Category: Powder Day

2024-2025 Season, Cannon Mountain, December, Earned Turns, Powder Day

Discretion

Coverage was excellent for early December (better than last year around the same time). Skinning and skiing the 13-turns was probably ill-advised, given the lack of base consolidation. But I knew what I was in for by continuing up the troll bridge.

I almost made it to the Taft Trail. But I decided to turn around near the top of the 13-turns when spruce trap risk became apparent. Risk of a catastrophic trap was low. But when skiing solo, discretion is often the better part of adventure.

2024-2025 Season, December, Jay Peak, Powder Day

Deliverance

Jay Trees

This week was the release from a short period of self-doubt, ambivalence, and frustration. Sometimes the best cure for a bad mental state is letting go and getting enough sleep. And powder. Lots of untracked powder.

If desire thuds to the ground like a dropped stone, then it is time to move on. But if desire returns like a boomerang, then it was meant to be. The desire certainly has returned.

I normally avoid Deliverance. Its steep, narrow chutes get tracked up after only a few skiers. It is a “first-chair-only” glade. But when the Bonnie isn’t running and there are no tracks, it is one of my favorite runs at Jay.

Boot deep gave way to knee deep, and then even deeper still. After exiting Deliverance onto Taxi, I knew that might become my best run of the season. This run will be hard to beat.

2024-2025 Season, December, Jay Peak, Powder Day

Deviate

“I think it is important to do hard things,” I said.

Concurrently, my inner dialog voiced a different narrative; suggesting that I deviate from the established plan. Mental gymnastics reasoned that changing goals is different than abandoning them.

This is part of the iterative process; eliminating the mental loopholes. You simply cannot reason with negative self talk. It is best to just go outside, be active, and sleep on it.

Boot deep untracked always helps, but it has its limits.

2024-2025 Season, Cannon Mountain, Earned Turns, November, Powder Day

Iterate

With each successive iteration, the process becomes easier while maintaining resilience becomes less so. Excitement and novelty no longer generate inspiration. Routine and process provide the fuel; diesel instead of dynamite.

Each successive run improved upon the last. Avalanche, Paulie’s, Zoomer. A half-foot of supportive fluff was layered upon a half-foot of condensed base. Totally rippable, if not for the waterbars.

The turns were like the perfectly filled pillow, soft and supportive, holding you up when needed, but still letting you sink in when drifting into dreamland.

2023-2024 Season, April, Jay Peak, Powder Day

Jay: Early April is the New Early February

Yet again, this seems so familiar. The main-event uncrowded powder day at Mad River Glen the day before followed by over exuberant crowds and a slightly disappointing overnight snow total at Jay Peak. My ascent up route 242 was halted for 20-minutes while emergency vehicles tended to a spin out.

That is an usual thing to happen on Route 242 half-an-hour before opening. Part of the reason I arrive early is first tracks, but the other part is avoiding vehicle issues on Route 242. But the fun wasn’t over yet. When I got to the Stateside entrance, a truck going in the opposite direction spun out twenty feet in front of me.

Unlike the last storm, Jay Peak did not receive super massive crowds. But crowds were still way more than what the overnight snow totals justified. This was the day after the storm, not THE day. But today was still good and there was still a half foot plus of of super dense untracked.

It would all be mank by the afternoon, so I skied hard for the first few hours. While in the Orchard, myself and a few Quebecois’ers found the most sublime untracked snow on the mountain. Creamy and surfy, but only for about 100 feet. It was just the right aspect at just the right elevation. One of the other skiers bellowed “OH LA LA!”.

Indeed.