posted Sep 18th, 2006 - Colorado Skydiving League Director Travis Roth happily announced a successful conclusion of the 2006 season after last weekend's NSL Playoffs event at the Mile-Hi Skydiving Center.

"Our weather last weekend was surprisingly windy. A few loads took off early on Saturday morning, however the winds picked up to 50 MPH quickly. While a friend of mine had fun with a wingsuit running around Downtown Denver catching gusts of winds and the eyes of confused tourists, skydivers were not jumping anywhere in Colorado.

Sunday was forecast to be challenging at best, but it turned out to be a great day. Mile High Skydiving saw the potential for a busy day at hand, so they brought in another pilot and had plenty of turbine airpower for all their customers. Unfortunately, the winds picked up again Sunday afternoon. 15 to 20 MPH winds were the norm midday - allowing for two very funny moments, perfect to end the season. The first story featured an Air Force competitor jumping his larger canopy - issued for accuracy landings - without any penetration into the 18 MPH winds. He landed very safely and did the standard: pull in a toggle and run to the canopy to collapse it. What happened next was, well, unique.

Somehow in a milli-second he tripped over one of his lines and PLFed into the center of his canopy, which wrapped him up like a Chipotle Burrito - a tribute to our season's food sponsor. Now, that alone would have been funny, but the wind continued to wrap him up and tuck in the corners - making it a perfect wrap.

After a few minutes watching him try to get out of the canopy, his teammates opted to jump on him and toss him around a bit before helping him out. If a camera was rolling, the Colorado Skydiving League would be rich from America's Funniest Home Videos...

The second one was a spotting story. The winds caused our teams to carefully pay attention to the spot. On one load, my team, which was first out, told the rest of the plane before boarding: "Look at the winds. We are going to wait until we are past the hangars because, look up, those guys are not making it anywhere in the winds and are about to land out."

Someone at the back of that load opted to yell "Door" and "Go" - even after the warning we would be getting out at a predetermined spot. Everyone landed in the DZ's landing area without trouble, except for the canopy burrito incident of the first story, only because we waited. This incident sparked the classical "go" vs. "you can't see what I see" debate between the freefliers and the 4-way teams.

The last load of the day was full of Air Force teams, and our civilian team was exiting first. We all knew the wind spotting plan and the debate from the previous load. The Air Force decided to play a little joke on us. The yellow light came on, and every person on the plane started yelling at us "Door" - while bouncing around and throwing their hands like, (no offense guys), monkeys in a zoo. We all laughed real hard.

So - these funny experiences show the fun we had all season long - that even when competing, little jokes and having fun, were important values to the league. Unfortunately, the winds picked up and were very turbulent after our 4th round - and the meet was called due to safety reasons.

The Colorado Skydiving League would like to formally confirm that the above mentioned teams competed in the NSL Playoffs 2006, and I would like to report that all four Air Force teams plan to represent the Colorado Skydiving League, Colorado and Air Force skydiving at SkyQuest 2006 in Deland, Florida, in November this year. Mile High Levitation will be representing Colorado at the USPA Nationals 2006 in Eloy, Arizona.

Written by COSL Director Travis Roth