Category: 2006-2007 Season

2006-2007 Season, Burke, February, Powder Day

Two Pre-Work Runs on Friday at Burke

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Worked late yesterday so I came in late to work this morning. Felt really good, kind of like I was sticking it back to the man for the man sticking it to me every so often. Jay Peak reciprocal mid-week pass was in effect for two runs before heading into work. Burke was empty, wow! Talk about a mountain that is under utilized mid-week, let alone on the weekends. Burke’s very friendly staff directed me to the correct desk for my ticket and I was advised (by a former Jay employee who I talked trees with) that Cave Man would be better than Throbulator (both recently opened). The employee informed me that he had been on the trail crew that maintained Cave Man over the Summer, pretty cool getting that type of information when both runs count!

Up the Sherburne Express and then up a rather cold Willoughby Quad to the summit. Two inches of dust on top of the groomed made the first couple turns on Big Dipper feel amazing. But I bared right onto Wilderness that had natural snow and really nice small and soft moguls with 2-4″ of light fluff on top of a packed base. I built up a lot of speed since the moguls were small and the snow was soft. Cruised some arcs down another groomer with 2″ of fluff en route to the Caveman entrance.

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2006-2007 Season, February, Jay Peak, Powder Day

Jay Peak, VT

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Yesterday morning must have been nice. That much was evident after only a few tree runs on Sunday. Alas, I was not able to attend to the powder festivities Saturday morning. Sunday was still a good day at Jay, but I can not help but feel my relative experience of ‘good’ has changed over the years. Just a few yaers ago, today would have qualified as very good if not super. Now, I turn my nose up at being a day late for boot deep untracked. Packed and loose powder with only occasional boot deep? Only two knee deep drifts in the woods? What type of crap is this?

Sloppy seconds were the order of the day as (no surprise) the powder hounds were out in force on Saturday. The ‘Stupid Bowl’ kept the crowds relatively light (perhaps crowds had shifted to Cannon Mountain in New Hampshire for their yearly Two-Fer tradition). No line for the Freezer all day but the Tram had a two car wait. It was a terribly cold and windy day to be riding the Freezer. I took two absolutely miserable rides on the most reviled lift in New England. When getting stuck at the Tram lodge drainage, I opted for the slow Metro Quad back to Stateside more often than not. I am always boggled by the amount of people that wait for the Tram. Locals, Regulars, and Pass Holders rarely ride the Tram except for occasional access to Green Beret, Valhalla, Tuckerman Chutes, or the Face (of which only the former two trails were open and not worth the ride).

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2006-2007 Season, January, Jay Peak

Chairlift Troubles and Bruised Egos at Jay

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More of the same from Jay Peak today with traffic levels taking a toll on snow conditions. Over night snowfall was only an inch or two which was of little benefit. Groomeed trails were getting scraped early and lots of scraping occurred between the bumps. A few nice mogul lines were still to be found on packed powder. The trees took a beating and need a refresher.

My luck ran out today as troubles with the chairlifts continued. Several emergency stops occurred on the Red Chair this morning (a chairlift lurching to a stop is an unnerving sensation, unlike a typical lift stoppage). After what seemed like twice the normal lift time, we finally made it to the unload station and the lift was shut down but was running again by noon.

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2006-2007 Season, January, Jay Peak

Tree Skiing Madness in Thin Cover at Jay

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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.

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2006-2007 Season, January, Jay Peak

Broken Ski at Jay

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As I predicted in my report yesterday, powder was long gone by Sunday and replaced with packed powder and frozen granular. What I had not predicted was the wind buff both in and out of the trees would be so substantial. The poor setup likely had many folks who did not ski Saturday wondering if there was any powder this weekend. Open slopes and groomers were a crappy hard packed loose granular which left much to be desired whereas wind protected trees sported decent packed powder.

On our first run, I actually made a few nice turns down The Goat before running into scraped and icy conditions at the S turn under the Freezer which is always a suspect spot on the mountain. We continued down Green Mountain Boys which also had nasty loose granular surfaces and skied into North Glade. With the Freezer and Tram off line for half the day yesterday, I was hoping that the Tram Side glades would have conditions than Stateside which took the full brunt of eight hours of traffic. Unfortunately, the wind buff even terrorized the woods and North Glade was no exception with variable wind buffed snow and general thin cover. A work out for the first run of the morning to say the least (especially considering I was already hurting from Saturday). The snow was better lower in North Glade but not worth a repeat.

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