Jay Peak, VT 1/8-9/00

Matt Duffy

New member
<I>(Note from the Administrator: This report was originally posted on 1/9/00. Due to our move to new servers, the date and time attributed to this post is incorrect.)</I> <BR> <BR>Got to the tram at just a hair before 10:00 on Saturday. Had a hard time waiting while watching people board the tram, watching the tram leave, watching the next tram come & go until the next tram arrived & started loading. It was 10:20 or a little after when I headed up the stairs and boarded the tram. The sun was peeking out on Saturday with a new coating of white on the mountain. Sunday was warmer but cloudy, and the winds must have moved a lot of snow around overnight as Sat’s tracks were all but completely erased. It seemed as though couple of new inches fell overnight, but they <BR>reported zero, hmm… <BR> <BR>First thing I noticed on Sat was that the report of 7-10” new was a line of bull to attract powder seeking people like me. It was more like 3-6 in most places, woods inclusive. I was initially feeling cheated, used and taken advantage of. After 3-4 turns in loose gladed chowder, the feeling turned into: hey, this is actually pretty nice! Coverage was good enough in the trees to ski aggressively, but with the understanding that the ol’ bases were going to gain some character. Woods were mostly tracked, but the surface was loose and soft. Occasional little stumps & rocks were hiding in a few random places with the inevitable and all too familiar sounds of metal grinding over a stone or a base taking the odd gouge on a sharp little stumplet. Most turns though, were made without any such unwanted noise. It was mostly making loose powder turns in 3rd buckle deep stuff; lightly touching down on the firm base at the apex of most turns. Sometimes I’d find drifted swaths of untouched that were maybe 7-8” deep for stretches of pleasing, hovering, touchless turning. Everglade was pretty good with only two sets of tracks through it & I even got in a few turns with snow flying up as high up as my knees. Found the milk run, which I didn’t recall ever skiing before and I still don’t. The woods directly to the left looked soft n chewy while the milk run itself looked very skied n scrapey. Returned to milk run glade 2 more times throughout the day because it had better coverage than most everything else. Timbuktu might’ve been an exception as fewer people than usual were skiing it – especially the far out part. Speaking of “far out”, I was exploring near the handle tow and found a cut in the woods with an old wooden sign that said: “Stoney Trail”. Well then!… It had a mellow pitch & was a cool, relaxing, little untouched run, until it flattened out completely and I had to push my way out to the road and hoof it for nearly ten minutes back to the lift. Oh well, nothing ventured, nothing gained I guess. Later I skied Canyonland (which I think I linked to through the milk run woods earlier), Powerline to Canyonland and another run where there is a guy at the top that yells something: “Cat tail is froze!” or “Fat whale is hosed!” or something like that every time you ski it. I’m not sure, I paid no attention to his silly jibberish. ;) Afterwards I laughed at the bases of my Salomons, then sat a spell at the Belfry hoping to maybe see Mark or that cute female bartender who confesses to ducking ropes because “I just can’t help myself”. Neither were to be found and I left after a Sam Adams. All things considered, it was a pretty <BR>good and exhausting day. <BR> <BR>Sunday I skied with a friend who works at Smuggs. He invited me to Jay by offering to pay for half my lift ticket if I agreed to drive (He skied for free). We pretty much covered all the same ground as I had yesterday, only with fewer base gougers & edge grinders. There was definitely a couple or three inches of new meat on them bones, despite a snow report of 0” new. Maybe the Jay folks took some heat over yesterday’s false report and were trying to make up for it. Whatever was the case, it didn’t matter. As I said, there were only a few slight hints of yesterday’s tracks anywhere. Mostly they were completely erased and it was obvious that the snow was deeper. Everglade was really nice with absolutely no other tracks & extended floating. All tracks (including mine from yesterday) were completely erased from Can Am. Yesterday, more short radius turns were necessary than today. For much of the top section on both days, it was best skied by linking quicker turns in the nice drifted powder on the skiers far left. Today, it was higher up that you could wander from the side and make bigger, faster, floatier turns without touching down. One constant though, was that same guy at the top. Today I think we heard him yell: “Crack A Moe’s Ale!”, or maybe it was “Pat’s a cloned male!” ;) <BR> <BR>We skied Kitzbuehel to Kitz Woods to Hells Woods a couple of times today too. A run I ignored completely yesterday was a kick! There were nice, big ‘n soft bumps with great rhythms on Kitz, nice coverage in Kitz woods, and almost no tracks at all in the far right of Hells Woods. <BR> <BR>It was cool skiing with an ski instructor. He was able to help me work on a bad habit I sometimes have; I'm prone to dropping my inside shoulder when going into a turn. He also spoke of a neat approach to the psychological side of skiing. Think of animal you like. One you’d like to emulate while you’re skiing. Go home and research that animal. Read about it. Watch it on video and study it. Get to know every little thing about it. It’s habits, mannerisms and every little way it moves. Pay close attention to its’ body language and copy it. When you’re skiing, act and move as it would; _be_ that animal. <BR> <BR>So if you wanna be a moose or a cow, or a slug; pick a different animal. Maybe more along the lines of a bengal tiger, a deer, a rabbit, an eagle, or maybe even a snake. I’d like to be a dolphin; in deep, deep powder…
 
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