[at-l] Salisbury Hoax

[Ryan Crawford]

Okay...Felix can get away with this than so can I.  I have to get this off
my chest before tomorrow gets here and I head for my second trip down south
in as many years.

Back in 1997 when I thru-hiked the AT everything was going along fine until
one day in late July.  I had been through some warm/hot weather down in
NJ/NY area.  The day in question wasn't all that bad, low 80s from what I
remember and humid, according to my journal.  I came out to a river
crossing, maybe Falls Village, CT (for that matter, Felix).  It was the last
road before you got to US 44 going into Salisbury.

After crossing the river, if I remember correctly, I re-entered the woods
and started to notice that I was a bit on the dehydrated side.  I started
cramping up.  I drank the last bit of my water and continued to head toward
the shelter.  I got to Limestone Springs Lean-To with the thunder and rain
already underway.  I quickly grabbed some water from the source and settled
in for the night.  It would be one of only four night on the thru-hike that
I would have a shelter all to myself.

Now the scary part was how dehydrated I was.  I didn't realize I had certain
muscles in my body until they started cramping on me.  Yes, it was that bad.

I woke up the next morning and decided to play it safe, walk to the road and
hitch into Salisbury, where I planned on resupplying anyways.  Once in town
I would pretty much take it easy and just drink up massively.  I got to the
road and ended up rather quickly getting a hitch from a gentleman that had
just returned from spending two year teaching in Ecquador.  Normally, I
would have walked the .8 mile into town but I wanted to get rehydrated
without doing any more damage.

I spent 8 hours sitting outside the health food store drinking water and
eating.  I finally left and headed on up and spent the night at the Riga
Lean-To.

Now if that was the end of the story, why bother telling it...

In 2001, after moving up to NH, I got into ski jumping.  Yes, that sport
where you have three jump facilities reasonably close to the AT.  One former
ski jump you walk right by the takeoff while on the trail, namely Bear
Mountain, NY.  Another we all used to camp just 100 yards from when the
ALDHA Gathering was in Hanover.  And yes, the third sets just .25 mile
"south" of the health food store in Salisbury, CT.

In 2001, I went down to the Salisbury meet on Valentines Day Weekend.  I was
planning on getting down there for practice that I thought was suppose to be
held on Friday evening.  I was wrong, it was Friday afternoon.  I ended up
spending the night crashed in my car at a rest area about 15-20 miles north
on town on Route 7.  I woke up Saturday morning and after eating breakfast I
made my way on into Salisbury and found the jumps.  Boy was I ever surprised
to see how close to downtown the jumps were.

The competition on the small hills(15 and 30 meter) was suppose to start at
9AM I believe, but ended up starting early.  The crowd normally doesn't form
until lunch time, about the time practice on the big hill(65 meter) is
getting over and right before the competition on the big hill begins at
around 1PM.

I thought I had arrived in enough time to get a couple of practice jumps in
but since they started early I didn't get any practice jumps at all.  You
could say it wasn't my best performance, BY A LONG SHOT.  I ended up
crashing each of the three competition jumps I took on the 15 meter hill.  I
felt like such a fool.  I quickly changed clothes and got the heck out of
town before anyone realized I was even there.

2003, after suffering most of the winter thanks to mind games that were
haunting me, I headed down once again to Salisbury for the annual jump meet.
This time I was going to jump on the 30 meter hill.  I was seriously
thinking about jumping the 65 meter jump, mostly out of frustration thanks
to the mind games, more than anything else.  As it turned out, I ended up
crashing 3 out of the 4 jumps I took on the 30 meter jump.  I quickly
changed clothes and got the heck out of town before anyone knew I was there.

Do you see a repeating pattern with bad luck in Salisbury.  Yeah, the
Salisbury Hoax as I like to call it.

2007.  I knew it was time to finally hit the 65 meter jump.  I also knew my
luck down in Salisbury, thus far, was not worth a darn.

On Tuesday and Wednesday leading into the week of the meet, this week last
year, I was up in Lake Placid, NY jumping.  I was hoping to jump the 90
meter jump for the first time.  Mother Nature had other plans.

Wednesday evening I get home and headed over to Andover, NH to watch one of
the high school ski jump meets.  I normally always grab a couple jumps with
the kids during practice.  On the first jump on the 38 meter hill I find
myself in a bit of an awakard position.  I get my weight so far back that I
almost end up sitting my butt down on the skis on the inrun.  It was not a
good jump to the say the least.  I landed it fine but it was not the jump I
was hoping for by a long shot.

Thursday evening I was jumping on the 50 meter hill in Lebanon, NH.  On the
first jump of the evening the same exact thing happened that occured on the
first jump on Wednesday evening.  I almost end up sitting down on the inrun.
This time it was definitely a bit of a scarier jump.  The results were the
same, fortunately.  I landed it fine and rode down the landing hill.

Now my mind was going off at me like mad.  Was the Salisbury Hoax alive and
well and just waiting for Friday to get here to bite me big time on the 65
meter jump.

I had registered the previous weekend for the meet.  A couple of nice things
about this meet:

1. Nice size crowd to cheer you on, generally a 1000 or more spectators over
the course of the weekend come out to watch the jump meet..
2. Host families to put up the jumpers for the weekend.

Well, number 2 would find me in an interesting situation.

I saw Curtis' phone number and looked it up online to see whereabout he
lived in the area.  It looked like he lived on US 44 east of town, back
toward the trail.  I was wondering though how close to the trail he lived.

I got into Salisbury on Friday afternoon.  I checked in at the jump site and
the lady in charge of registration had me call Curtis to get directions to
his place.  Since I saw he lived close to the trailhead I first asked him
which side of the trail he lived.  Turns out he lives right across the
highway from the trail crossing.  The Salisbury Hoax was growing bigger by
the minute.  I drive out to his house and sure enough he is literally right
across the highway from the trail crossing on US 44.

Well, to say the least I was a little antsy given what had happened the past
two evenings and what has happened each time I've been in Salisbury.

The weekend turned out quite nice.  Far better than I could have ever hoped
for.  I knew I would be going back again this year...this weekend.

Yes, this weekend I will be spending the weekend sleeping right across from
the trail crossing in Salisbury, CT.  One other strange thing I just noticed
while looking through the databook, at the listings just south of Salisbury.
Curtis' last name...Rand. No, I'm not joking.  Does it get any scarier than
this?

Ryan "MEANT 2B/err 'Crash' in ski jumping" Crawford
GAME 97, MSG 01, SRK 03, Cross Rivendall Trail 06