NHpowderhound
New member
Jay Peak today was cold,windy,and full of powder!I drove up last night and hit a guardrail after fishtailing wildly around St. Johnsbury.The roads had a coating of light snow on them,mostly from strong winds and I diddnt have my truck in 4wd when it happened.Dumb,but I made it to http://www.snowlinelodge.com about 10:30 pm.I dropped off the gear and headed back down to The Lodge to quench my thirst.Snowbanks on the mountain road are at least 10'high.It was snowing pretty good when I arrived although it was hard to tell how much was snow and how much was blow. <BR>In the morning the snow phone said "winds should not affect lift operations.All 8 lifts to run."AS I am listening to this,the wind outside the Snowline lodge is creating whiteout conditions. <BR>The No Bull is 4 lifts,Metro,Bonny,Queens and Village.It was raging today with 35mph+ gusts at the top of the Bonny.The snow on the open trails was variable,going from windpacked POW to hardpack to windscoured rock.The woods on the other hand were choked with windpacked POW.The snow was sooo cold today it felt like skiing on sand.Wicked abbrasive.I had the shop throw a coat of thier coldest wax on them after a couple runs and it only lasted two runs.Air temps never made it above 0,I checked the temp at lunch and it was -6F.With the Jet trip and the Flyer down,the only upper mountain lift was the Bonny.This left Beaver Pond,BBP,Staircase,Everglade,North Glade,Expo Glade and a few others virgin!Nobody was making the short hike up to Wedlemaster to get the goods.That was OK with me.Beaver Pond had only one set of tracks in it at 11:30am and it was phenomenal wind packed POW.But the run of the day was Everglade.Man is that thing huge!HUGE!And it was deep deep deep!Theere must be 5'+ in the woods,easily.The problem with hitting that side of the mountain was to get back to the Bonny I'd have to ride the Metro quad first.By the time you got from the top of Metro and back down to load the Bonny,you'd be a popsicle.I did see a woman skiing under the Metro wearing a dress today.She was getting a lesson,bizzare. <BR>It was still a terrific day. <BR>Beware if you travel to Jay Peak as there is no cure for Mad POW Disease. <BR>((* <BR>*))NHPH