My Cross Country Jumps

When we were looking for a new house one of the reasons I wanted at least 20 acres was to have my own mini cross country course. This property was very dense with forest and an overgrown perimeter trail. That trail was virtually unrecognizable as a trail at all.  

We decided to do some selective logging to thin it out and make a little money at the same time. The good news about the logging is we made enough money to do a total redo on our master bathroom! Plus the forest was thinned considerably so we are not in darkness 24/7, and by virtue of the log skidder we got a bunch of new trails. Once the logging was done Bill put the tractor to work and improved the roads, cleaning and smoothing.

I wanted to put some jumps along the trails but I didn't want to completely block any road. I had to find areas that weren't too steep for a jump and had enough room for the tractor to drive around if it came down that trail.  There aren't a lot of those types of areas in the wooded parts but I did find a few.

The jumps I built are not permanent and they are extremely amateurish. I'm getting a little better and eventually they will look a little more professional, especially with the abundance of materials we have.

This was one of the first ones I made. The pictures on the left are uphill and the ones on the right are the same jump headed downhill. This was just some skinny logs I pulled off a slash pile and propped up on the ends with smaller sticks. (I know it's hard to see here so remember you can click on the photos to enlarge.)

The second jump I made out of bifold doors we pulled off one of the closets in a bedroom. Bill wanted to throw them on the burn pile but I could see them as more than trash!  :-)

The next one is made out of two pickup wheels that are no longer in use. They are an odd size that is no longer manufactured and I knew I could use them somewhere in a jump some how.  The first three are definitely baby novice size jumps, maybe 12" to 18".

So these next two jumps are a tiny bit more challenging, though still very inviting to jump. Just for a little background info many, many, many years ago I had one bad fall where I broke my collarbone. Just a couple years after that I had another accident, even worse, and broke the other collarbone. Since then I've been a little timid about jumping, though I still love it. The more I've been jumping again the bolder I'm getting again. I'm happy to jump the baby novice size, though I'm progressing to beginner novice/novice height. I even did a 3" verticle in my arena not long ago!

This jump is made with a long piece of 6" x 8" (I think those are the dimensions) lumber and shorter chunks of the same left over from the making of the covered arena. This can be easily adjusted in multiple ways, by removing the chunks (there are three chunks under each side), and changing the side the big piece of the chunks are on (placing them on the 8" side or the 6" side).

This is the one I think looks like a jump you'd see on a real cross country course. It does need a little work to make it look even better, but I'm not ready to make a more permanent jump yet. This one is on a bit of a side hill (it actually looks worse than it is) and I even put a couple of side poles. Those are probably what makes it look more authentic.

I have some ideas of making a bank or drop jump, kind of like we had in Prineville. The ideal spot for that would be in the bottom pasture. There's also lots of room down there to make some other jumps. We do have a couple of telephone poles we can use so all my jumps aren't all logs.

A little at a time and I'll be able to jump more than just the same old five jumps over and over.