Big Jay

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In the Ski Area Wish List topic on the Mahogany Ridge forum Hamdog questioned advice about skiing Big Jay:

hamdog":3adl5ion said:
not sure where you're talking about cause i've only been to Jay once and didn't do any gaping. that's to bad that that's happening up there. fresh tracks all gone to the gapers. sweet

i think NHPH might know his way around Jay a little better than those who you speak of...........waiting for a pickup. ???
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Big Jay isn't Jay Peak proper, it's another summit about a 30 minute hike from the top of Jay Peak. Jay Peak is actually a massif with 3 separate summits: Jay Peak, Big Jay and Little Jay. The ski area is solely on the northeast side of Jay Peak. See here, change to a "large" map and then change it to 1:100,000 scale (I can't find a way to link to the map after those changes) to see the lay of the land.

Folks ride to the top of the tram then hike across the col and up to the summit of Big Jay, then drop Big Jay's eastern face. You end up on VT Route 242 about 4 miles from the ski area entrance, down near Alpine Haven on the Montgomery side of Jay Pass. You end up following the stream that begins in the basin between Jay Peak and Big Jay to get back to the road. Following that stream can be a bit of a slog, especially in deep new snow.

NHpowderhound":3adl5ion said:
Dont worry, Marc.I would never make a backcountry trip like that w/o a knowledgeable bud that I trust.
The Dip is the lost treasure IMHO.Sign up with the ski school now and they will take you on a guided tour through the Dip complete with a ride back to the mountain.They are also quite willing to give extemely detailed info on how to find a few more stashes. :evil:
((*
*))NHPH
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The Dip that NHpowderhound is referring to drops to 242 at the low point just to the north side of 242, right about where the 242 symbol is on the aforementioned map.
 
cool. so there's sort of an open boundary thing, aye? the ski area is one peak, and then there are two other mountains that are backcountry areas? all that terrain way up there. wow. i think i'm gonna quit school, move to VT and become a lifty so i can ride big all the time. see ya this wintah. :D
 
:shock:
you guys are all losers, stay the fuck on the trails the mountian cut for you, and until you come up here and spend some of your valuable time on making backcountry trails, because thats what they are, i hate to break it to all of you but in order to ski anything out of bounds at jay, you have to go out there at some other time or to be a little more honest , all the fucking time and cut shit down. thats why the skiing is so great. But alot of that work has always been done by a very small number of people willing to sacrifice their precious time to go out there and work, work their fucking asses off for days on end in the persuit of freshness out side the bounds of the ski area, and those are the people who deserve fresh tracks all the time, not some masshole or joey, but some hard working individual, someone who has worked for free to build a ski trail O.B. so if you could all just stay in the confines of the jay peak boundry that would make myself and a few other priveledged hard workers very happy powder hounds, we deserve it.

:evil: :evil: :evil:
 
Don't hold back man, tell us how you REALLY feel. :roll:

If you don't want people skiing "your" shots then you're going to need to buy the mountain and put up a big fence. Of course, the GMC may have issues with that...
 
can't wait to see some responses to this one :shock:

bigJAYbigDOG, you might want to consider cutting your runs on a mountain that isn't lift served or doesn't have easy hiking from a lift serviced area. it'll probably retain powder better. no disrespect to your claimed efforts; however, if you're gonna cut it people are gonna ski it. unless you're skillful enough to keep the entrance hidden. :lol:
 
First of all, I agree with NHPH. :-$

Second of all, unless BJBD owns the lands where he cuts the tree and those the work, he is as bad as us.

Fuck man, we just trepass on private land, we (at least I) don't go fucking cut the trees down off someone else property.

Ah, what a wonderful world we live in. Stay off my private trail, I made it myself... wonder what you would say to the owner if he would ski it one day. :roll: This is, of course, a hypothetical situation - just for argument purposes.
 
Anonymous":2jevay2j said:
First of all, I agree with NHPH. :-$

Second of all, unless BJBD owns the lands where he cuts the tree and those the work, he is as bad as us.

[censored] man, we just trepass on private land, we (at least I) don't go [censored] cut the trees down off someone else property.

Ah, what a wonderful world we live in. Stay off my private trail, I made it myself... wonder what you would say to the owner if he would ski it one day. :roll: This is, of course, a hypothetical situation - just for argument purposes.
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I said that...

Shit, what happened to the red dot??? I should've swear in French.
 
:shock: :shock: :shock:

well, to all of you who are so well informed. the precious land that surrounds the jay peak area is my land and your land , that is if you are a vermonter. it is called PUBLIC! there are also very strict parameters taken when trail is made, for you amatuers out there i will explain. first, location location location, is key to making a good trail and for those of you who think you know the mountain guess again there still are some very private stashes right from lift services, that will not be found by the a s s e s or do i mean the masses. the problem that exsists with the "dip " and "big jay" is that a few bad apples ruined it for the bunch, by showing the gaping public where to go . most namely the jay peak ski school, what a bunch of losers. they exploit the hard work of others in order to recieve a bigger tip from some duech from jersey. that is just wrong and is also our biggest enemy. We will conquer the jay peak ski school and destroy them in an elaborate scheme of destruction. they are everything that is wrong with our local backcountry community, this would never go on elsewhere. I have first hand experience skiing other mountains all over the world and shared the backcountry in a responsible and sustainable way, both of which are lacking at jay. it makes me sick to my stomach to see the liftlines users replies. you people need to get a life and learn something about the issue at hand here, and until you do shut the [censored] up .

