I am a volunteer coach for the junior jumpers at our local ski club. I helped build several of the hills and help shovel and pack snow on the scaffolds and landing hills. Before Christmas we shoveled snow on the inrun (scaffolds) on our junior hills, then cut a track with a powered track cutter and then iced it. Then it all melted off, so we will have to do it again. Lousy winter for skiing. I helped put plastic on our hills so the kids can train in the summer. We have plastic on 3 of our junior hills. Needless to say the kids are disappointed as they jumped on plastic all summer and now that its winter they can't because of lack of snow and warm rainy weather. I also volunteer as an official at our annual tournament on our olympic sized hill. Our Mountain Bike Club has trails that go up beside the jumps.
Putting the plastic on our 25 meter junior hill.
Our 10 and 25 meter junior hills with plastic for summer jumping.
Our 40 meter junior hill with plastic on the left, our 60 meter junior hill in the middle without plastic and our Olympic 100 meter normal hill on the right for junior and senior jumpers. Kids 12 and up for the big one. Our 20 and 25 meter hills are to the right of the big hill and don't show in this photo.
Our youngest volunteer shoveling excess snow off our 100 meter hill just before a tournament. Keeping up a ski jump is so much work that I can't even begin to explain it. Talk about a dirty job! Almost all our volunteers are 60 to 89 years old and there aren't that many of us.
If you get a blizzard the day of the tournament you have to get volunteers to shovel it off. I think preparing our ski jumps should be the North Country's answer to the Southern chain gang. Note the crampons for foot traction on the hard packed landing under the soft snow we are shoveling off.
As I said there aren't that many of us and we are all old. Very few young people are volunteering anymore. They lack the work ethic for the most part. I have been doing this work since the early 70s. All the other volunteers have been at it much longer so don't tell me it is because all the volunteers are retired and have nothing better to do.
This makes it all worthwhile, to see the kids jump. The blizzard let up and visibility was poor. The hill was in perfect condition, thanks to volunteers. It was windy but if you can't jump in squirrely winds then you have no business on an Olympic sized hill.
Some of our kids
Video of wind tunnel training with the USA Women's Ski Jump Team. Our club used to do this with an old bus with the body cut off and wire fencing to keep everyone inside and a harness to hold the jumper in the wind screen. We had to exceed the speed limit. Three years ago we junked the bus as it was sinking into the ground. I think it should have been preserved in the Rube Goldberg Hall of Fame.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_he1qGnsBs
