Catching Tiny Air

With all the snow that came down recently, I took the opportunity to catch some tiny air.

The first step is to find a slope. I could go down the street, where a park has a small hill. But I also had (if the local TV weather guy has it right) 1,800 pounds of snow sitting in my driveway.

At least half of that snow got piled up into a corner of the yard, into a mound roughly 4 feet high and 6 feet in diameter. There was a fair amount of compacting to do, which I did in a haphazard manner, namely, pounding it with my hands and falling on it.

The second step was to build a kicker. It is about 3 feet from the base of the pile, roughly the width of two boards, and about a foot high. Maybe not even that.

Climbing to the top of the pile is a bit difficult; it’s best to not try to walk on the surface (the snow is not that compact), but instead to take a step, let your foot sink in, take another, and so forth. Three or steps are all that is required.

Once I top I placed the board down, and put one foot on the board, smoothing out the area and compacting it some more.

Getting both feet into the bindings is a bit tricky; a wrong move could send me crashing down a side of the mound, taking out a large part of it in the process. But I was able to work it out, and so far have taken 6 “runs,” down the slope, across the short distance to the kicker, into the air by perhaps a foot, and then sliding for another 10 to 20 feet.

It isn’t much, but my “air” time has begun.