Today was an interesting but rather good day. The temperature started off in the pits which encouraged visiting the lodge every second or third run. By the end of the day, I was considering removing layers. Further suggesting abnormalities, the Red Chair, Blue Chair, and Tram all suffered off line issues throughout the day. The Blue Chair was down for half the day, the Red Chair was down for a quarter of the day, and the Tram went down around noon time for what about a half hour. Lift mechanics were spotted climbing up the Tram arm to the wires near the summit shack and inspecting one of the cable holders. Just another bizarre day at Jay Peak.
Since my main everyday skis were mailed to Utah for warranty replacement, I was skiing on my AT setup. Because of the switch in gear in addition to the cold, it took me a while to get my legs moving. When in the trees, I always prefer my alpine gear but had little choice in the matter.
If there was ever a doubt in my mind about choosing Jay for a season pass, all doubts were off today. With almost all the glades open despite a horrible start to the season, Jay simply has more glades open more often than any other New England ski area. Burke and Cannon are not even close despite being closer to home. While I love powder, the great glade skiing is the reason I choose Jay Peak for my season pass which pays off with dependability and reliability of the trees being open long before most other mountains.
Skiing today was excellent for a non-powder day. If you stayed home because you were afraid of getting cold, you missed out. The afternoon was a blur of trees whizzing past my head. At least part of every run was spent in the trees. No where else could I cover the same amount of territory and spend that much time in the woods. Fortunately, I managed to avoid the problem lifts throughout the morning and afternoon.
Highlights included finding untracked slots in Beaver Pond and The Orchard (which still had nice six inch shots in places, wow!). Skiing vertigo for my first time ever was also a highlight which is going down as one of my favorite tree runs. Brought to mind some of my favorite shots at Mittersill from an aesthetics point of view. Nice soft moguls on upper U.N. (cover was still somewhat so so on middle) and Northwest Passage to North Glades were rather sweet packed pow. Bonaventure Glades were excellent for low angle trees and Stateside Glade was still a little thin. While opting for Vertigo, I had never been down River Quai. Despite the thin cover, the top section was a lot of fun with variable steep rolls and odd angle pitches characteristic of the great liftline trails of new england.
Some annoyances occurred including skiing Powerline which should not have been open (and I am the last person to say a trail with thin cover should be closed!). Powerline had better coverage in late October, no joke. My only Tram run was to ski valhalla but it was already toast. Lifties needed to get control of the Red Chair line. The ‘line’ was a bloody free for all. The Jay Peak Ski Club race team brat pack was cutting line on the Blue Chair by loading three at a time from the singles line. Finally, Expo Glade experienced snow making blow in from Exposition which made conditions less than desirable.
Crowds were rather manageable even after the hoards arrived. Singles lines were never more than two minutes long. The Freezer was a rather nice ride due to no wind. Conditions on the main trails are groomed, packed powder in the woods with plenty of thin spots, many glades are essentially mandatory tree or rock hits, bump lines were okay higher up on the mountain and not so great lower down. The dedicated powder hound hunting for lines can still score an occasional six inches of untracked. Pretty sweet considering the last snow storm was a week ago. Despite predictions of weekend snow fall, the skies were quiet today.