riverc0il
New member
today was an interesting but rather good day. the temperature started off in the pits and i was taking two or three runs then heading inside to warm up. when i left at 3p, i would have had to delayer if i had wanted to continue skiing. add to the temperature swing that the red chair, blue chair, and tram all suffered off line issues, and things definitely were not normal. blue chair was down for half the day, red chair was down for a quarter of the day and was running on back up power when i was leaving and closed for the remainder, and the tram went down around noon time for what i would guess to be about a half hour. spotted some guys climbing up the tram roof and up the arm to the wires near the summit shack and inspecting one of the do-hickeys that hold all the lines together.
took me a while to get my legs moving, mostly due to the cold i think. i was skiing on my AT gear since my 8000s have been mailed to utah for warranty replacement, so that took some adjusting as well. i always prefer my alpine gear in the trees, but oh well. if there was ever a doubt in my mind about choosing jay for a season pass, all doubts were off today with almost all the glades open. it ain't like that at burke and cannon isn't even close. while i love powder, it wasn't the reason for getting a jay pass as i could just as easily score vermonter rates after the big dumps. the pass pays off with dependability and reliability of the trees being open long before most other mountains. only stowe, bolton, and bush (smuggs maybe?) can claim similar dependability.
skiing today was an A+ for a non-powder day. if you stayed home because you were afraid of getting cold, you missed out. i am having a hard time remembering my exact run set for the afternoon as it is mostly a blur of trees wizzing past my head. i spent at least part of every run in the trees, i am not sure where else i could cover the same amount of territory and do the same. i managed to avoid the problem lifts when there were problems.
i'll dish the highlights: finding untracked slots in BPG and xxxxxx xxxxxxxx (which still had nice 6" shots in places, wow!). skiing vertigo for my first time ever, this is going down in my book as one of my favorite tree runs. brought to mind some of favorite shots at mittersill from an aesthetics point of view. nice soft moguls on upper U.N. (cover was still somewhat so so on middle). northwest passage to north glades was rather sweet packed pow and the bonaventure glades take the cake for low angle (stateside glade still a little thin). i had never been on river quai, and while i opted for vertigo both times, the top section was a lot of fun with variable steep rolls and odd angle pitches characteristic of the great liftline trails of new england.
on the low lights side of things: powerline should NOT have been open (and i am the last person to say a trail with thin cover should be closed!). it had better coverage in october, no joke, and was particularly rocky and plain out nasty. valhalla was toasted on my only tram run. lifties need to get control of the red chair line, it was a bloody ugly free for all. (at the risk of sounding like joegm railing against the new hampton race team, the jay ski club race team brat pack was cutting line by loading three from the singles line. expo glade experienced snow making blow in from exposition which made conditions less than desirable.
crowds were rather manageable even after the hoards should up at 10a or so. i was able to load up from the singles line within two minutes on every chair. no wind on the freezer was real nice. conditions on the main trails are groomed, in the woods it is packed powder with plenty of thin spots, many glades are almost mandatory tree or rock hits so bring your rock skis if that is an issue, bump lines were okay higher up on the mountain and not so great lower down. the dedicated powder hound hunting for lines can still score an occasional couple feet of untracked 6", pretty sweet considering the storm was a week ago and barely anything since.
oh yea, no snow all day. better see some snow tomorrow or heads will roll
been a while since the forecasts have been spot on, and that isn't a shot against powderfreak because everyone has been calling for snow events that either are not happening or not as big as expected. in the mean time, jay still needs another foot to open everything up and another two feet before it is seriously going off. which is about the same thing i said last week, so not much change. pics to follow after dinner.
took me a while to get my legs moving, mostly due to the cold i think. i was skiing on my AT gear since my 8000s have been mailed to utah for warranty replacement, so that took some adjusting as well. i always prefer my alpine gear in the trees, but oh well. if there was ever a doubt in my mind about choosing jay for a season pass, all doubts were off today with almost all the glades open. it ain't like that at burke and cannon isn't even close. while i love powder, it wasn't the reason for getting a jay pass as i could just as easily score vermonter rates after the big dumps. the pass pays off with dependability and reliability of the trees being open long before most other mountains. only stowe, bolton, and bush (smuggs maybe?) can claim similar dependability.
skiing today was an A+ for a non-powder day. if you stayed home because you were afraid of getting cold, you missed out. i am having a hard time remembering my exact run set for the afternoon as it is mostly a blur of trees wizzing past my head. i spent at least part of every run in the trees, i am not sure where else i could cover the same amount of territory and do the same. i managed to avoid the problem lifts when there were problems.
i'll dish the highlights: finding untracked slots in BPG and xxxxxx xxxxxxxx (which still had nice 6" shots in places, wow!). skiing vertigo for my first time ever, this is going down in my book as one of my favorite tree runs. brought to mind some of favorite shots at mittersill from an aesthetics point of view. nice soft moguls on upper U.N. (cover was still somewhat so so on middle). northwest passage to north glades was rather sweet packed pow and the bonaventure glades take the cake for low angle (stateside glade still a little thin). i had never been on river quai, and while i opted for vertigo both times, the top section was a lot of fun with variable steep rolls and odd angle pitches characteristic of the great liftline trails of new england.
on the low lights side of things: powerline should NOT have been open (and i am the last person to say a trail with thin cover should be closed!). it had better coverage in october, no joke, and was particularly rocky and plain out nasty. valhalla was toasted on my only tram run. lifties need to get control of the red chair line, it was a bloody ugly free for all. (at the risk of sounding like joegm railing against the new hampton race team, the jay ski club race team brat pack was cutting line by loading three from the singles line. expo glade experienced snow making blow in from exposition which made conditions less than desirable.
crowds were rather manageable even after the hoards should up at 10a or so. i was able to load up from the singles line within two minutes on every chair. no wind on the freezer was real nice. conditions on the main trails are groomed, in the woods it is packed powder with plenty of thin spots, many glades are almost mandatory tree or rock hits so bring your rock skis if that is an issue, bump lines were okay higher up on the mountain and not so great lower down. the dedicated powder hound hunting for lines can still score an occasional couple feet of untracked 6", pretty sweet considering the storm was a week ago and barely anything since.
oh yea, no snow all day. better see some snow tomorrow or heads will roll
been a while since the forecasts have been spot on, and that isn't a shot against powderfreak because everyone has been calling for snow events that either are not happening or not as big as expected. in the mean time, jay still needs another foot to open everything up and another two feet before it is seriously going off. which is about the same thing i said last week, so not much change. pics to follow after dinner.
