Here is the story around the cliff jumping. After some fresh powder hunting, I got to a point where my only choice was either to climb back, or to jump the cliff. I got close to the edge and it seems to me that there was a lot of fresh powder to cushion my landing. It didn’t seem too high neither (optical illusion). And Ben, who was below (but pretty far – he took the video), said that the landing seemed clear. I was wrong on 3 aspects: 1) It was way higher than I thought (10-15 feet?) 2) The landing was not clear: there was a big hole that Ben couldn’t see from afar; I have missed it by a few cm (good thing that I had taken good momentum) 3) The landing snow was not fresh powder but rather Spring-like hard packed snow, so the cushion was less cushiony than it was supposed to be. Anyhow, this was still a fun jump, though the landing was not very graceful! ;o) But next time, I’ll be more careful… After that I jumped, there was another guy (Rudy – he was also in my bus) who got at the same spot that I was by trying to find a safe way down; he didn’t want to jump the cliff, so he took off his board and tried to climb back; unfortunately, he slid and fell off the cliff(!). By some good luck, he didn’t get hurt. Skiing in the West can be a dangerous sport… ;o) See www.cs.berkeley.edu for a picture of the landing.
