Category: Powder Day

2019-2020 Season, February, Jay Peak, Powder Day

Last Day of the Season

The Bonnie

Staircase

It is pretty rare that I can say that my last day of the season was my best day of the season. If I had to end my season early, at least I picked the right day for it.

I do not have a record of the last time my season ended this early. My online reports date back to 1998-1999. The prior two years I took off from skiing to pursue other activities in college. The last time that I did not ski in March or April, I was a teenager.

This was my 22nd day of the season, my highest number of ski days in six years despite missing the ending half of the season. Something profound changed in my life this season. I hope you enjoyed reading about that change. I hope it reflected in my writing. I hope you find the thing that you want to change in your life and begin the process. For me, the journey continues. But my head is so far out of the fog that I can’t even remember what the fog felt like. For which I am thankful.

I have a lot to say about how the season ended. And I don’t mean about how my season ended or this particularly day at Jay. I don’t even mean to specifically write about the end of the ski season. But rather to use the inevitable season ending as a lens to inspect heuristics and cognitive biases on a societal scale.

It is surely beyond me, but I am going to give it a try.

More later. Right now, there is so much to digest, process and synthesize.

2019-2020 Season, Cannon Mountain, February, Middle Hard the Hard Way, Powder Day

Yardsticks

Kinsman Glade

Measuring things can be tricky, especially given how we relate to the thing that is measured. One might think that more snow is obviously better. Fourteen inches must be better than seven inches, perhaps even twice as good. Or perhaps not. Other measurements are at play as well: temperatures, crowds, snow consistency, lift line waits, duration of untracked, crowd frenzy, etc.

But the biggest measurement is whether you have anyone to share your runs with. This is a binary measurement: solo or not. I’ll always take seven inches of uncrowded bliss with a ski partner over fourteen inches solo among the crowds.

Cannon Trees

Cannon Trees

Cannon Trees

Cannonballer called me out in the tram queue and it was on. We dropped into an untracked Vista Way and found amazing coverage on the often barren skier’s right. The snow was supportive, dense, and surfy. We returned for a second run of more untracked followed by Upper Cannon and then again back to Vista to clean up.

Where was everyone? The “crowds” would not hit until later. But even then, most lifts were ski on throughout the morning.

I couldn’t help but suggest Kinsman Glade. Kinsman is one of my least favorite glades at Cannon due to its lack of maintenance and often horrid conditions. But with so few people at the summit and the snow being so supportive, this was definitely a Kinsman Glade day. Cannonballer obliged and it was killer.

Cannon Trees

After that, despite the late morning hour, I found some astounding untracked trees at Mittersill. Around 11:00am, I dropped into a completely untracked Upper Birches. Off map run followed by off map run, I slowly made my way back to the Tram and wrapped things up so I could get back for my evening shift at work.

Cannon Trees

2019-2020 Season, February, Jay Peak, Powder Day

The Powder Deprived (Part Three)

Dude Falcon

The powder deprived masses descended on Jay Peak. Sixteen inches of fresh, pent up demand for powder, the biggest storm of the season (with plenty of advanced publicity), negative temperatures, frigid wind chills, and lift holds: what could possibly go wrong?

The snow was supportive and creamy with just a bit of wind loaded density. The Tram and Freezer were on wind hold, so the powder hounds were all consolidated in the Stateside area. As a result, the Stateside untracked went fast. Sooner than expected, I was cycling the Snail and Bonnie to ski Stateside.

More people than usual were making the Freezer hike from the Bonnie. But what is the point of that when you can just take Wedelmaster? Take it all the way to Beaver Pond if you insist on skiing the most overrated glade in the northeast. But I am dropping into the DP from Wedel for deep untracked after lunch.

Due to the cold, I went inside after every third or fourth run. The Tramside wind holds made for long lines at the Bonnie and the Jet. Normally, I generate enough heat to stay warm in line and on the lift. But the lines were excessive, as was the wind, and I was constantly getting chilled before the next run.

The bitter wind, muscle fatigue, and long Snail to Bonnie cycles all combined to end my day sooner than I would have preferred. It was a great day that had its frustrating moments. It wasn’t epic, but it felt like it should have been. If the weather pattern doesn’t improve, it could end up being the best day of the season.

2019-2020 Season, Cannon Mountain, January, Powder Day

2019 Retrospective

Cannonball

Ski Days & Blog Posts

During the first half of 2019, I gave up blogging. It wasn’t a deliberate choice per se, but the omission of an act is functionally the same as making a definitive decision. I ended the 2018 season with a write up about the State of TheSnowWay. That post might as well have been called “The State of my Life: Externalizing.”

TSW went radio silent from January-July of 2019. My first post of this year was in August, an externalized photography postmortem called Ubiquity & Bewilderment. The post ends “I’ve never posted less during a single season. Yet, I’ve never had more to say.” I knew something had gone horribly wrong. The thread was there. I just needed to summon the will to pull it.

In the State of TheSnowWay, I wrote that “Part of writing a blog is process. I love process. But I am no longer inspired by the blogging process.” By November 2019, I found my love of process again. Writing reinforces identity. What did my lack of blogging say about my identity? I wrote about recasting my tale in Narrative, the first TSW “trip report” written before the trip. Since then, every ski day of the current season has been accompanied by a blog post.

(more…)

2019-2020 Season, Earned Turns, Jay Peak, November, Powder Day

Affirmation

Can Am
Can Am

“Why do I do this?”

The question was made in jest as I exited my car and felt the zero degree temperature. It was really an affirmation rather than a question. If it were to have been an actual question, then I would have thought the answer was self evident. Last year, that was not always the case.

Every season, I debate whether or not to purchase a season pass. By the time the lifts open, I seem to forget that I invested in a long term season pass worth of gear years ago. The only additional expense is the cost of fuel. I frequently forget to factor in the cost of not using my earned turn season pass more often.

Can Am
Can Am