Jay Peak 12/15/07

Sharon

Sharon

New member
So much snow here and the blizzard has yet to begin.

Quiet, cold and sunny morning. So many deep fresh snow turns. They reported 6 fresh inches but wind had drifted it into knee deep in many places. The light snow was billowy and sweet.

Warmed up on a very lightly tracked Can-Am. Plenty of untracked lines. It was beautiful! Pam didn't want to start off in the woods. So this was a nice run we could do together.

Then hit Canyonlands and Bonavanture Glade which only had one track in it. Pam doesn't have her ski legs yet and opted to stay on-piste, which was still quite nice n powdery. But fresh tracks in the woods was beyond good.

Next we went over to the Jet and went right over to TImbuktu, which still had some fresh in it. Beyond the boundary there were many untracked lines, which kept me coming back for more. After 3 runs there I felt quite satisfied and was ready to venture on. I believe I saw RivercCoil skiing out of the Stateside glad while riding the Jet lift.

Kitz woods was nice but getting tracked, though some fresh turns were still found. Same for Hells Woods.

Pam was beginning to wear. She had not skied at all yet this season and hadn't even been able to work-out, so she was not the usual skier that I'm used to. I was glad to wait. This would keep me from tiring myself out too fast. I need to save some for the big day tmrw.

We rode the Bonnie and my choice was Everglade. This was more than Pam had bargained for, but we took our time and there were plenty of rewards once off the steeper and rocky pitch.

Skied back to the condo for lunch and yoga.

Headed back out and skied with my friends who prefer the blues. I took them through the Bushwhack glade for their first real taste of powder skiing in the trees. They were overwhelmed and opted to stay on-piste. We took the tram up and took Vermonter for their first time at the top. Pam and I detoured onto Valhalla which was in excellent condition. Billowy soft snow, still some fresh turns to be had. That glade is really sweet.

Skied out to the Bonnie and did one more Canyonland from a different entrance.

It was a gorgeous windless day today, albeit quite cold. Sun gave the illusion of warmth. Ice and snowghosts were spooky. It was amazing how calm everything is right now. The calm before the storm.

Sadly, my camera battery has no charge :-(

Getting ready to head out to the meeting about backcountry access at Stateide.
 
Sharon. sounds great!! Cold, but great. Go 4 it tomorrow as Monday appears iffy due to wind holds.

Is Bushwacked the really, really mellow glade run at Jay? Or is there a beginner glade called - going by memory here- Moonwalk? Maybe you could get your intermediate friends on that one. It has a very low angle - perfect intro the to trees.
 
my friend was very uncomfortable in natural powder. She skis with her skis quite far apart and cannot manage powder that way. I suppose if it wasn't powdery she'd be fine.

Moonwalk would be the same issue.

Friend needs to work on technique for a while first. I just taught her how to pole plant. She is not yet employing it regularly. She needs to work on all that before she'll feel more comfy in natural snow conditions.

Tmrw will be a real test for her. She plans to get out early before it is too deep.
 
Phenomenal day today at Jay. I figured they would pick up some fresh overnight but 6" or so of wind packed powder on the open slopes was more than I had expected. Started off with a barely tracked Can Am which I almost never ski normally. Then completely untracked down Vertigo. Since the Tram and Freezer were not running when Jay opened, I headed Tramside for Northwest Passage to Expo Gladeish area and returned for Upper River to Expo Gladeish area. Trees were hitting boot to knee deep untracked. When the Flyer and Tram started up, I went back to Stateside as the party was up Tramside and hit a whole bunch of stuff.

Where were the crowds? Today was so atypical of my normal days at Jay. I was just tracking up everything and anything without competition. Stateside lot might have been just over 50% capacity by noontime. Never waited a second for any lift, ski on open to close. Got untracked 6" minimum for good long stretches on every run, right up until 3:15pm when I called it quits. Unreal. Didn't even bother much with some of the usual suspects, things were too good within the boundary.

Hell, I even took the tram twice today :shock: Got in line both times as a tram was loading and got on the next car. Not bad at all for a powder weekend, especially one that has been hyped. Everyone must be out Christmas shopping or something :roll: First time ever dropping into the PHC which was a hoot. My first steep skiing for the year and I performed below par. But at least I did not side slip the entire shot, which someone did right before I got in there.

Unfortunately, my choice for Jay meant no SIngle Chair Ceremony, but I was at the Big Jay meeting Stateside this evening. More on that later. But my immediate reaction is this is probably going to be bigger in scope than just Big Jay, I don't think the state is going to turn a blind eye so much as before going forward. There are a lot of better options suggested tonight than shutting down access completely (or at least before trying other options). Glad to have a dialog going but the dialog isn't a two way street yet.
 
