SALISBURY — Jumpfest 2025 attracted thousands of guests to Satre Hill for a weekend of ski jumping, traditional treats, bonfires and brews Feb. 1 and 2.
Typically a three-day event, Friday night’s festivities were canceled due to rainy conditions, which made for slick slopes on Saturday and Sunday.
Saturday was bright, clear and on the cold side in the mid-20s, with an irregular wind that the jumpers had to be mindful of. Snowflakes were flying when the action kicked off at about 9 a.m. with the youth competitions on the K20 jump.
Youth ski jumpers gather at the landing zone to recognize the national anthem before the Eastern U.S. Ski Jumping Championship began at Satre Hill.Lans Christensen
“It’s very winterlike here at Satre Hill,” said WZBG Radio’s Dale Jones, who once again assumed announcing duties for the competition. Gusty winds had fortunately mostly abated for the jumpers of smaller stature, with windows of sunshine intermittently breaking through the flurries and illuminating the paint-streaked landing hill.
SWSA’s own Caleb Bodwell, who placed 2nd last year, put down a sizable 10-meter jump. Shortly after, Catherine Chor flew 11.5 meters, the furthest of the day so far.
Henry Loher flew farther than any other competitor at Jumpfest 2025, gliding 71meters on Sunday, Feb. 2.Randy O’Rourke
Larry Stone, a ski jumping coach in winter sports mecca Lake Placid, New York and Chief of Competition for the weekend, said that Catherine’s sister Caroline would be one to watch later in the day in the older age group. The sisters train together at their local jumping facility in Hanover, New Hampshire, Stone explained: “They’re a good twosome.”
Temperatures dropped as the day went on, and in response the two bonfires flanking the landing of the big jump kept growing. Lakeville local Fisher Rydingsword was stoking the flames with scrap wood, a picnic table and seemingly infinite pallets. At 16 years old, this is his eighth year tending to the fires, and he likes the work: “It gives me an excuse to play with fire,” he said as he heaved another pallet atop the blaze.
Youth cross-country skiers depart.Alec Linden
The Cook Shack was busy around mealtime, as was the food truck offering pulled pork and mac and cheese.
To wash it down fans could choose between craft beers or hot toddies made with bourbon or rum as the main ingredient. The action was steady here too.
Some fans coped with the wind with tent-like shelters, but most were content to be bundled up and rely on the sun to stay warm. If that failed, there were the usual two bonfires on either side of the main jumping hill and a number of smaller fires in buckets and portable fire pits.
Hot toddies remain a staple treat at Jumpfest, plus SWSA bratwurst from the Cook Shack.Lans Christensen
Salisbury Central School eighth grade students Bryce Salmon, Quin Sheil and Tommy Downey prowled the crowd selling baked goods and handwarmers. The boys were raising funds for the annual class trip to Washington, D.C.
A little before 1 p.m., a well-prepared group were getting in the mood. Steve and Adrienne Fayette from Newtown and Rich and Amy Ferrari of Brookfield had comfy chairs and were well and warmly clad. They were fortifying themselves with salami, cheese and crackers and a bottle of red wine to start. Rich Ferrari said after that they’d get to the sandwiches.
“We love this event,” he said.
Ski jumpers pack into the shuttle truck for a lift back up to the K65 jump on Sunday, Feb. 2.Randy O’Rourke
At about 2 p.m. fans were still coming into Satre Hill. The parking lot was completely full, and people were sticking their cars wherever they could and hoofing it.
Sunday saw less wind and grayer skies for the Eastern U.S. Ski Jumping Championships with temperatures remaining more solidly in the mid-20s. These were good, fast conditions explained Jones, and the jumpers took advantage, putting on a spectacle of flight for the crowd.
The tone of the afternoon, though still joyous, was less boisterous and more focused than on Saturday. As skiers dropped in from their perch high on the tower, a hush would fall over the crowd, broken by cheers and the clang of more cowbells once the skis returned to snow.
Caleb Bodwell lands a jump on the K20 hill.Tom Brown
Salisbury’s own Islay Sheil surpassed 40-meters on her best Sunday jump. Sheil, who is 14, is the first SWSA youth athlete to have jumped the K65 since SWSA coach Seth Gardner jumped it in his early days, Spencer Taylor said.
