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WATERSKI MagazineOn most days you wouldn't get a lick of attention for doing flips down the length of Bow Hill Lake or handsprings up the road that leads to it outside Bellingham, Washington. The man-made clay bowl sits off a gravel road among the North Cascade foothills, protected inside a horseshoe of towering alder and birch trees that look like giant feather dusters. It looks, sounds and even smells rural when the wind pushes air from the barnyards.
Standing at the lake's edge, it's hard to believe that a current world record was tied on this specialty jump lake dressed as a country pond. But a note written on a board at the dock tears away its inconspicuousness: “All jumpers, go big or go home!”
“We scouted the entire area in a plane and saw this out here,” says landowner Wade Dann, whose son Will was groomed into a junior jump champion on the lake. “Before digging the lake, we studied the wind to make sure we had a place where it blows from one direction. “The perpetual headwind helped send Mark Lane soaring from a personal best of 147 feet to 203 in less than a season. On one of his first jumps at Bow Hill in 1996, Brian Swenson hit a personal best 205 feet – wearing a pair of rain goggles, but John Swanson recorded the most famous jump here in 1997 when he tied Bruce Neville's world mark of 222 feet (International Water Ski Federation officials trimmed the initial 224-foot reading).
Word is, Swanson was going 10 feet farther in practice, and even Lane has plucked 225 feet of Bow Hill's air.”I used to trick a lot,” says Lane, “but that changed when I moved out here four years ago. They wouldn't even let me off the dock with my trick ski. It's a jumper's lake.”
Other jump kingdoms:
Okahumpka, Florida:
Jack Travers' ramps have launched more 200-foot jumps than any site in the world.
Shreveport, Louisiana:
A favorite site for jumpers on the U.S. Pro Tour for more than a decade.
