With Jay Peak planning to open for the Season this coming Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend, I planned a double purpose trip to Jay Peak. Instead of fighting the crowds on Saturday morning to get my Season Pass picture taken, I opted to visit the office this morning and take care of business before the rush. The other purpose was of course to make some turns and claim my seventh day of the season. While Jay Peak’s Faux Sneaux left much to be desired, claiming day seven before Thanksgiving is not too shabby, especially considering the first major New England ski areas just opened yesterday.
Arriving at The Jet triple and clicking into my skis, I happened upon a pot of gold. White Gold that is. With snow guns firing and a bright sun blazing across a deep blue sky, a rainbow had formed at the nozzle of every single snow gun. The end of the rainbow led to a bountiful pot of white gold. I have never chased the end of a rainbow before; but now that I have, I know that the story is true.
My goal was to time my skin just right so that the snow guns were turned of exactly when I reached the top of The Jet. Normally favoring an early start, I had puttered around home longer than usual in an effort to coordinate my ascent with temperatures rising above the freezing mark. I began my skin up The Jet, staying to looker’s left of the trail to avoid the guns. By the one quarter mark of the skin, the snow guns on lower Jet began turning off one by one.
The guns on Upper Jet were still firing, so I took Heaven’s Road to Haynes and tried skinning up the old glaciated snow form Jay’s snow making effort early in November. A surprising amount of snow still remained on Haynes; however, it was glaciated beyond being skinable, especially at that pitch. I clicked out and hiked up a short ways to Derick Hot Shot which had extremely thin cover and was not in skiable condition, but had just enough snow for a pleasant skin. Soon enough, I was at the top of The Jet just as the last snow gun was powered down.
After a brief rest and a lunch, I snapped some pictures before switching to downhill mode and clicking in. I took care not to ski under the chairlift whose plastered chairs, plastered with snow and ice, were beginning to melt and hurling large chunks of heavy ice towards the ground. Skier’s left was the location of the many whales which were rather icy due to the snow making crew not pulling the plug in time. I stayed center on the trail between the whales and the chairlift doing my best with the variable snow conditions that occasionally iced up. In places, turns were fantastic. But overall, the descent did not merit another skin up Derick, so I called it a day after one run for the price of none.