a while since I have jumped with a hill looking that nice. The landing hill was SPECTACULAR!

I decided to go on up to the K30 and do the rest of my jumping from up there. Since we had recut the track on the K30 it did look a lot nicer than the K25 side. I took the first jump and it was pretty much a repeat of the previous jump I had just taken. I was surprised that I could take two jumps in a row that would stink as bad as they did.

I walked up for the second jump on the K30 and it was a bit better but not by much. I still wasn't very pleased with it. The jumps on Wednesday on either the 25 or 30 were much better. I had jumped late and that did help to shorten the jump distance.

The third and final jump of the afternoon was a bit better than the one before it. I still wasn't making it very far down the hill like I should have been. At least my timing on the final jump was getting better. It still seemed like I was messing everything else up with the jump though. I just couldn't get myself feeling anywhere near as comfortable as I was Wednesday night. I'm not sure if it was all the extra kids that were around or what it was.

Tomorrow should be a full day of jumping on the K50 in Lebanon. I haven't said that in quite a long while. With the jump meet tomorrow being in Lebanon I hope to get 15-20 jumps of the K50. If the rest of the season has been any kind of indication as to what tomorrow will bring...it should be interesting what reality will hold for me.

Crash

Jumping Journal: January 21, 2009

2009-01-21T21:56:00.000-05:00

Second day in a row. The world must be coming to an end. A little sketchy!

Well, it finally happened. I have been waiting for this day for a quite a while. I thought it was going to happen last year and I had this nice big plan all made up and then poof...it disappeared for the entire winter.

After spending a good deal of time the past few days working at the Newport jump it was finally time to get out there and jump the crazy hill for the first time in almost two years.

First things first though...as always. It still needed to have a track cut on the inrun. Ron has a group of newbie jumpers this winter. I'm guessing this is the first time he hasn't had a least one returning high school jumper from the previous season in the 25-30 years he has coached the team. I know its the first time in the nine years I have been jumping that I have seen all new faces on the hill. Having a track on the jump would help the new kids to feel more comfortable about jumping it since they haven't jumped anything much bigger than a K18.

I arrived around 2PM and a couple of kids and Ron was already there getting ready to head up the hill to cut the track. I put on my ski bibs and after gathering everything up we headed on up and got things setup to cut the track. Ron doesn't do it the same way as Cannonball does it in Lebanon. Cannonball stretches out a line that he follows all the way down. Ron adds a piece of pvc pipe to his hand hold and allows it to follow the grade boards down the inrun. This would create problems.

Ron and one of kids were guiding the tracksetter while one of the kids and I was manning the rope up top. The track on the K30 side was...well...anything but straight. It looked like it was going to be rather fun to jump, to put it modestly. They came back up and we cut the track on the K25 side and it was pretty much the same. I figured I was going to end up being the crash test dummy for the second day in a row.

We went back into the warming hut and suited up and headed on out to jump. There was three high school kids, one junior jumper(future high schooler) and myself out jumping. Part of the story about today was the junior jumper and the one of the high school kids are related to each other, and they are also related to the man that helped to get the K30 tressel brought down from Lake Placid, NY to Newport back 30+ years ago. Yes, Dave the father of junior jumper showed up and watched his son jump. Hopefully we can get him to put the skis on again sometime real soon. It was fun jumping with him last winter.

I did the unthinkable and walked out the warming hut and walked over to the knoll and put my skis on. I was going to ride the landing hill. Such an evil thought. Granted I was stalling time as well as I know Newport has the tendency to have a rougher landing hill/outrun than most jumps so I figured I would play it safe.

Fortunately on of the kids didn't take much time in deciding he was ready to jump. He walked up and I followed behind him. I knew either side of the tressel was going to be interesting to say the least. I watched him take his first jump and then I put my skis on. I got the signal and started down the inrun. The top wasn't bad but about the time I hit the table I got bounced nicely. It was the only bounce but it was the one that threw me the worst. I jumped, like crap, at the takeoff and went pretty much nowhere. It was one of the worst jumps I've had in a long time. I rode the landing hill and outrun without any problems. It was surprising it was in the best shape I've seen it in a long time. I only noticed a small bump right as I came out of the transition on the landing hill.

I went up for the second jump and it was a bit better. I was more prepared for it the second time around. The third time around I was even more prepared. I was starting to get close to landing where I would normally land in the past when I jumped at Newport. I realized I wasn't jumping around the knee like I normally would be. I knew it would take more getting used to the inrun before that would happen.

After the next jump I noticed one of the kids put in a V on his jump. I have a feeling it wasn't planned but it just happened by mistake. I decided since my jumps were quickly getting back to where they should be, longest I've ever had at Newport, I might as well add in the V.

I come down the inrun and jump and go nicely into a small V. I'm not sure what happened as I went to land but something occured. I ended up going down and biting it nicely in the soft snow. Ron yelled down and said "They couldn't call you Crash if you don't crash."

I walked back up and went for another, much nicer jump but strangely didn't hae quite as nice of a V as the jump before it. It almost seemed like I'm a bit hesitant to open into a V on the K25 side of the Newport jump.

As I got back up to the knoll I noticed one of the kids was up on the K30 side of the tressel getting ready to jump it for the first time this winter. I had been waiting hoping not to be the first one to jump it. After being the first person off the K25 and K50 at Lebanon I figured I would argue about someone else being the first person to jump either side of the jump at Newport. I also wanted to watch and see how bad the carnage was going to be since the jog in the track was further down the inrun than it was on the K25 side.

He jumped and I noticed the jog was quite abrupt and quite 'bruttle'. I put on my skis and got the signal from Ron. I headed down the inrun and hit the jog and it was wicked to say the least. It was worse than I thought it was going to be. I'm glad I was on the whole foot and on both feet. It was a full right/left switch in the the track in a very short distance after you already have some nice speed built up. I made it the takeoff and had another crappy jump. I managed to hold onto the jump even though I thought I was going to lose it right as I was coming out of the transition.

I walked up and took one final jump for the evening off the K30. It was a bit better. I was a bit more prepared for what was about to happen, thankfully. Tomorrow night should only get better as I get more used to the track.

I was going to spend a lot of time last winter jumping in Newport since it's only 5-10 minutes from my house and Lebanon is 35 minutes or so from my house. Since things just never cooperated to get the jump in shape last winter it never got jumped and I spent all my time in Lebanon jumping the K50. Hopefully this winter, at least through high school season, mid February, I will be able to get quite a bit of jumping in on the Newport jump. Right now I'm planning some jumping each of the next two days. Gotta make up for lost time.

Crash

Jumping Journal: January 20, 2009

2009-01-20T22:10:00.000-05:00

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