Page 63 - Flathead Beacon // 2.24.16

NOXIOUS
WEED WORKSHOP
Do you own 5-50 acres
of land and want to learn basics of weed management?
thursday
March 3
· Weed Identi cation · Integrated Weed
Management
· Chemical Labels
wednesday
March 9
Safety Demonstrations: · How to Calibrate
Backpack & Boom
Sprayers
· How to Dress Safely
6:30-8:30 p.m. | FVCC campus Arts & Technology Building Room 139
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
For more information, call the Flathead Conservation District at (406) 752-4220.
WARREN’S WORLD WARREN MILLER SKI FLYING
MANY YEARS AGO WHEN everything was cheap by today’s standards, it still took X hours of hard work to earn X amount of money. In the early 1960s I could still buy a basic Volkswagen Bug for under $1,000 in Munich. I did just that ve or six years later when I went over there to lm. I would get a 90-day note at the bank, pay cash for the car, drive it for a month or so in Europe, then send it home and sell it for more than I paid for it six or seven weeks after I bought it.
Driving in Europe then was on narrow, winding, two-lane roads in the 1950s. I found my way across Austria, into Italy and nally to Yugoslavia to enter a Com- munist country for the rst time. Mar- shall Tito ruled it. I was nervous because I did not speak their language and I was going to a ski- ying tournament.
Ski ying, as it became known, instead of ski jumping, was when a jumper started approaching the then mythical, 400-foot mark. The ski ying technique began to change as the yer started holding their hands at their sides instead of stretched out over their heads. The skis, parallel beneath them, still had not evolved to the tips wide apart for more lift and thus lon- ger ights.
I snagged a hotel room with breakfast and a private bath in the best hotel in Pla- necia for $6 a night. The countryside was dirt poor under the Communist regime, but the ski- ying tournament brought welcome outside currency to the coun- try for the once-a-year use of this mas- sive hill.
treesIcouldhidebehindandgetupclose andpersonalphotosofMarshallTitoand his bodyguards as they walked by heading to the judges’ stand.
I was standing there munching on a Yugoslavian version of bratwurst and great fresh bread when I heard a lot of commotion and noise moving up the path towards my hiding place.
I had a mouth full of bratwurst when there was a sharp jab in my back. An auto- matic ri e got my immediate attention. “Hands above your head,” sounds the same in any language. After they exam- ined each roll of lm carefully and did a complete body pat down for hidden weap- ons I still had to move out into plain sight on the at spot at the top of the landing hill.
I settled down to a fabulous day of scrambling hard and fast to get as much footage as possible of courageous men from all over world ying over 400 feet. There was an occasional dangerous wind gust but the tethered helium lled red bal- loons made the jumpers aware of clear air turbulence.
With new ski ying techniques, the hill record was broken a dozen times that day until it stood at 416 feet. That record stood for many years, until the wider apart ski tips began to be developed and the y- ers were already holding their arms and hands at their sides, with their hands con- trolling their ight path like the ailerons of an airplane.
I was quite surprised recently to nd out the world’s ski- ying record is now at 239 meters. That is a lot longer than two football elds and a few end zones. That is more than 700 feet. I think some of the freestylers of today should go to one of these ski- ying hills and see what a 700- feet ight feels like.
In the pressroom at the hotel I was
told that Marshall Tito would attend the
tournament, and I was always eager to
get unusual shots to share with my audi-
ences all over North America. I found out
the path that Tito would take to get to the
judges’stand.Noskiliftsinthosedays. This column was originally
I scoped out a dozen good spots to lm the tournament and then found some
published in 2012.
BOILER
REPAIRS & MAINTENANCE
294 2nd Ave WN Kalispell 257-1341 www.airworksmt.com
FEBRUARY 24, 2016 // FLATHEADBEACON.COM
63
August is conserva on month—a me to celebrate local conserva on e orts across Montana.
On Haskill Creek, near White sh, the Flathead Conserva on District has restored 1,200 feet of riverbank, with a mix of vegetated soil li s, conifer and willow fascines, and riparian plan ngs.
Before
A er
By addressing severe streambank erosion and this stretch of Haskill Creek, we h