Today was a dust on crust special at Jay Peak. All the three inch untracked powder you want with little competition if you did not mind bottoming out on a frozen hard packed base. My feelings predicted that things would be fairly nice this morning with a few inches of fresh. Instead of fluffy blower, we could have used heavy and dense snow. My first three tree runs each got progressively more low angle. Ultimately, I decided today would be a groomer day. While discussing the conditions with some folks, I said “this has been the most groomers I have skied in a day all season, perhaps the most groomers I HAVE skied all season.” That about sums up todays conditions at Jay.

Jet was skiing really nicely throughout the morning. I hammered Jet for several runs before deciding that I was not going to wait for a line longer than a minute or two to ski groomers. Shortly before noon time, I headed back to the Chalet and headed home.

You can tell it is vacation week by the conversations you overhear. I was dumb founded by the amount of times I heard something along the lines of “wow, the conditions are great today!” Which, they were, if you enjoy skiing groomers. But I could have been doing that (more enjoyably) at Cannon on $8 worth of gas instead of $21. This is a big difference in my new location. While living in Vermont, the half hour of additional driving to Jay was always a worth while gamble. Whereas the forty minutes door to door Cannon drive time versus over two hours to Jay is a different story if the woods are not there.

Sunday was the bust of this season. With the forecast calling for six to ten inches up and down the Green Mountains, Jay was slotted to receive a major snow storm Saturday night into Sunday morning. Rarely does Jay Peak miss on the big storm predictions. Quite the opposite, Jay almost always receives more snow than expected. But Sunday was a complete and total bust at Jay Peak.

Arriving at a packed Stateside lot shortly before the lifts began loading, I found one to two inches of fluff covering hard pack and scraped surfaces. That is what I get for notching a “powder day” onto my season cost and stat spreadsheet the night before heading up to the mountain. That is just bad Karma. Still hurting from Friday’s romp at Mad River, I set the early alarm and made the line up for opening at the Bonnie chair.

I checked all my favorite spots in short order and there was not much to be found except hard pack and scraped surfaces. There was the occasional nice shot of snow for two or three turns but conditions left something to be desired for the most part. I was tired, sore, and disappointed and decided to pack it up early despite new snow coming down during the late morning.

Jay posted five inches within twenty-four hours as of 4pm. I will chalk up two of those prior to opening and the remaining three falling throughout the day accompanied by increasingly harsh winds. I had hyped this weekend and it did not deliver. Will remember to keep the expectations down next time even when the snow forecasts start hitting double digits. Cannon would have skied better today, truth be told.