FTO Contributing Writer Jim Bauman, buddy Dave Guertin and I pulled into the Jay Peak parking lot at 9 am sharp. The car thermo, accurate to a fault, read 15ºF. It looked downright wintry. There was only one problem: all of the upper mountain lifts were on windhold, which meant that only the Queen's T-Bar, the Metro quad, and the Village double were running. Ugh! <BR> <BR>It didn't look too promising to open, either, so after a quick call to Smuggs to learn that while the M1 chair was on hold, Sterling was running, we were off in a car caravan down to Smugglers' Notch. <BR> <BR>Driving up 108 from Jeffersonville, it already looked better than it did only two days earlier: <BR> <BR><IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/8/3730.jpg" ALT="Smuggs"> <BR> <BR>We were in the lot by 10 and on the hill by 10:15. Our first journey was straight into the Back Bowls: <BR> <BR><IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/8/3731.jpg" ALT="Jim Bauman in the Back Bowls"> <BR> <BR>While the upper reaches were decent but variable and windblown, the lower stretches were downright sketchy above the snow-covered Rte. 108. It was silently agreed amongst the three of us that this run would be our only one into the Back Bowls this day. <BR> <BR>Looking for more shelter, on the second run we traversed along the Long Trail in search of the goods, ... <BR> <BR><IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/8/3732.jpg" ALT="On the Long Trail"> <BR> <BR>...finding them on Wishbone. (Before you ask, no...I'm not giving directions! <IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/clipart/wink.gif">) Here it was indeed...probably 8 to 10 inches of fluffy snow we had no right to expect at the end of the first week of April. It's tough to accurately assess the snowfall of the past 48 hours thanks to the wind's uneven distribution, but I'd think that the 15" of new snow claimed by the resort is more than there was. <BR> <BR>We linked tree run after tree run back to the base of Sterling: <BR> <BR><IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/8/3733.jpg" ALT="Jim Bauman skis the trees"> <BR> <BR><IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/8/3734.jpg" ALT="Skier: Marc Guido, photo: Dave Guertin"> <BR> <BR>Crowds were light indeed, surprising for what could be the last powder day of the season: <BR> <BR><IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/8/3735.jpg" ALT="Madonna base lodge"> <BR> <BR>Around 11 am or so they took the M1 chair off of wind hold, so off we went. There was considerably more snow on the ground than there was on Sunday: <BR> <BR><IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/8/3736.jpg" ALT="Lower Liftline"> <BR> <BR>We managed first tracks on some of the more popular off-piste runs (that too shall remain nameless). You had to be careful, though, for one minute you'd be skiing in boot-top fluff, and the next you'd be facing a minefield of various nasties exposed by what had clearly been raging winds. In one of these situations I struck a downed evergreen with a broken-off 6" long limb sticking out of it, the latter spearing the side of my left calf right at the top of the boot. While I continued to ski on it, flexing of the ankle when walking after skiing and out of the ski boot was/is extremely painful. I'm still limping around the house, nursing a wound that sticks out with the circumference of a baseball. Ouch! <BR> <BR>Eventually the weather broke into a beautiful day, never rising out of the 30s: <BR> <BR><IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/8/3737.jpg" ALT="Mt. Mansfield from Madonna Mt."> <BR> <BR>Hopefully we'll have another powder day this season, but if we don't, this was a terrific last one to enjoy.
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