Throughout south-central Wisconsin, as everyone is aware, their has been some dramatic effects after the torrential rains.  For Mad-City, and Madison as a whole, we have been “lucky” to be spared some of the real brutal flooding issues that others in the state have faced.

However, the flooding does impact us as well and for the time being we will not be able to perform our shows for you.  Continue to check our front page on a daily basis for updates.

Jims Photos took a variety of pictures that he has posted, link, and it shows the effects of the flooding on our ski site as well as a couple other candid shots from around the area

Click Image for High Resolution

Well, here we are again. Much like the end of last summer, the Mad-City Ski Team faces high water and flooding that put our season on temporary hiatus.

After the torrential rains of the weekend the lake level rose and the City of Madison decided that it was in the best interest of all parties involved to make Lake Monona, Mendota, Wingra and Waubesa slow-no-wake zones. Its frustrating for us because we are excited to be on the water and shape our show into what is shaping up to be one of our best ever.

However, mother nature and common sense are playing a part here in this situation, we don’t want any detrimental shore-line problems or any other issues that come along high water.

We have just completed our second annual Clean Lakes Festival which was also prematury ended due to weather, so, the Mad-City Ski Team is keenly aware of the hazards and fragile nature of our cities eco-system.

We would be remiss if we didn’t mention our friends in the Wisconsin Dells, the Tommy Bartlett Ski Show, as many people may have heard, there was a catastrophic dam breach which caused Lake Delton to essentially be emptied, thus causing the end of the Tommy Bartlett Ski Show for the year, and who knows how long it will take to refill a lake.

Our thoughts go out to our show-ski family and hope that all is well with our friends to the north.

Fingers crossed that mother natures shines on us all soon!!

Note: We snapped a couple photos and uploaded them, click to view our Mad-City Picassa Album

This is our year-end highlight clip that was put together for our banquet.  Its long!  But, very enjoyable, thanks to Eric Wedige for putting this great video together.  Enjoy our journey from early spring all the way through the end of the summer.

From our Photo Gallery Pages, via Jim’s Photo’s, we have a couple new gallery’s posted.

The first gallery is pictures from our annual Ski Team Banquet, our annual celebration of our ski season. This year we had an awful lot to celebrate! Check out the pictures!

Mad-City Ski Team 2007 Banquet

Our second new gallery is of us finally getting our jump out of the water! The high waters made removing our jump from Lake Monona a difficult process and we were finally able to get to it Saturday morning. As the pictures can attest, our jump had a couple issues as a result of the high water, enjoy!!

Jump removal gallery

Stay tuned to our Multi-Media page as our 35-minute season re-cap highlight video is coming soon!!

For the Mad-City Ski Team, the recent rain and subsequent flooding on Lake Monona caused us almost $20,000 in damage to our equipment that we had set up on Lake Monona.

How is this possible?

Our docks and Jump are all held afloat on a number of 55 gallon drums and are anchored by chains to the floor of Lake Monona. The docks that were destroyed, one section of our main dock (to the left as you look out at Lake Monona) and our third dock (to the right as you look out) both had their frames broken by the strain from the rising water tugging against the huge anchors and the frame.

The dock in question, pictured above, is built on a mobile home frame. As you can see in the picture above, a wooded sub-frame is mounted atop the steel frame which rests on almost 30 55-gallon drums. What happened was the as the water rose it pulled against the anchors and ended up breaking and twisting the steel frame causing irreparable damage, causing it to partly sink and render it un-trailerable.

Our third dock (pictured above) is built on a pontoon boat chassis. We built a flat-top deck and bumpers on a used pontoon boat. This dock is used for various acts that come from the right hand of the show course, jump, barefoot, swivel ski and our One-Act Show. This dock faced a similar fate as our main dock, as the strain from the high water against the chains bent the frame and also cracked the pontoons to the point where the dock no longer floated and had to be taken apart before trailering.

The cost to rebuild our docks properly will run us about $20,000, and with three of our shows being canceled at the end of the year, we are hoping for some additional help. We are non-profit so all donations are tax-deductible!!

Remember as well, we also founded, sponsor and run the annual Clean-Lakes Festival whose goal is to raise money to help maintain and clean our local lakes.

If you can, please help us and donate to Mad-City. Please use any of the contact information in the right-hand column to contact us, we will get back to you right away. Thank you!!

All the rain in Madison and the surrounding areas ended Mad-City’s ski season rather abruptly. Following our performance at the National Ski Tournament just over three weeks ago, we returned to Madison excited and looking forward to performing back on Lake Monona.

However, Mother Nature had other ideas as high winds and rainy conditions canceled our first show, post-championship.

Those of you that live in the area know what came next, days and days of rain, which subsequently caused the lake levels in the area to rise up to near-record heights and cause thousands of dollars in damage to the surrounding area.

For us, the Mad-City Ski Team, it also caused the abrupt end to our ski season. One of our most successful and enjoyable years ever!!

While it is incredibly disappointing to have our season end on this wet and dreary note, we also understand the circumstances surrounding the decision to keep our lakes Slow-No-Wake, to prevent any further damage to the shoreline and peoples property.

We will certainly be rearing and ready to go in 2008!!

The Mad-City Ski Team thanks everyone who came out to see our ski show and supported our team this year!!

After the jump is our pictorial of our ski site and the effects the high water has had. We have added two more photo gallery’s on the Mad-City Picasa Site

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Beaverland Must-Skis accept award as Division 2 Wisconsin State Champions!

Due to the high water levels on Lake Monona we, the Mad-City Ski Team, have been forced to cancel our regular Sunday night show.

However!! Our friends just to the north, the two-time defending Division 2 champions, Beaverland Must-Skis from Beaver Dam, have graciously invited us to come ski with them.

Here is a great chance to see both the Division 1 State and National Champions and the Division 2 State Champions combine forces for one fantastic ski show!!

Beaverland skis at Tahoe Park on Beaver Dam lake in Beaver Dam and this Sundays show is scheduled to begin at 5:30.

We have had a long and friendly relation with Beaverland and thank them in advance for the invite to come ski with them, we hope you join us as well. It always proves to be a great time and we look forward to hopefully seeing you there!

Links:
Beaverland Must-Skis Website
Directions to Tahoe Park

Please take a minute to visit one of our sponsers, Jims Photos at www.jimsphotos.org, to see his pictures from our show during the Mercury Invite.

Jim also takes pictures of every home show and has a extensive collection of photos from our 2006 season including our State and National Championship shows AND award ceremonies.

2007 Mercury Invite Photo Gallery - Mad-City

Mad-City Photo Gallery Page on JimsPhotos.org