Jeez, I am just updating my season stats here.... 12 days, 8 powder and you can +1 both of those tomorrow. Gotta wonder if any December snow records are going to fall at this rate?

And here are a few pictures from today. Did I mention Blue Bird?
 
Public meeting went on really long.

It was a sad day for Big Jay skiers.

Basically, the GMC says they are taking action based on the turn of events over the course of time with increased volume of skiers on Big Jay and the cleared "trail" was "the last straw". They had a biologist talk about all the habitat lost and the endangered species the clear cutting and high traffic may be affecting. They really don't have any numbers or proof and people thought they were being extreme in their actions. People are not very happy with this and challenged them to find other ways to deal with closure of the damaged area. There were probably around 60 people in the room all whom were really upset about the closure.

Today we looked over at Big Jay from the Jay summit. I expected to see a trail cut, but I could barely make out a white line down the middle. Could not be more than 20' wide on avg. It seemed to be a very small percentage of that mountain and I can't imagine that it could have such a severe impact on wildlife habitat as the GMC wants to believe. They seem to be making a big deal of it. While I agree that cutting 800 trees is totally wrong and quite a bonehead thing to do, I do think the GMC is getting a bit too zealous in keeping people from accessing public land. The vegetation will grow back. Nature can repair itself from such an insignificant scar on a large mountain.

They have put up a barrier fence to bar access from Jay Peak. Jay Peak is relieved of the responsibility of people getting injured out there. There were some ski patrollers present (some of them brought their happy hour with them in the form of a Heineken keg in the back of the side of the room where I was sitting). They do not want to play gate police. There was no mention who was going to enforce the access from Jay Peak, though the access is now gated with "closed" signs. There was also no mention of the consequences of climbing over the fence.

People may still access Big Jay from 242 with snowshoes or skins. The GMC's main concern was the volume of skiers coming from Jay Peak. If you are hearty enough to get in from 242 you can ski it. That will severely limit the crowds and that is what the GMC is after.

Someone brought up the possibility of allowing access from Jay Peak when the snowpack is over 6'. With this amount of snow there would be no impact from the skiers. I wonder if they will consider this option.

It was a public meeting. They let everyone say what they wanted so it went really long. A funny moment was when one of the people making comments to the GMC told the GMC guy that his fly was open.
 
nice report riv. always nice to be so pleasantly surprised with a better than hoped for sliding experience. unfortunately for moi i can't get out till tues. still a glimmer of hope for monday though.
tough issues with that big jay thing. limited access could be a good thing especially for those that don't mind working for it, that place got skied way too hard.
have fun tomorrow, bastards.
rog
 
We have lots of access issues like this in the Adirondacks. While they are usually not caused by something like the Jailbird Cut, there are similarities. Tradition use conflicting with strict interpretation of the rules.

There is one wilderness in the Adks where the wilderness boundary essentially goes along both sides of a road, but the road itself isn't in the wilderness, because locals have been driving on that road forever.

At one point the state put a huge boulder at the official trailhead to block the illegal traffic. I mean a huge boulder...like 1/2 the size of schoolbus. Locals had that boulder hoisted and trucked down the northway and delivered to the governor in Albany. To this day that "wilderness" still has motorized access.

In this case, for a while anyway, it sounds like the backcountry just got a little bigger, and the sidecountry got a little smaller.
 
Gotta wonder if any December snow records are going to fall at this rate?
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There's a way to go. Jay had over 10 feet in December 2000 and December 2003. But the former year had one big rain event mixed in and the latter several. From a ski quality standpoint this December is right up there so far.

Where were the crowds?
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Where they usually are between Thanksgiving and Christmas. It's often too risky to plan destination trips this early, but if it's good within driving distance, carpe diem. Nice to see that even Patrick is going to take this advice.
 
Tony Crocker":1y9zjwu3 said:
Where they usually are between Thanksgiving and Christmas. It's often too risky to plan destination trips this early, but if it's good within driving distance, carpe diem. Nice to see that even Patrick is going to take this advice.
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When I wrote "Where are the crowds" I meant that in reference to typical December crowds at Jay following a powder day. It was like 3/4 of the usual Jay powder hounds stayed home... and that is even adding in all the new blood due to the Triple Major Pass. Even compared to my other days earlier this December... the Jet parking lot has maxed out at least twice this month. In the past three seasons, I have noted much bigger crowds at Jay for much less snow. I should not have specifically asked "Where are the crowds" but rather "Where are the normal guests you would except during this time of year on a powder day?"

