Why don't you participate in 3-event disciplines?

David- Laurie's Quarry.

We have lots of water and lots of buoys in this area, public and private.

75 Tique wrote: skutsch wrote: My dream is to build a lake - but with three kids, maybe I'll get to it in my 70's. Any investors out there??? That's exactly what a college buddy of mine did. But he didnt build it, he bought it, an old sand pit about an hour north of Chicago. I mentioned this in a thread here way back in 2007 and some of the Chicago boys had hear of it....Clear Lake Ski Club in Volo/McHenry. My friend went through all the frustrations of trying to set a course on public lakes and gave up. He pulled together some investors and did the ski community thing, 10 or 12 home lots and the lake. Guess its a pretty nice set up.

Just skied there yesterday with Brooks and KC Wilson. It is an amazing site to ski. Perfect setups both ways in a beautiful high-end subdivision.

This is a really interesting discussion.

I grew up skiing on a course on weekend mornings that we would put in and out. Eventually some of the guys I skied with started a show team. There was a point where I was skiing the course and show skiing at the same time. Learning the course really helped my show skiing. Anybody can drag like a brick behind the boat.

Eventually I got tired of show skiing so I put a plan together to put the course in with our show team again. They wouldn't have anything to do with slalom skiing because they were "competition show skiers"....blaahh. Of course nobody understood how learning how to slalom ski (in a course with a goal) makes you a great show skier.

So a few of us started another club and went through the hurdles to get a course on our public lake. It wasn't too hard to do, just took some time for research and a well written document.

Our course is probably one of the nicest ones in the state that is public.

At this point I have access to private water. 50/50 private/public split skiing. To be honest I don't think our public course will be there much longer. Its not because other boats ruin the course, its not because the course cannot be maintained...but more because I can't keep the club solvent with the high insurance costs.

Food for thought.

Tim Cochrane
Chippewa Lake Ohio

We lost our lake this year. (not that I still visited much). Skiing on my lake is free ski only and needs to take place before 8 am.

It's hard to talk people into getting up to ski that early especially if they A) aren't into it that much and B) can't do it.

The easy sports are what people like. I had my buddy out on the boom learning to foot this last weekend and he was fairly unsuccessful but I kept telling him that if it were easy you would see more people doing it.

If we had a course nearby that wasn't a ton of money you would see me skiing it most mornings.

I have been more into footing lately because it requires an OK driver and nothing besides some smooth water, a boat, and a suit.

I can't ride a trick ski anything but straight and I was never that fond of jump (Although I can land if need be).

The wakeboard and wakesurf lifestyle these days with the boats and skill required to actually get up allows more people to have a good time on the water all day VS just in the morning and trying for hours and only failing.

Alan talked about fun on the water with skis, I still think it would be cool to revive me idea of a fun tournament with old skis and old boats.

It's also hard to progress without having good ski partners with you. On our boat I am the only slalom and trick skier, no one else does either which is ok but I've always found my best progress in any discipline was when I skied with people better than me. This a one of the reasons why I don't foot anymore, no partners=no motivation.

Once or twice a year we hook up with a group of people on Lake Clinton and we were able to do that last Saturday. I am the youngest at 54 and every one else in the boats is over 60. They are true slalom diehards and we skied our hearts out all morning. We had flat water at 7am and didn't make it back to the camper to start breakfast until 1 in the afternoon. 3 boats sharing a line along a sheltered tree lined bank for hours. Most fun I've had on a ski in a long time trying different line lengths, speeds, skis and boats.

Why would you participate in 3 Event disciplines? What makes them more worthwhile than any other watersport? Jumping is obsolete imho, trick isn't far ftom it.

Loved skiing the course when I was a kid on the Mississippi.

Now No Course, No Good Water, No ramp.

As Hollywood said, My dream is to build a lake - but with three kids, maybe I'll get to it in my 70's.

Any investors out there???

Hollywood wrote: Joel, you are one on the few here with regular access to a jump. What keeps you from jumping?

