thanks for your moral support.. a few points <BR>1) your point about taking advantage is well taken... like i said jay is probably the class of the east in terms of honesty and they certainly are to be given credit for the way they approach the timeliness of their am reports during the season.. that's just why the stunt they ppulled on thursday is shocking...i havc called their hotline and heard updated reports as early as 3:30am!!!...but they certainly appeared to be taking advantage last week... you may be interested in the particulars of the conversation my buddy and i had with chris the manager upon arrival. he greeted us with " sorry guys , we just decided to close today " when questioned why he replied that they had lost too much snow overnight and could not put out a " quality product that they could be proud of." after recovering from the shock of having the old double emotions working at the same time ( anger and laughter ) we asked him to cut the crap and pointed out to him that anyone skiing at this time who has half a brain would expect "variable" conditions. he then stated to us in an angry tone that in addition to the questionable conditions, a second factor in the decision to close with no notice was that they had sold 2 and 1 lift tickets respectively the previous 2 days. i repeatedly kept trying to point out to chris that the resort had every right , from an economic stand point, if in fact they sold an aggregate of 3 tickets in two days, to shut it down, regardless of the snow conditions. but the perception one would get from reading jay's opening web page site forthe previous 5 days, was that they were pretty much ready to handle anything that was thrown their way in terms of weather because they had <BR>" unlike some of our friends to the south " held out from opening up a little longer to focus on blowing snow and staying open once they decided to in fact open. this little sermon was posted on their web site as late as wed night, so one would have to take it for what it is... i then stated to chris that my buddy and i were not idiots and not without some reasonableness about us and that we fully understood that jay does not control the weather. something strange went on wed night into thursday morning chris stated to us which i believe in fact happened. and i believe him that a tremendous amount of snow was lost in a short period of time... the problem was that he started in about the issue quality snow and that really got under our skin becasue it was not in fact about that no matter what he said becasue he let it slip ( intentionally or not ) about the previous 2 days gate reciepts. we stated to chris that they had every right to close, but that if they were going to do so, OR HAD ANY IDEA THAT SOMETHHING TRAJIC MAY BE OCCOURING OVERNIGHT, that they should have put that info out asap. i stated to chris that my buddy and i were flying through franconia notch around 7 am when on the radio on w.h.o.m we heard a ski report that clearly stated that jay was turning the jet triple. upon pulling within 5 miles of jay we could look at the trail and almost spot bump lines... clearly the trail was covered and it had some substantial snow because there were somewhat consistent mogul lines observed and no bare spots . chris's reply was that they had just made the decision after observing the conditions.. our point to him was that if conditions can be observed at 330am in feb, why can't they be observed sooner than 845am in dec. could it be payroll related? " becasue we just got here ", he stated, totally missing my point that if you are presenting the perception that you are open for the duration, you better make sure that if you have any sort of inkling that that may not be the case, you had better get that info out. the conversation became heated at this point. he kept trying to pin us as a couple of unreasonable civilians who do not understand how to run a ski resort... it would be foolish of me to say i know a much as him, but i do have common sense , and my common sense tells me that the only resort in the east deemed worthy enough to host an IFSA extreme skiing event, does not have to have as one of it's concerns, quality of soft corn snow being all moguled up and the possiblity of a few thin spots for mr. and mrs abc'er ( average blue cruiser ) to navigate through . he was trying to have it both ways giving the quality of snow reason ( which was just not true ) and then the economic reason (which very well may be true and in which case i would shut it down too... but only with a reasonable amount of notice... chris seemed to laugh off my suggestion that a phone call placed to w.h.o.m, the largest radio station in new england which broadcast that jay was in fact open, could have saved a lot of aggravation for some people... he did not think that that was reasonable, which only drove us more crazy...at this point he basically gave us a free lift ticket and told us to beat it, which we did, but only after driving and walking over to the jet triple and seeing for ourself the " unskiable product " it was skiable and frankly it probably would have been a killer day if you like soft corn bumps. <BR>2) you r correct about pre-season skiing, i would chuck the whole thing and not ski until jan 15th if i could be assured that resorts would at least commit to blowing snow on at least one trail to get a base that would allow them to stay open until may 1st and at least a few of them till the end of may.. but this is not all the resorts fault.. people have other interests and don't want to ski a 5 or 6 month season, which is a travesty, in my opinion because once one actually learns about being centered on their skis, spring skiing is as close to heaven on earth as you can get.... but the silly public does not get this... 3) your point about the early reports is nice to hear.. i've been singing that for 2 years now.. it's a joke, but they just do not care, and if you try and point it out to them , they look at you like you are out of your mind! oh well, enough selfish, self serving whining,,,we should all be grateful we live freely in this country and can ski... have a good winter.. rip it up
