Jay 02/10/08

riverc0il

riverc0il

New member
Meh. Maybe I misread the weather forecasts (including Jay's own email promoting an expected 6-10" yesterday) but I was expecting to find more than one, occasionally two, inches of fluff covering hard pack and scraped surfaces. Still hurting from Friday but made the early alarm and had my skis on Bonnie go line at 8:30. Did not bother heading over to the Jay since a couple dozen skiers got to ride the chair TWICE and track up the Jet before the GP got on the lifts (assuming it was related to the race going on Haynes, I was fumed until I realized there wasn't any real powder). This is what I get for notching a "powder day" onto my season cost and stat spreadsheet the night before heading up to the mountain. That is just bad Karma.

I checked all my favorite spots in short order and there really wasn't much to be found except hard pack and scraped surfaces, the occasional nice shot of snow for two or three turns. I was tired, sore, and disappointed and decided to pack it up early despite snow coming in during the late morning. Jay put up 5" as of 4pm, I will chalk up two of those prior to opening so not concerned about leaving before an extra 3" fell in combination with increasingly harsh winds. I had hyped this weekend up in my mind and it just did not deliver. Better than NCP for sure and I did have an excellent day at MRG on Tuesday. Gotta remember to keep the expectations down next time even when the snow forecasts start hitting double digits. Would rather have skied Cannon today, truth be told. Nasty accident in the notch on the way home around noon time, sure we'll be reading about that in tomorrow's paper.
 
I didn't think it was that bad today. I only skied from 8:30-11 because of a family engagement, but overall it was ok. Yesterday was better. 4" is way off 1-2 yes, the JAy inches are in full effect for the up coming big weekend. What hpappened to the 2 feet??? another Roemer diarhea report/marketing hype. I don't know why they don't just use NOAA like the rest of us for free and get accurate info.

The mountain is doing pretty well for the whooping it has taken from the ice, rain, etc.... All of the marked/resort areas were smoked as of 1st run yesterday morning. You did have to work for some decent turns, but they could be had.
 
I was out in the area today... and really, it dumped pretty hard... I wouldn't be surprise if 4-5in fell during the day... We had trouble finding our own skin tracks on every lap... Pretty solid day far from the resort!
 
BigJay":1cbmga9y said:
I was out in the area today... and really, it dumped pretty hard... I wouldn't be surprise if 4-5in fell during the day... We had trouble finding our own skin tracks on every lap... Pretty solid day far from the resort!
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You don't know how bad I was kicking myself for not bringing touring gear instead of alpine gear. I believed that expected 6" minimum 10" max like the gospel. The thought never even crossed my mind that it would totally bonk last night into this morning. I really hate schlepping two completely different sets of gear and packing a pack if I don't need to. But my first run down was instant :roll: big time as I started to imagine how deep it still must of been in the BC.

Based on what I drove through on the way home, I have no doubts that it added an extra four inches after I left. That doesn't really count for much when it starts mid-day on a busy weekend unless you can snuff un-hit stuff out an hour or two before the lifts close.

I gotta re-evaluate my priorities concerning how much snow is worth while for resort skiing versus earning turns in the BC. 6-10" usually is a resort day by my counts, but I need to better prepare back up plans. Pretty rare that things bonk this poorly.

ccskier, I gotta disagree that it was not that bad. Surfaces were hard pack and firm, the new snow did not soften things up at all. The traffic and wind really hammered the mountain including the woods. Checking my reports from this season, today was my least inspired day at Jay since November (though for the record, I avoided the mountain during the warm up and rain/freeze). Everything was open from what I noticed and the woods are filled up with great base depth, but conditions just were not to my liking. Just too easy to get spoiled.
 
riverc0il said:
BigJay said:
I gotta re-evaluate my priorities concerning how much snow is worth while for resort skiing versus earning turns in the BC. 6-10" usually is a resort day by my counts, but I need to better prepare back up plans. Pretty rare that things bonk this poorly.

riv, i hear ya on this one. i will usually pic a better known bigger terrain resort if it's a, wake up to 4" or more with heavy enough snowfall for refills all day on piste. if it's a, wake up to 4" or more bluebird day i'll go with a more less popular resort or backcountry laps. no new snow and backcountry is in it's backcountry every time. easy to find great pow on the rockpile or other spots days and days after a storm on the lee of the wind spaces which can change hourly sometimes.
i feel your pain, i've been shafted a bunch at the loaf for, too cold to corn or too windy to open when i swore from all reports that it would be happinen. christ, it's gotta be 70 degrees in portland for the corn to harvest up there! i definately save jay for those days when visability is poor cuz it's heaving dumpage jay style or when it's snowin hard and blowin harder to keep upper mountain lifts from any possability of opening and i skin up there all day and do laps in protected places. my best days at jay have been in those conditions. definately more east coast face shots at jay than anywhere else personally.
keep the faith, wednesday? let's hook up.
rog
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I've been vacillating on whether to rate last weekend A (powder/packed powder) or B (hardpack/spring) for my Northern Vermont chart. Looks like it was an A only if you figured out to ski Stowe, or maybe Smuggs.

