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Max Fey jumped 70.5 meters in the U16 championship, the longest of the day on Feb. 4.
Randy O’Rourke
Max Fey jumped 70.5 meters in the U16 championship, the longest of the day on Feb. 4.
SALISBURY — Jumpfest 2024 was filled with constant competition at Satre Hill.
The action began on Friday, Feb. 2 with target jumping under the lights. Cooper Dodds won $500 in prize money donated by the Churchill family. He landed on the paint for a 65-meter jump.
The fan-favorite Human Dogsled Race did not disappoint. Enthusiastic teams dashed across the snow with a custom carriage in tow.
Saturday morning started with U10 females jumping on the 20-meter hill, which was won by Maple Billings of Brattleboro, Vermont. The “six-and-a-half” year-old jumped 10-meters and her combined point total from two jumps earned her 83.9 points, followed by SWSA’s Oona Mascavage with 31.9 points, then SWSA’s Aerin Sheil at 29.9 points.
In the U10 male category Wyeth Taylor earned gold with a total of 118.9 points, followed by silver medalist Caleb Bodwell at 100.4 points and bronze medalist Henry Sheil at 46.8 points. All U10 male athletes represented SWSA at Jumpfest.
Leila Fey of New York Ski Educational Foundation (NYSEF) won the U12 female competition with a total of 144.5 points. Ford Sayre’s Ava Joyal took second with 102.8 points and Catherine Chor placed third with 122.9 points.
The U12 male group was won by Dylan Cote of Ford Sayre with 152.2 total points. Andover Outing Club’s Ethan Gong took second with 141.6 points and Lebanon Outing Club’s Elet McCusker placed third with 136.4 points.
Three female SWSA jumpers competed in the K20 Open. Victoria Bertapelle won with 119.3 points, follow by Alexandra Philipp with 87.9 points and Bridget Metcalf with 84.3 points.
Proctor Academy’s Burke Pekala earned gold in the K20 Open male group with 162.3 points and the longest jump of the day from this hill: 15.5 meters. Matthew Tourville of Andover Outing Club took silver at 141.9 points and Wesley Leonard of Ford Sayre got bronze with 133.3 points.
Action the moved over to the 30-meter hill. Andover Outing Club’s Hailey Garnsey was the lone competitor in the K30 Open female group. She jumped 19 meters and earned 91 total points.
Burke Pekala won the K30 Open male category with a long jump of 29.5 meters and 196.5 points. Spencer Jones of Harris Hill Nordic placed second at 179.5 points and Boyd Schaefer took third with 161.5 points.
Saturday’s action concluded with The Salisbury Invitational on the Big Hill, a 65-meter jump. The US Cup K65 female group got things started. Caroline Chor of Ford Sayre took gold with 85.9 points, followed by Andover’s Kerry Tole at 36.9 points and SWSA’s Islay Sheila at 32.9 points.
Jack Kroll of NYSEF took gold in the US Cup K65 male group with the longest jump of the weekend, a whopping 71 meters, and 241.4 total points. His teammates Henry Loher and Max Fey took second and third with 228.4 and 214.1 points respectively.
In the Senior and Masters K65, Evan Nichols jumped 70.5 meters, Cooper Dodds jumped 61 meters, and Seth Garden jumped 58 meters.
Sunday began with the 2024 Eastern U.S. Ski Jumping Championship to determine the eastern division of the Junior National Team.
In the Female K65 competition, Caroline Chor took gold with 83.6 points, followed by Kerry Tole 34.4 points and Islay Sheil with 21.1 points.
The U16 male title was won by Henry Loher with 237.3 points. Max Fey took second with 228.7 points and NYSEF’s Eli Larkin took third with 191.6 points.
Jack Kroll earned gold in the U20 male category with a 68-meter jump and 215.5 points. NYSEF’s Schuyler Klapp took silver with 191 points and Andover’s Mychal Reynolds took bronze with 116.1 points.
Jumpfest concluded with Evan Nichols and Seth Gardner competing in the Senior K65. Nichols won with a leap of 68 meters and Gardner maxed out at 46 meters.
Abstract art display in Wassaic for Upstate Art Weekend, July 18-21.
WASSAIC — Art enthusiasts from all over the country flocked to the Catskill Mountains and Hudson Valley to participate in Upstate Art Weekend, which ran from July 18 to July 21.
The event, which “celebrates the cultural vibrancy of Upstate New York”, included 145 different locations where visitors could enjoy and interact with art.
On Saturday, July 20, The Wassaic Project hosted numerous community events. Will Hutnick, the director of artistic programming, said “We’ve been a part of it since the beginning, this is the fifth year of UPAW.”
Most of the action was based at Maxon Mills, the seven-floor grain mill located in the heart of Wassaic. On exhibit was work from 30 artists, 18 of whom were past residents of The Wassaic Project. “Artists can come and do a residency here, meaning they live and work with one another for a couple months at a time,” Hutnick stated.
The first floor held work by Petra Szilagyi, who uses dirt and linseed oil to construct images of paranormal concepts, most of which include bats. They reflected that a recent trip to a fifth sense competition in Vietnam was the influence behind the exhibit.
Across the floor was Tiffany Smith’s interactive installation which incorporated plants and wicker chairs, all of which were objects associated with her Carribean upbringing. “The room being filled with plants is symbolic of hurricane prep which often included bringing the plants from outside into the house,” Smith said.
