Lake Placid Water Ramps

Lake Placid Water Ramps
by John Wilkins

Dillon Calderone warming up on the tramp

    The Lake Placid Water Ramps, located at the Olympic Jumping Complex (OJC), in Lake Placid, New York, is a summer training facility for Arialists, and Freeride Skiers and Snowboarders.
    Their are three olympic trampolines for warming up on before you ramp as well as for learning tricks you want to do on the ramp. The tramps help you understand where you are in the air, the rotation, and what axis’s you want to spin on before you go and try it on the ramps.
    The OJC also has three different water ramps which are jumps that you can hit on skis, snowboards, or even snow blades if you want. The three different ramps are The Single, Double and Triple, named by the number of flips each ramp is ment for. The in run and take off is made out of hard plastic bristles that get watered down by the sprinkler system running down the in run which makes it so your skis or board can slide down it. When you drop in you have to have a strait line to your take off, and stay flat base because if you use your edge your going to hook and whip down into the bristles which will give you some really bad rug burn and cuts. When you can keep that flat base and strait line you pump threw the transition and pop (jump) as hard as you can then start your trick. The ramps are such a good training facility because when you hit it you land in a pool with air compressors at the bottom creating a softer landing so you can learn new tricks. This doesn’t mean you cant still get hurt though.
    The Single is mainly for Freeride Skiers and Snowboarders but also is used by the aerialists frequently. This ramp might be named the single but single flips is not the limitation for this ramp. It has an extension on the end of the take off that rises to make the jump bigger and steeper, and also has a normal drop in point and a much higher drop in point to choose from depending on how much speed and air you want for your certain trick. Then if you really want to go as big as possible my friends and I would rub soap on the bases of our boards/skis and down the in run because it gives you an astonishing amount of speed.
    But as I mentioned earlier single flips are not the limitations for the single. The NYSEF(New York Ski Education Foundation) Freeride Team really stepped it up this summer.  Jake Doan, K.C. Brousseau, Dillon Calderone, David Cardany, Daniel Lillo, Keith Shipman, Justin Perry, and myself would be at the ramps three days a week, every week, for the entire summer and fall until last Friday October, 15th, 2010.  Five of our seven athletes learned at least one double flip or double cork, and a couple of us learned multiple doubles differentiating in the amount of rotations and what axis’s are being used.  One of our Freestyle skiers K.C. Brousseau, learned at least five different doubles including; double back, double front, and double cork 1260 spinning both ways left and right (natural and un-natural).
    The Double is the first of the two jumps that are only allowed to be hit on skis.  The in run is longer than the single and has a steeper take off than that of the single because this jump is made to send you more up than out, giving you time for your rotations in the air.  Given the name “Double” its obviously for working on strait double flips and double flips with spins such as "Full", "Full" which is a back flip 360 to a back flip 360 in one air.

John Wilkins hitting the Single

    Then the last of the three jumps is called “The Triple” as you might have guessed this one is for learning and working on triple flips with and without spins.  You have to be a little out of your mind to hit this.  Dropping in at speeds around 65 mph you hit a jump bigger than all the others, then you have to do three controlled flips spot your landing and land absolutely perfect in order to not hurt yourself.  The jump is so steep, and you get so much speed and air that you are not aloud to hit it and do anything less than a triple back flip.  I have one friend from the ramps that I know that hit the triple and he hits it everyday he ramps.  His name is Neven Brown and he lives at the Olympic Training Center, training for the next Olympics.  When the bubbles turn on for him in the pool and he is ready to drop in everyone cant help but watch.  He drops in and just flies down the ramp, then pops off of the take off and does tricks like Full, double full, full (back flip 360, to back flip 720, to back flip 360 all in one air).
    Every Wednesday of the summer ORDA (Olympic Regional Development Authority) hosts the “Wet & Wild Wednesday show”.  The Wet & Wild Wednesday Show is when people can come to the Water Ramps and sit on the bleachers and benches around the pool to watch aerialists and freeriders hit the ramp.
    This summer was my first time jumping in the show and it was a lot of fun.  Their is a jumping order and everyone gets two jumps.  It starts with the freeriders , then goes into an aerialist program showing the different variety of tricks.  After that its basically a repeat, Freeriders then aerialists, but with different tricks.  Finally once they get threw everyone's two jumps the finale starts.  In the finale their is a person standing on top of the take off while someone drops in on skis or a board.  Once the skier is about 3 seconds from running into the person standing on the take off, that person jumps off so that as they hit the water the skier is jumping over them.  A few seconds after the first line of skiers drop in on each of the three ramps a second line of skiers drop in and jump over the person who jumped off of the take off, as well as the skier who dropped in before them.  If you decide to visit Lake Placid in the summer time I would have to suggest to go check out the Water Ramps and the Wet and Wild Wednesday show.