:P :P :P :P

bigJAYbigDOG
 
bigJAYbigDOG":119cepd0 said:
it makes me sick to my stomach to see the liftlines users replies. you people need to get a life and learn something about the issue at hand here, and until you do shut the [censored] up .
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And you need to get some Valium. Quickly.
 
I am back :shock:

I patiently agree with your comment regarding the Jay Ski School, funny you didn't mention the widening of the access trail by your wonderful Ski Resort a few years back in which they were fined.


bigJAYbigDOG":13kd495r said:
the precious land that surrounds the jay peak area is my land and your land , that is if you are a vermonter. it is called PUBLIC!
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If you are indeed a Vermonter :roll:, you can also go and move in the White House or cut your Christmas Tree in a national forest, they indeed belong to the PUBLIC after all.

Don't take the people here for idiots 'cause I am sure some of the FTO folk probably know your Beloved Jay Peak and surrounding country more ... and has known about it before you ever heard and knew about it.

If cannot act and debated in a civilized way and then you keep your shit talk in Jay's forum.

- Sel
 
callin all clueless backcountry users: bigdog has a very valid point though he is coming off a little too agro for the rest of us. Firstly if you haven't put time in the woods creating a stash you really have very little room to comment on the subject. The unfortunate truth about east coast "back country" is that it,especially in V.T., has to be created which is incredibly gruelig and backbreacking. Secondly, there is an unwritten rule concerning back country stashes- that is don't ask-don't tell. In a state where the tallest mountain is 4300 feet and jay is 3900 how much "back country" could there really be. I Ski the back country in northern V.T. 30-50 days a year so don't assume I haven't done my homework. Enjoy the woods, enjoy the snow, just please shut up and stop advertising to the whole world about how special it is up here :( :( :(
 
FYI, "bigJAYbigDOG"'s last post to this topic, made under a different guest username that was merely a phonetic representation of an obscenity, has been deleted. The body of the post was merely a short slanderous reference to residents of one particular U.S. state. As a result of bigJAYbigDOG's rather poor choices, we have also for the first time opted to ban a user.

Some children just don't know how to "play nice" in the sandbox.
 
Marc and I once had an e-mail discussion about tree skiing in the East, and I remarked that my impression was that it needed to be created by often surreptitious summer pruning of brush, thus resulting in the controversy we see here. Marc argued that there was a "brush line" at about 2,500 feet on north facing slopes in Vermont that resulted in naturally gladed terrain with adequate spacing.

I did find this fascinating because in SoCal mountains at high elevation we have no brush for the opposite reason: our summers are so dry that only large trees can sink deep enough roots to survive them.

So as one who has skied only a couple of tree runs in Vermont at Stowe and MRG, I ask the question: Is eastern glade skiing mostly natural or mostly man made?
 
A suggestion for non-pinheads doing the big jay route: The hike across the saddle separating Jay and Big Jay is very densely vegetated, so try and minimize the height which your downhills stick up out of your pack or you'll be doing the limbo all the way. Also, the hike out along the creek can be mushy, so sacrifice a few turns near the bottom and try and ski as far out to the skier's right as you can. Catching a ride back is usually no problem. One time, a dude who was lost snowshoeing up on the ridgeline, and who we gave directions to find his way back to the road, picked us up as we came out! Fastest karma komeback ever witnessed!

I believe in sharing all information and trusting in the courtesy of the receivers. If I could remember the Potato Patch and some of the harder to find pumphouse lines well enough to describe, I would share them too. If you went to another state and wanted to find the sweet lines, would you rather a local generously share that information or selfishly turn his back on you? :roll: :twisted: :evil: :x :P :oops: :cry: :D
 
Tony Crocker":g6gyh1aq said:
Marc argued that there was a "brush line" at about 2,500 feet on north facing slopes in Vermont that resulted in naturally gladed terrain with adequate spacing.
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Let me clarify this: that's 2,500 feet on north-facing aspects in northern Vermont, the more "northern" the better as far as illustrating this point goes. Now, once you get into the krumholz altitudes, i.e. above the Mixing Bowl at Jay, that doesn't apply. That statement also applies to hardwood forests, not conifer forests. Also, one person's definition of "adequate spacing" may not be the same as another's. Chromer from this forum, for example, has a far higher tolerance for cramped quarters than I do. Trust me, I've tried -- and failed -- to follow him into a few rabbit warrens.

Look at my avatar to the left -- that's an unpruned line at Smugglers' Notch. Plenty o'room for me, but there are more than a few westerners who would see that a bit differently.

My experience in northern NH and ME is quite different. There it seems to be a tighter forest with more conifers mixed in. Any area that has been heavily logged in the past half century or so is also thicker, as the new secondary growth grows in more tightly.

But, mind you, I'm not trying to backtrack on my assertion. And as for the statements of our antagonist from earlier in this thread, we were skiing Big Jay long before anyone headed out there with loppers.

:idea: Hey, wait a minute -- doesn't that mean that he's actually been poaching my line? :shock:
 
Big Jay will definitely give you any density you like, from aspen-like spacing to hold your poles up and pray the branch-friction slows you down. On any given line there, you will probably run the gamut....though i haven't seen what the loppers have done...

:wink:
 
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