This really has nothing to do with the time of year, though I suspect week before the holidays is a small factor. Rather I think with so many other mountains nearly or fully open, there is a much greater variety of choices for powder hounds and tree lovers whereas Jay and perhaps Stowe are normally the only two games in town during this time of year. Perhaps better snow and terrain options else where leveled the playing field so people didn't feel like they "had" to ski Jay to get good snow and trees.
 
There were no crowds at Jay today either. None at all.

It was such a pleasure all weekend enjoying fresh snow almost all day long. It was not too hard to find fresh snow at 3pm either day.

Jay reported 12" in the last 24 hours...that may be, but we only brushed 6" off the cars at lunch, and it didn't snow a whole lot until after 4pm. Now it is snowing quite nicely. I expect tmrw to be quite fluffy.

Conditions are like mid-winter up here.
 
The lack of crowds today was almost spooky ... especially as I arrived way early and got the first freezer behind ski-patrol. No one behind me for a good 10 chairs. I left at 11am (had to get back to MTL early) and the parking lots were still pretty thing considering.

Some great runs had today in BBP and some of the mid mountain between run glades. So wish I could be up there tomorrow or tuesday.
 
Sharon":2nu1agp9 said:
Then hit Canyonlands and Bonavanture Glade which only had one track in it. Pam doesn't have her ski legs yet and opted to stay on-piste, which was still quite nice n powdery. But fresh tracks in the woods was beyond good.
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Saturday was a great day at Jay. Sorry Sharon, someone had to put those first tracks in for you! Our second run was down Canyon land and it was excellently fresh.

Tagged first tracks in BBP after canyon land and continued to reap pow all day. Pioneered some unskied lines off the face and then skied knee (or deeper) blower below the face. It was an unreal day.

Was back on Sunday and got the tram 3 times before it was wind holded at 10 AM. Spent the rest of the morning skiing BBP, and untracked staircase, and more.

Hiked up to the face in the afternoon. It was really blowing very hard. First run up there we skied the face chutes. Enough snow you could straightline it and not go to fast, unreal. Caused some very large sloughs.

Second hike to the face we skied down the ridge into the chutes between the saddle and green beret. Hard to find in the poor conditions. The wind was blowing hard enough that I could barely inhale, as an estimate from my mount washington days I would say on the ridge proper it was gusting above 80 mph. Our run down these chutes, and then to green beret were deeper than waist deep. Whitewalled all the way down, unreal.

Flying out this afternoon to Wyoming for the next month.

porter
 
Unreal w-e!

So much deep snow... So many untracked woods! Wow! I was up there both days and couldn't believe it. At some points i was coughing hard on snow getting inside your lungs after a big splash...

Everything had good cover and it wasn't hard to find above knee-deep snow after 3PM each days. Saturday was best though... Sunday was a bit cold and windy... Not as much snow as expected... So we drove back to Montreal sunday night... Conditions were simply horrible... 2H30 to get back! Normaly takes 1H30... Snow and winds... White out conditions for a while... going barely 15mph and seing cars piling up on the sides of the road... saw maybe 20 cars in the ditch!

But we got home no problem but totally burned out from a great weekend in the woods.
 
Patrick":zis8oac2 said:
riverc0il":zis8oac2 said:
Where were the crowds?
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Not only at Jay. Surprisingly quiet day on Saturday, deserted day on Sunday.
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At MRG Saturday for the Single Chair Ceremony day? Damn, I figured it would have been packed. That was part of my reasoning for skiing Jay in addition to attending the meeting.
 
The wind was blowing hard enough that I could barely inhale, as an estimate from my mount washington days I would say on the ridge proper it was gusting above 80 mph.
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Wow, I didn't have much issue with wind on Sunday. Monday was the windy day. I thought it would be much worse than it was on Sunday but I found it eerily quiet during storm. I rode the Flyer about 8 times and we remarked on how non-windy it was. We only rode the tram on Saturday. There only a few people (one tram-load) in line but it still took 30 minutes. They were only running one car. I am not all that fond of the Tram...would rather ride the Freezer, though there is some really interesting terrain off the top of Jay Peak that I often miss.

I've always wanted to ski Green Beret and the Face Chutes, but unfortunately I have never been with anyone who wanted to ski either one. I usually drop in at Valhalla.

I am going to lobby more expert level skiers to accompany me on my next Jay trip so that I can check out these places.
 
Sharon":qai6gcvv said:
I am going to lobby more expert level skiers to accompany me on my next Jay trip so that I can check out these places.
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Just announce your plans ahead of time and I am game. Heck, I was there Saturday. Could have taken you down some stuff much better than Face Chutes or Green Beret ;)
 
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