Colin Delaney, who described himself as the “official/unofficial” coach of the Eastern Ski Jumping and Nordic Combined team, said that Jumpfest is a vital component to the national circuit. “It’s a really important hill size for training,” he said, emphasizing that the event “brings together athletes with different goals in the sport.”
Bonfires keep guests warm on crisp winter days.Lans Christensen
While the Eastern Championship is a wrap, jumping season is far from over. Loher, who emerged from Jumpfest highly decorated, will be competing at the Junior World Championships on Feb. 11, while other jumpers on the team will travel to Park City, Utah for the Junior National Championships on Feb. 22.
Jumpfest 2025 was well attended with an estimated 1,600 guests on Saturday and 1,500 on Sunday.
See 99th Jumpfest competitors soar to great heights for official Jumpfest results.
The SWSA crew maintains the slope at Satre Hill.Randy O’Rourke
Contemporary chamber musicians, HUB, performing at The Clark.
MASS MoCA is known for its 20th-century holdings spread throughout a sprawling complex of industrial brick buildings. Installations by Sol LeWitt and James Turrell have permanent homes there. Just down the road in Williamstown, the Clark features masterworks by Winslow Homer, Frederic Remington, John Singer Sargent and Claude Monet.
But what visitors might not immediately associate with those established names is how deeply both institutions invest in art happening right now.
On Saturday afternoon, a panel of young artists discussed their relationships with art, identity and technology as part of MASS MoCA’s “Technologies of Relation” exhibition, which opened that evening. The artists represented a broad range of cultural backgrounds, drawing on ancestry while exploring the future of art and technology.
The work itself ran the gamut: wax relief paintings, stained glass, interactive video and sculptural installations. One immersive piece automated the traditional Armenian practice of reading fortunes from coffee grounds. Particularly striking were Roopa Vasudevan’s hand-drawn QR codes and Taeyoon Choi’s large-scale weavings of binary code.
Opening the same night was Zora J. Murff’s “RACE/HUSTLE.” Through photographs, paintings and installations, Murff explores the wide-ranging and sometimes violent implications of being Black in America today. Each piece — whether confronting the rise of white supremacy or examining stereotypes imposed on Black communities — carries razor-sharp visual commentary designed to unsettle.
Pelenakeke Brown’s “Reverb” (detail) at Mass MoCA. D.H. Callahan
On Sunday, the Clark continued the contemporary thread. A small exhibition of work by Raffaella della Olga, titled “Typescript,” features intricate patterns created using a typewriter on varied paper surfaces. The effect seems almost impossible until viewers watch a video of della Olga loading her typewriter with 140-grit sandpaper and typing in a hypnotic rhythm. Though the typewriter is considered obsolete technology, she continues to find new applications for it, completing some of the works in recent months.
Next door in the Clark auditorium, HUB New Music performed works written specifically for its unusual instrumentation: violin, cello, clarinet and flute. While that combination may not stand out to casual listeners, relatively little classical repertoire exists for it. The ensemble regularly commissions composers to expand the possibilities.
The results were striking. From the opening notes of Francisco del Pino’s “Passacaglia,” the quartet’s command and layered repetition pulled unexpected emotion from the audience.
After three pieces came the world premiere of Daniel Wohl’s “Mirage,” a roughly 25-minute work accompanied by digital blips, static and electronic textures evoking radio transmissions and UFO lore. Hearing four virtuoso musicians extract entirely new sounds from traditional instruments echoed the weekend’s larger theme: old tools made new again.
Like della Olga’s typewriter, Vasudevan’s QR codes or Murff’s charged imagery, the performances demonstrated that contemporary art often grows from familiar materials — reimagined.
The old masters will always draw visitors to these institutions. But when living artists command equal attention, this quiet corner of the Berkshires feels less like the middle of nowhere and more like a creative epicenter.
D.H. Callahan is a voice actor, creative director and trail steward. He lives with his artist wife in West Cornwall, Connecticut.
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