Yes, THAT ski jumping. 
The 123rd Annual Tournament from the Ishpeming Ski Club (the first being in 1888 on the famous 90 meter hill at Suicide Bowl (coined in a newspaper article years ago, it's been made much safer these days 
).
Well, I gotta tell 'ya that this was easily my hardest shoot I've done over the past two years I've been shooting. The competition was 3 hours long, the temperature was +2F, and my legs are still sore after climbing up and down that big dumb hill in snow that was usually up to my knees and once up to my hip! (I'm 6ft 5in tall). My EOS 40D was also pushed to the limit, always running ISO 1600 or 3200 and the auto focus on the 70-120mm L f2.8 lens really dragging. To be honest, this is not the right gear to shoot this hill and hopefully next year I'll be better equipped, but I'll share my best effort with all of you. All shot in RAW, converted to TIFF, then noise reduced with Imagenomic Noiseware Pro and Photoshop CS3 in 16bit, before converting to .jpg. Many times I tried running slower shutter speeds of 100 or 60 to get more light, but when you're legs are shaking from all the hiking and arms are shaking from the shivering ... well, good luck. I also used a 2x teleconverter for more reach which you really need for those shots shooting up at their faces.
1. Twin Bon Fires. Ohhhh, so nice. I should have taken a photo of the large pile of beer bottles at the end of the night.
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2. The hill. Man, props to the athletes for climbing up there some 150 feet above the trees in such cold temps, then zooming down at 55mph. Holy wind chill!
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3. Looking Down. A view from about 1/3rd of the way up. Although the little 60lb kids had no problem scrambling up higher, this was as far as I could go. I'm just too old.
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4. Low Flyer. Dave Edlund of St. Paul, MN showing just how high above the slope they fly. This was actually a rather short jump.
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5. Close Up. Trevor Wert of Steamboat Springs, CO.
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(cont.)
