He floats through the air…

This weekend is the annual Harris Hill Ski Jump competition. I accidentally found the ramp a few months ago on a run, but today we got to see it in use… probably the only time all year it gets any use at all.

And it seemed implausible that they would go at all, given that it was damn near 50 degrees out yesterday and today. All that snow is man-made, 100%, and they had to cancel the practice jumps to save what little snow there was. Still, the show must go on, and it did.

We walked over after lunch and caught the final round of jumps, picking up a discounted ticket of uncertain provenance from a couple of kids on the way in.

The jumpers are amazing… they fly anywhere from about 60 meters to almost 100 meters, and then they land softly. The landing area is way crazy steep, which I guess it has to be to absorb all that energy. The skis are ginormous, but I learned that FIS rules limit their length to 146% of body height. For me that would be about 265 cm… slightly longer than the 203s that were popular back in the day.

Great beer from McNeill’s, and a nice crowd of people… just another ridiculously interesting event, right in our own neighborhood.