Jay Peak, VT: 01/20/08

[riverc0il]

An extra special THANK YOU to all you whackos that call yourselves skiers and riders but have your priorities completely mis-aligned with the ski season. Today and yesterday... well, what can I say? Yesterday was good but the crowds were horrid and the untracked went fast. Fun but nothing special. Today I was hitting boot to knee deep untracked at noon time, rode the lifts solo almost all day, and never waited in a lift line once.

\/

Jay picked up another 6" last night. I wanted to hit MRG but the steeper, tighter, and knarlier woods at MRG are best served with a softer edgeable base. I settled for a second day at Jay. Bracing myself for the crowds, I was dumbfounded that by 10:30am, half the Stateside lot was still empty and I was skiing onto the Jet. Then it struck me... the completely unthickable, it boggled me all day... some people care more about watching men in tights smack each other than skiing powder. How could this be true? Thankfully, it is.

So 6" new was nice. Where I could find stuff untouched from yesterday, I found boot deep. Where I could find stuff untouched since Monday (holy crap!!), knee deep! I was surprised that stuff had remained untouched for nearly a full week. But not as surprised that there would be no competition all day. Three six inch storms on six days, sweet.

But the scraped down and somewhat icy base still remains. This was completely blower powder today, super light with almost no resistance. Great stuff to ski but it won't do much for the base. We could use another one or two feet of the dense base building stuff. Steeper trees still a bit scratchy but doable. Major snow making on Lower Can Am which I guess is for park building.

With off an on cloudless blue skies, 6-18" untracked on every run (right up to my last run at 1:30), and no competition... the one word that kept coming to mind was "satisfying."

So... um... who won the game? Not that I care...

 

[Harvey]

Funny thing is you quit before the game started. I don't get it either...but hey...if everyone thought the way we do, it would really suck.

 

[riverc0il]

One big factor is a lot of folks were up for the long weekend. I think many folks were thinking "it is cold out and there is some football to watch, so why don't we stay in today and ski tomorrow." One couple I spoke with yesterday said their weekend stay included only two days of skiing, so they were trying to decide between Sunday and Monday. After I replaced my jaw back into my mouth, I did my best to convince them that Sunday was going to be the pick for the weekend. They seemed more concerned about the cold factor. :roll: Funny thing was... there was not much wind today, so it did not feel very cold. I skied with only base layers and parka, never got my fleece and felt warm all day. Would not even put today in my top 20% of coldest Jay days ever, it was fairly comfortable most of the day.

 

[riverc0il]

A few pictures. Note that the second picture with the tracks coming out of the woods was taken around 1:30pm. It was supposed to have been my last run, but it was too good not to partake in an encore.

 

[dank]

And with 2 eastern teams in the super bowl this year i bet super bowl sunday will be great crowdwise all over the east. If not that entire weekend?

 

[BigJay]

Nah... I didn't have fun at all... we got so spoiled that riding in light fluffy snow on top of ice and crud just didn't do it for me... I'll just keep praying for more snow... I did 5 runs on sunday and went back home...

Thumbs up to those who enjoyed it... Like i said, we got spoiled in December!

 

[J.Spin]

They seemed more concerned about the cold factor. :roll: Funny thing was... there was not much wind today, so it did not feel very cold. I skied with only base layers and parka, never got my fleece and felt warm all day. Would not even put today in my top 20% of coldest Jay days ever, it was fairly comfortable most of the day.

Yeah, I had anticipated pretty cold temperatures on Sunday and Monday as well so I decided to stay down in the lower elevations and keep warm by earning turns on some more of our local backcountry up above the house. But man, what a beautiful couple of days, I felt like I was overdressed on Sunday. Here at the house, we hit highs of 25.3 F on Sunday and 19.8 F today with brilliant blue skies and little if any wind both days.

So 6" new was nice. Where I could find stuff untouched from yesterday, I found boot deep. Where I could find stuff untouched since Monday (holy crap!!), knee deep! I was surprised that stuff had remained untouched for nearly a full week. But not as surprised that there would be no competition all day. Three six inch storms on six days, sweet.

It sounds like you were catching some really good snow River. I'm sure there's nit picking that can be done about the conditions right now since the steep terrain is not yet back to a perfectly fluffy base, but I'd say it's because we're often pretty spoiled around here. When there are bottomless turns available only 1,000' above our house in the valley on low and moderate-angled terrain, you know the higher elevations can't be all that bad. I pasted in the valley snowpack update I provided to SkiVT-L below, and until I get a chance to write up the full report, there's a link to a few pictures from Sunday:

I headed up into the local backcountry above the house yesterday, so I figured I’d provide a quick update on the valley/low elevation ski conditions in the Waterbury/Bolton area. I’ve recorded 7.8 inches of snow here at the house (elevation 495’) since Monday. Currently, we have 12 inches at the back yard stake, and that depth is pretty consistent throughout the yard. In terms of powder, the top 3 to 4 inches of the snowpack is medium-weight fluff (the settled result of the 7.8 inches of snowfall), although at this elevation there is a weak crust on the surface in areas that were exposed to sun on Friday. Below the surface powder is a solid base of snow that hides just about everything. Interestingly, I think the powder in our yard has actually improved over the past couple of days with the cold temperatures. After Friday, when we topped out at a temperature of 41.7 F with the afternoon sun, all the snow in the yard had some degree of crust on it, with the thickest being what was actually exposed to the sun. Now, perhaps due to a couple days with cold, dry air with low temperatures around 0 degrees F, the crust in all but the sunny areas has actually disappeared. I just went out and checked it first hand about 10 minutes ago, so if anyone has ever wondered if a crust can simply disappear, well now you know it can. Down at this elevation, some south-facing slopes have just a few inches of snow however, and some even have bare patches. As of yesterday, I found no surface crust above about the 800-foot elevation except for sun exposed, south-facing slopes. Settled powder depth on top of the base was about 4 to 5 inches at the 1,000-foot elevation, and about 5 to 6 inches at the 1,500-foot elevation. We haven’t been above freezing the past couple of days, although temperatures have still been comfortable around here with bright sun and highs in the shade of 25.3 F on Sunday and 19.8 today. According to the Burlington NWS it looks like the next chances for snow are Tuesday through Thursday, and then perhaps the weekend, although at this point just light snow is expected down here in the valley.

A few pictures from yesterday’s local tour are up at:

http://www.jandeproductions.com/2008/20JAN08.html

J.Spin

 

[riverc0il]

Nah... I didn't have fun at all... we got so spoiled that riding in light fluffy snow on top of ice and crud just didn't do it for me... I'll just keep praying for more snow... I did 5 runs on sunday and went back home...

Thumbs up to those who enjoyed it... Like i said, we got spoiled in December!

I got spoiled in December too... but Sunday was really nice. If you did not enjoy yourself, you were not hitting the right tree slots. I was skiing a lot of stuff in which the scraped/icy base simply was not a factor.

 

[BigJay]

Don't worry, i'm not saying things couldn't be good... I just didn't have fun... Snow was sticky because of the cold... We got there pretty late... No crowds... but still... I didn't bother with the woods... I prefer avoiding them until they get real good... Right now there is too much chances of hitting something under the very light powder and ruin the rest of your season... I'll wait it out... I really don't mind... I hope it snows this week and next w-e could be pretty fun... Maybe i'll get my skis out if it doesn't snow much this week!