It was still snowing when I left Jay Peak yesterday and temperatures were forecasted to remain below freezing. So I had no reason to suspect conditions would deteriorate overnight. But I quickly discovered during my skin up Goat that the snow had been wind blasted into a crust. The snow was oreo cookie like: crust on dust on crust.

My plan was to ascend Goat and evaluate options including some combination of Poma Line, Upper Ullr’s, or JFK using Weddlemaster as a skin track back to Alligator Alley with a final descent down Green Mountain Boys (which had treated me well the day before). But the crusty snow only got worse the higher I went.

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A decent sized crowd of skinners (for Jay) fanned out from Stateside Lodge. I opted for Wiggle to Hell’s Crossing to Northway for the ascent. Snow depths varied from bare ground to deep drifts. The wind clearly had its way with Jay as it usually does. Conditions appeared to favor wind sheltered areas. I was thinking about skinning to Can Am but assumed it wouldn’t ski well due to being massively exposed. I started my first descent down Upper Milk Run. If Milk Run skied well, I would skin back up and around to Can Am. If not, I’d head to “greener” pastures.

Turns were very nice on Milk Run but the snow didn’t feel like the foot and a half four day total. Following the flow of the trail, I skied the best that Milk Run had to offer. It was a solid untracked powder run but produced less excitement than anticipated. At the bottom of Upper Milk, I looked up Wiggle and down Taxi and ultimately decided on skiing down Taxi and catching the skin track up Goat.

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