The fact that I've tried it is enough to keep me away from it forever! No thanks.

I slalom and wakeboard. I've definitely enjoyed running (trying to run) the course the several times I've had the opportunity too. A few of those times where at the Swiss Ski School in Florida and couple of those times was at the CCF Reunion at MacCullums Boat house when Rhoni Barton Bischoff was there.

A Wakeboard is easier to get up, but I wouldn't say that it's "easy" by any means. There is a pretty deep well of tricks and skills that can be learned and done on it. I certainly wouldn't lump wakeboarding in with tubing. Although, it would be nice if there wasn't so much emphasis on creating ginormous wakes that the average rider can't even take advantage of.

M3Fan wrote: If any of you dropped in a temporary course and skied for a few hours, then pulled it up, would anyone really care?

Oh heck yes- tried it once and one of the grumps parked their pontoon in the course before the first skier could go through- and this was mid week. We were just happy that no one called the DEEP to report us. Mission failed.

Tricking is fun and I probably do more of that than anything, but never had any ambition to take it seriously... Use it mainly as a barefoot training tool. The one-ski thing is neat but doesn't translate to anything else directly- I'm mixing it in a little more often as of late nonetheless. Never had the opportunity to jump.

I'd love I build my own ski lake, public water has all but pushed us out- and we're out in the sticks!

Remind me to never move to Kentucky. No skiing before 11 AM??? Those times are about the only parts of the day we don't ski unless it's a week day.

Those types of comments are the ones that scare us into starting a ski club with the hopes of having some sort of exclusive time for skiing as a long term goal.

Lofty goals, but the important thing is exposing people (kids) to the sport instead of growing another generation of tubers like Tim mentioned. I think Hollywoods comment has a lot of truth. Kids want to wakeboard, tube and jet ski because it's easy and cool.

I've quit yelling at the kids wakeboarding. I'd rather ask them for a pull, weigh the boat down and air it out on combo tricks. Or ask the kids on the tube or jet-ski to spot in hopes of getting them skiing instead.

IMHO, the only way to keep skiing alive is being an advocate for the sport in public spaces. Most people have no clue private 3-event sites exist and the exclusivity of the sport doesn't help the average person who wants to learn on their own.

Smooth water is definitely a growing problem these days. On the weekends, our lakes are unusable at best and dangerous at worst. I've given up trying to ski myself on weekends. Weekdays are awesome but it's very hard to find people that have "Tuesday afternoons" off.

I was thinking about starting some sort of Facebook or social media page to find these types of people. You run the risk of getting someone like Quinner on your boat but at least you'd be skiing.

M3Fan wrote: Also what about trick skiing? Getting a real "slalom" trick ski and getting some tricks on?

That's actually all I've ever done, I skipped the two-ski thing when I was a kid. The problem I have with tricking nowadays is that I plateaued a long time ago and I can't put any time into getting better. While it's still fun, I've had the same trick run since 2003 and it gets kind of boring doing the same stuff over and over. Maybe when the kids are older and we can spend more time in the boat I'll start working on new stuff again.

Hollywood wrote: Skiing died and I'm not sure it'll ever come back.

I find that so strange. I guess that's just because I'm old school and that's all there was back then. Up until this year, there were 3 other boats on our lake that skied (ocassionally) One guy got old and doesnt do it any more and one girl went away to college and is rarely back. There is a father and son that go out ocassionaly behind their old outboard. I pulled the dad (65) one night, he had never been behind and inboard. Recently there has been a deck boat and a family I/O pulling skiers. Just rookies, mostly two skis, one kid on 1. I am pleased to see at least a few people stick with it and I encourage it when I have an opportunity to talk to them. Other than that, rookie wake boarders and tubers by the billions.

If all the places that used to have courses and jumps still did we wouldn't even be talking about this. Skiing died and I'm not sure it'll ever come back. It's largely DIY now and full of obstacles. A private ski club is really the only way, and those aren't cheap. Waiting on skutsch to build a lake, and by then I will be skiing 34 mph also