Category: Jay Peak

2015-2016 Season, January, Jay Peak

Jay: This Will Begin to Make Things Right

Northwest Passage

The first seven words spoken in The Force Awakens are equally fitting for this weekend. After suffering through three horrific months, the season has been redeemed. This weekend may not have included the perfect dump that we all want. But it was far better than we could have hoped for and it was awesome when evaluated on its own merits. It was not perfect but still just what we needed: it got us excited and happy to be skiing again. The metaphor is strong with this report.

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2014-2015 Season, February, Jay Peak, Powder Day

Jay: Regarding Expectations, Consistency, & Surprises

Jay Woods

Jay has taught me to always keep my expectations in check. High expectations can lead to disappointment even when conditions are better than average. And some of my fondest days are those that I expected less than stellar conditions.

But today I got exactly what I was expecting, yet another six inch powder day. A base that never seems to fully consolidate off piste. Never ending packed powder with frequent but never substantial reloads. Without the highs and the lows, we just experience a dull constant. A few inches here, a few inches there. It is nice but never epic.

This is the season of the ho-hum powder day.

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2014-2015 Season, December, Jay Peak

Jay: Running on Empty

Today should have been a banner day. Somewhere between two to three feet of super dense snow opened up almost all of Jay including a lot of off map trees. The extremely dense snow skied better after it was tracked up and packed down rather than untracked.

While skiing my four runs today, I frequently thought to myself that the snow and skiing today at Jay was better than the “Powder Day” a few days earlier at Killington. I thought to myself how much I utterly despised the fact that I couldn’t enjoy it.

Today was not meant to be despite my deep desire to enjoy the storm’s bounty before the inevitable rain/thaw/freeze event began. Work had ran me ragged. I was exhausted, stressed out, and deeply fatigued. I managed to get up early and make it to the mountain for first chair, but I would have been better off staying in bed.

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2014-2015 Season, Earned Turns, Jay Peak, November

Jay: Sometimes Adventure Is More Important Than Good Snow

Derick Hot Shot or Hot Shot Derick?

With lift ticket prices on the rise at Wildcat and Sunday River ($49 and $39 respectively) but neither area offering more than a single unique top to bottom route, the value was not sufficient to justify the expense. As with past seasons, I have made a commitment to tour more and ride the lifts less this season. So with low lift serviced value and high turn earning motivation in mind, I decided to skin and ski at Jay again despite no guarantee of natural snow turns.

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