But it's a tough call as Riverc0il got fooled, and he doesn't pick the wrong hill very often.
 
I'd go A. It was powder or packed powder over at Wildcat, and looked to be the same at Cannon on the drive past. Definitely powder/packed on Sunday after the squall line came through.
 
I'd have to rate it a B up this far. I think Stowe/Smuggs got the goods on this one. Wind whipped what we did get from here to Knowlton. We weren't the only ones fooled by the prospects of 6-10"-and those inches didn't belong to Roemer, believe me. Looks like this next one'll be interesting. We may not get the snow that Route 4 will but there's a chance we'll miss a heavy portion of the slop too. I was out today and it wasn't as cold as I thought it'd be but the conditions weren't as good as I would have hoped either. Still need a good shot.

kingslug":3psdtans said:
I feel you're pain. Kmart was an iceburg covered in ....well a lot of snow so it wasn't too bad, just tough.
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Tony, if you are looking for an overall rating for the weekend for the entire NoVT strip, I would say it started out as an A and ended as a B. Reports from MRG Sunday sounded much the same as my experiences at Jay on Sunday, sans the horrid wind stripping.
 
riverc0il":36sswiiy said:
Tony, if you are looking for an overall rating for the weekend for the entire NoVT strip, I would say it started out as an A and ended as a B. Reports from MRG Sunday sounded much the same as my experiences at Jay on Sunday, sans the horrid wind stripping.
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Living much further from ski country and with a not-so-flexible job schedule, I don't get to seek out the powder days ... that said, my experience Sunday at MRG was more A-like than my experience Saturday at Sugarbush. Especially in the woods, I would classify it as an A. I wasn't getting much untracked powder, but I would classify it as tracked powder not hardpack. On the trails, particularly Saturday at Sugarbush, there was hardback under the snow. The woods didn't have as much except in certain steeper drops that have rock and were scraped off. Otherwise the woods (both days really) were soft. My vote deserves less than either of the Steve's (Rivercoil or Steve Wright), but I'd give the MRV an "A", and would put Sunday over Saturday.
 
I appreciate the feedback. I've tended to rate on the lenient side for Vermont because if even one of the 5 areas (Jay, Stowe, Smuggs, MRG, Sugarbush) is predominantly powder/packed powder, people like Riverc0il usually can pick the right one. If I ever undertake the rating project that Patrick mentions from time to time, no individual Vermont area is going to be over 35 average, even though the group collectively averages 38.

I think Killington is a notch down from those 5 because it seems be only 60-80% open a lot of the time when the others are 90+%. That would have been offset by its longer season before, but no more.
 
kcyanks1 shows the subjective nature of judging conditions. It is good to know the reporters dispositions and biases to better assess conditions. I was at MRG Friday and while the snow was excellent and soft packed powder on most of the trails, I could see the beginnings of scraped up conditions coming on. I doubt I would have been kind to MRG had I skied there Sunday, though they are much more wind protected than Jay, but traffic on Saturday was heavy. I think I saw a report on AZ stating 30+ minute line for the single.
 
riverc0il":t4se0wps said:
kcyanks1 shows the subjective nature of judging conditions. It is good to know the reporters dispositions and biases to better assess conditions. I was at MRG Friday and while the snow was excellent and soft packed powder on most of the trails, I could see the beginnings of scraped up conditions coming on. I doubt I would have been kind to MRG had I skied there Sunday, though they are much more wind protected than Jay, but traffic on Saturday was heavy. I think I saw a report on AZ stating 30+ minute line for the single.
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Lines were 30+ minutes Sunday too. Because I skied SB not MRG on Saturday, I can't make an exact comparison of what the snow Sat. night into Sunday did. But while the total by first chair on Sunday was low, I think those 3" plus the few that fell throughout the morning probably made a difference. The trails did still have some scraped areas under the snow; the woods less so, but the steeper woods did also have some scraped areas. But overall I still found the snow to be very good. At SB on Saturday the woods I thought were very good, but I was not impressed by the trails so much. I thought there was a more hardpack on Sat. than Sunday. I should add (as I did in at AlpineZone but not here), that I only got in 4 runs on Sunday (only skied a 1/2 day).

As you said, it is subjective to some extent.
 
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