On May 16-19, Skydive Elsinore in California—one of the few drop zones with a lakefront view and enough outs to host canopy formation events—hosted its Kick Off to Summer canopy formation (aka canopy relative work or CRW) boogie. Eric and Linda Gallan put together the boogie with the help of jump organizers Jason Smith and Kyle Taylor. Michael Tomaselli provided video for the event.

Twenty jumpers from Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain and the U.S. came together just to have fun banging nylon with each other. There was no agenda to build the biggest or baddest formation; this small boogie was about the fun and joy of CRW. New jumpers (“CRW pups”) and seasoned jumpers (“CRW dawgs”) built multi-point formations that challenged everyone’s skill sets.

Smith initially worked with the more experienced jumpers while Taylor took up the pups, but by the middle of the first day, the groups combined. Doug Pyra and Leela Schrayter made their first CF jumps, while Amanda Bilsev, Jacob Cobgill, Benjamin Dumazel, David Hudson, Nicholas Kent and Curtis Shaw made their first night CF jumps. On Saturday night, Kaci McCulloch provided a nice catered meal, and the CRW dawgs enjoyed some well-earned brews and told tall tales that the CRW pups could now add to. Although wind and rain on Sunday cut the weekend short, every dawg had their day in the skies over Lake Elsinore.

Michael Tomaselli | D-18530
Springfield, Massachusetts