Jay: I Can Milk It
Early season powder days at Jay when only the Jet Triple is running are often some of my best days at Jay. Today was no exception. Take the lift, hike, boot deep, and repeat.
Category: Jay Peak
Jay: Racer Ready
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.
Jay: Milk to GMB
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.
Jay: Early Season Leftovers
The posts started appearing on my phone last weekend during a layover in Atlanta. As we were heading out of the country for a week, Vermont was starting to experience its best last week of October storm in ten years. Perhaps that bodes well because 2006 was a banner year for me with 22 powder days. But even that thought provided little comfort while enjoying a missed connection layover in Atlanta (thanks, Delta) on the first day of a vacation.
The second half of October is an attractive time for me to schedule tropical vacations. Hurricane season is almost over but ski season has usually not yet begun (or lifts will just be firing up upon our return). Travel prices are at their lowest point of the year and I am at my highest need of time off. Sometimes it works out well like two years ago when we flew in Logan during the first snow of the year. And sometimes, like this year, I miss several days of skiing amazing early season earned turn powder.
We got home after midnight on Thursday and I was drained from the travel. I had several errands to run on Friday (including having my snow wheels/tires installed) and then I had to work on Saturday. During Saturday, I watched from my window at work as the sky opened up and rain poured down. A quick glance at the weather suggested that no mountain and no elevation in New England would be spared the snow destroying deluge.
Jay Peak Powder Day: Pics Or It Didn’t Happen
Today was the tenth day and first powder day of my season. During an average season, I would have had at least that many powder days and more than double that many total days by the end of February. But this is not an average season. And today was not an average powder day.
I was only expecting a few inches, just enough to soften things up. But instead, Jay got coated in eight amazing inches. The dense snow felt bottomless even though I knew it wasn’t. I thought I might go an entire season without a powder day. But I finally got one. Perhaps my only one of the entire season.
Powder days have been so exceedingly rare this season that you might ask for pics or not believe that it happened. It did happen but I can’t prove it. After booting up, I looked at the zipped top pocket of my bag where I store my camera. And then I looked away and started walking towards the door.
I was sitting on the Jet having singled up with a father and his son. They were talking most of the ride about skiing. But then the father pulled out his phone and started typing. His son desperately tried to get his attention but the father continually asked for, no, insisted on silence so he could futz around with his device. He was out of the moment, momentarily oblivious to his surroundings, intentionally unaware of what deserved his full attention.
Today wasn’t about documenting and reporting. It wasn’t about trying to capture the conditions or available lines in ones and zeros. Today was about skiing hard, being in the moment, and treasuring each untracked turn. Every fucking one of them. I didn’t need a picture to remember today. How could I ever forget?