As visitors made their way up the narrow wooden stairs, music could be heard from behind the walls. The echoing music was Daniel Shieh’s installation, entitled Mother’s Anthem, which played a recording of the American Anthem in 30 languages. The languages ranged from Spanish and Italian to Navajo and Bengali.
Each floor was filled with artwork of all mediums, including painting, fibers, collage and photography. Rachel Bussières, who switched her concentration after watching the 2017 solar eclipse, uses varying light sources to produce lumen prints. During the wildfires, she recounted that she “made a new exposure each day to capture the changing air quality”.
Luciana Abait also incorporates the natural world into her pieces, instead using maps. An environmental activist originally from Argentina, Abait’s work highlights “environmental fragility, specifically the impacts it has on immigrants.” Her installation that is currently on display at Maxon Mills, takes the form of a mountain range built solely from maps of the US and Argentina.
Throughout the day, visitors could “Arm Wrestle 4 A Popsicle”. Winners had the choice of 3 playfully flavored trout-inspired popsicles - Nightcrawler, Power Bait, and Salmon Roe. Artist Katie Peck, who spent the day in costume as a rainbow trout, encouraged guests to step up and try their hand at an arm wrestle.
Shibori Indigo dyeing, group meditation, and dance workshops were open for community members of all ages as well.
While the daytime activities fostered appreciation of fixed art, a dance party until midnight at The Lantern Inn offered guests a space for performative art.
When describing the environment of The Wassaic Project, Smith emphasized, “It’s all community, it’s all love.”
A serene scene from the Amenia garden tour.
AMENIA — The much-anticipated annual Amenia Garden Tour drew a steady stream of visitors to admire five local gardens on Saturday, July 13, each one demonstrative of what a green thumb can do. An added advantage was the sense of community as neighbors and friends met along the way.
Each garden selected for the tour presented a different garden vibe. Phantom’s Rock, the garden of Wendy Goidel, offered a rocky terrain and a deep rock pool offering peaceful seclusion and anytime swims. Goidel graciously welcomed visitors and answered questions about the breathtaking setting.
Amenia Finance Director Charlie Miller welcomed visitors to his Bog Hollow Road garden in Wassaic, a manicured expansive yard with well-placed garden beds framing a far-reaching view. He said he plans carefully each winter for the next spring’s improvement.
The organic, environmentally responsible Maitri Farm was next, a lesson in coordinating agriculture with natural balance. The farm stand and a walk among the greenhouses brought visitors together.
Near the center of Amenia was the garden of Polly Pitts-Garvin, offering a chance to visit a robust vegetable garden with raised beds to be envious of and a remarkable absence of any insects or usual vegetable garden problems.
At Chez Cheese, the vast garden acreage surrounding the 1850s historic home of Joan Feeney and Bruce Phillips in Millerton, visitors could begin at refreshment stations where walking tour maps of the 15-acre property were available. There were streams and ponds with docks, and a dozen bridges arranged around the landscape. In the 19th-century, the property had been the home of the Wilson Cheese Factory, inspiring the name of the estate.
The Amenia Garden Tour was supported this year by Paley’s Garden Center in Sharon.
Gary Dodson working a tricky pool on the Schoharie Creek, hoping to lure something other than a rock bass from the depths.
PRATTSVILLE, N.Y. — The Schoharie Creek, a fabled Catskill trout stream, has suffered mightily in recent decades.
Between pressure from human development around the busy and popular Hunter Mountain ski area, serious flooding, and the fact that the stream’s east-west configuration means it gets the maximum amount of sunlight, the cool water required for trout habitat is simply not as available as in the old days.
This is not a new phenomenon. It does seem to be getting worse, though.
Gary Dodson and I convened where the creek makes its final run into the Schoharie reservoir, part of the New York City water supply system, on a semi-broiling Thursday afternoon, July 11.
The goal was simple. Catch smallmouth bass, which abound in the lower section of the river.
This was hot stuff — as in an 80-degree water temperature.
The air temperature was actually slightly less at 77.
After negotiating the intensely slippery rocks, festooned with treacherous algae, the first major pool presented several difficulties, with a back eddy competing with a main flow and several large trees draped about the whole thing.
I hit on the simplest strategy, which was to flip a weighted attractor fly called a Tequilley into the start of the eddy so it would proceed slowly but steadily into the maelstrom, sinking all the while.
This worked. A proper adult smallmouth, with bronze coloring and vertical stripes, took the thing.
The point-and-shoot camera finally died, however, and I was not going to try to fumble my phone out for a nice but routine fish photo.
Why not?
Because I guarantee the fish would have made a sudden, last-moment bolt for freedom, causing me to drop the device into the drink.
Gary moved downstream while I continued trying to annoy the residents of the pool, succeeding a couple of times with different colored Wooly Buggers.
Then we all got bored and I moved off, where Gary was catching rock bass and cussing them out for not being something else.
I have to admit, they are not the most compelling critters. Something about the red eyes.
This latest trip was dominated by extremely tedious and distasteful Harry Homeowner activities, but on both Wednesday and Thursday mornings I prowled Woodland Valley Creek. By “morning” I mean “dawn,” because that was when the water temps were down to a barely acceptable 64.
I made the acquaintance of several stocked browns and of a handful of their wild cousins. The wild fish are smaller and nimbler.
The successful ploy was an Adams wet fly, size 16, drifted behind something big, like a Parachute Adams or Stimulator.