I always had a love/hate relationship with the site when I worked for parks and had some responsibilities there. I loved the history and knew it was important to keep it/maintain it as a historical site, but man the whole area would get routinely trashed, and I often had miserable work to do there; like having to pick up 20 yrs. worth of accumulated broken glass and assorted refuse up at the base of the jump itself when it was cleared.
The ski club was divided on committing to work with the state to reopen the jump, as the club had been sued back in the 80's (I believe), when a jumper was seriously injured. When some of the club directors really pushed to be involved, others in the club were concerned about potential liability, and risking the ski touring effort they had just invigorated at Milan Hill State Park. I think some directors resigned eventually as they wanted nothing to do with the jump.
So the fact that the big albatross (Big Nansen) remained as a reminder for many years of the ski jumping heritage and kept the burning desire to jump off it again, served to inspire the 2 smaller jumps to bring back actual competition and use of the site. If the steel had been scrapped in the past, I don't think any jumps would ever have returned to the site. So if Big Nansen never gets used for competition again, oh well. It has served and would remain to serve as the inspiration for whatever they achieve for competitive jumping at the site. Maybe it will be just as rewarding to jump in the shadow of the big jump. Good for them, I hope everyone has fun!
