Salt on jumps

we had a rail jam in wanaka a few years back and one of the local chefs at a restaurant donated like 5 big as bags of just normal table salt and that did the btrick.
 
salt is salt as far as jumps are concerned. All it has to do is lower the freezing point of water. The only difference between using rock salt, road salt, table salt, or water softener salt is size of the chunks.
 
Either Calcium Chloride or Potassium Chloride work best - makes everything perfectly solid. Table Salt (Sodium Chloride) works ok too, but not as good. Rock Salt actually does it's job and melts everything no matter what the temps.
Remember, you really only should salt stuff when the temperatures are 45 degrees or over - other wise it works to melt it then t you'll be sad.
 
i just bought a 50 lbs bag of sidewalk salt at Lowe's for $6 and it is mostly salt except for a few pebbles, which if you care about your bases, then i would not recommend using, Road salt is usually salt with a sand mixtures, so i dont know which is better. The salt i bought works great, preserved a jump in my backyard perfectly for 3 days through rain and 50 degree weather... just gotta pick out the little pebbles. pm me if you have anymore questions.
 
Get a bag of extra course salt. It's usually used for water softening and not for the highway. Don't use too much of it though and it doesn't have to be a certain temperature to use, you just have to have enough available moisture in the snow enabling the salt to work. If it turns your jump to sugar you have used way too much. if you get super course stuff which kind of looks like chunks of crack rock you really only need about 1 grain per 6 square inches. If it's raining the salt will work like magic, you can make a blue veiny triumphant brick of ice that will last for centuries because the rain will draw the salt deeper into the snow. also if you're salting anything that is less than 3 inches deep, you may just end up melting it. the snow has to have a cool enough base temp to allow the salt surface to re-freeze. I have much more info if you like....
 
use fertilizer... it doesn't kill you grass, does the same thing and your grass will be extremely green in the spring
 
All joking aside, I have never tried mag chloride on jumps. That is the stuff that they use on roads as least in CO. The purpose of salt is too melt the snow on the jump, then it refreezes making it harder. When coaching, I would always have my guys grab a bunch of salt packets when we went in for lunch. If quoted, I will deny that.

The best method is actually to get a spray bottle and mix a bunch of salt with warm water; then spray it on the jump. The most important thing is to boot pack your jump creating a solid base. The salt will basically just keep your lip from getting rutted out as fast. If you salt but don't pack enough, your jump will still cave in on you.
 
thanks haha did some urban today and it really didnt work out no speed, doesnt salt help give the jump more speed
 
ya its road salt aka hella big pieces of salt im pretty sure if u buy coarse salt at the store it will work the same
 
All those sidewalk salts and road salts will work, but the best way to go is something as small course as possible. Like what was said, the salt melts the snow, and then it re-freezes on the cold snow underneath it. With the heavy course salts, it doesn't affect as much snow. Also, a lot of those bags of salt you buy at stores, also mix in sand and gravel. It's great for sidewalks, but terrible for ski/snowboard bases.

When I was running a terrain park, the absolute best stuff I found was from a farmers co/op type store. It was a salt powder. It was almost the consistency of flower, reacted almost immediately, covered and froze the entire surface, and lasted a long time. Unfortunately, I could never get more of that. (Thanks to working for a shitty/cheap resort).

The fertilizers also work wonders. I believe it's calcium chloride that is the main choice for more places. Obviously, it's more expensive. But it tends to last longer, works deeper in the snow, and is easy to spread.
 
Go for the road salt, its cheaper as its unrefined. just make sure you give your metalwork a good clean once you finish your run otherwise you'll have seized parts!
 
first of all you only really salt jumps if they are soft because it is too hot. If the snow is too dry, and it is really cold out, use water to harden the jump, not salt.
you can use either kind of salt, but road salts (such as calcium chloride) will work a lot better than table salt. This is because when the calcium chloride dissolves into the snow it releases heat, which melts the snow a little bit, then the rest of the snow essentially "sucks" the heat out and refreezes the snow. It also lowers the freezing point of the snow, which is why table salt will work as well, since table salt lowers the freezing point, it just does not release heat when dissolved.
I remember when we were training in the spring, the coaches all stole the salt shakers from the staff lounge one day, and we used that to salt our mogul jump, it worked well.
 
I'm just gonna jump in again here, after being sarcastic earlier...
"Road Salt" and "Sidewalk Salt" are also call ice MELT for a reason....don't put that shit on your ish unless you want your jump to disappear slowly...
Nobody anywhere salts a road....
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top