Jay Peak, VT 12/25/99

<I>(Note from the Administrator: This report was originally posted on 12/29/99. Due to our move to new servers, the date and time attributed to this post is incorrect.)</I> <BR> <BR>Sorry it took awhile to get around to posting this, things have been hectic with the holidays! Christmas Day started out with the alarm going off at 5 AM, hitting the snooze button a few times and finally dragging ourselves out of bed to open gifts. The kids were already downstairs, having gone through their stockings in the middle of the night. Bradley pouts, "Where you guys been? We've been waiting since 2:30 this morning!" But, oh boy, was Santa ever good to everyone! I got two new fleeces, Amanda's now set for her first day of snowboarding lessons (she needed the whole shebang, a rather costly endeavor), the boys have new jackets and fleeces. Scott's set, too, just that he got better deals on his pro form than Santa could get! After gifts, we packed the kids up to take them to their Mom's for the weekend. "Bye, bye, kids...OK, let's go!" Scott and I headed to Jay for the day. <BR> <BR>BRRRRR!!! It was cold! Single digits, thank goodness the wind was relatively calm. But what a pretty day it was, sunny and blue skies. Skiing was considerably better than I expected, given our present state of snowlessness. Jay had gotten up to 10 inches of snow a few days before, and they were blasting snow like there's no tomorrow--nice, light powdery stuff. Conditions were definitely variable. Off the Jet lift, it was hard-packed and fast; heading back toward the Tram side, you encountered death cookies, some ice, hard-packed, and then suddenly, on the trails where they'd been making tons of snow, beautiful groomed soft snow with some powder down the sides. But let me tell you, my new skis performed beautifully! Now that I know where the sweet spot is--and it's not a very big one, either--I can really let those puppies cruise. Scott and I had the opportunity to try out all three settings on our Marker Select bindings, and you really can tell the difference. Set those babies for hard-pack and your skis stop chattering instantly while the edges dig into that turf. Yee-ha! <BR> <BR>The day started off with putting up some "trails merging" signs, which required rearranging the way some trees were growing. Umphh, hard work! Glad I only had to supervise...no, move it more to the left, can you put it higher, that branch is still in the way...Scott worked up a real sweat. Thankfully, it was time for Scott's sit, so we headed over to the Green Mountain Flyer. Oh, what a fun ride it is, laughing all the way! But then, it passes where you used to get off and goes up over a ridge, where you have amazing views of Lake Champlain and the valley, and FRIGID wind blasting you in the face. Kind of like riding up Stowe's Quad for the last few minutes of the ride... Pull that hood up over your hat and face. The new lift makes the mountain feel like a completely different resort. They blasted out Exhibition, making it wider. You see parts of the mountain you couldn't see before because you were in "unofficial" woods. <BR> <BR>Since there's no patrol shack at the top of the Flyer, we sat in the liftie's shack. Very cool computer set-up they have in there running the show. You can read temps, winds, etc. at various points along the lift. One screen tells you everything that's happening to every part of the lift. While we were there, Santa stopped by to give us candy canes and take the chill off before he headed back out to the slopes. But the real gift came from a patroller who placed a call to Patrol Base: "Uh, yeah, I just checked out blah-blah-blah and found 2 feet of powder. There's a chance we may want to open her up, but I'd like a second opinion because there are some gnarly sections still." Scott and I look at each other, grin, and decide we're the ones to offer the second opinion. The sit's over, so we head back out to test the goods. <BR> <BR>Hmmm...well, we found some of the gnarly stuff right off. A sheet of ice, all across the trail and down out of sight. Should we really do this? Of course we should, there's reports of powder down there somewhere! We drop down, I'm gritting my teeth the whole way. This better be worth it... Oh, my, I think we've found the powder! About 2 feet, with the help of the wind blowing the new snow to the edge into a 6-foot-wide swath. However, it left a sheet of ice where it removed the snow, and there was ice beneath the freshies too. We were grinning ear to ear! Every few turns, you'd hit bottom and the ice, but most turns were pure powder. This continued for quite awhile, until we hit a section that had been groomed. Ugh, rather icy grooved snow with bare spots and rocks. We agree that this should not be opened yet, since there are so many newbies on the mountain during the holidays. An accident waiting to happen. So, the trail stayed closed, with hopes that new snow would change that soon (imagine the 12 inches they got yesterday may have opened it up). <BR> <BR>Our next run was Goat, which was a complete surprise: soft, beautifully groomed snow. To our delight, most of the open trails off the Flyer were similar so we had tons of fun. Then we headed back to the Jet lift. Haynes was hard-packed and fast, some sketchy spots. Jet was much better, so we let 'em rip for two runs before heading back to the Flyer for sweep. <BR> <BR>Our plans are to ski Jay on Friday and New Years Day. It's snowing hard here in Enosburg Falls, Jay is reporting 4-6 inches since about 5 AM, and weather reports are calling for snow through Saturday. Let's hope Jay gets it's customary dump! <BR> <BR>Susan