Big Jay Coverage

State To Restrict Skier Access to Big Jay

Press Release from the State of Vermont’s Agency of Natural Resources:

State To Restrict Skier Access to Big Jay

Action comes in response to illegal trail cut; public meeting planned for Saturday

WATERBURY, Vt. – The Vermont Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation, in cooperation with The Green Mountain Club, Jay Peak Ski Resort, and the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board will be restricting winter access to Big Jay from the Jay Peak Ski Area for the 2007-2008 ski season. This action comes in response to an illegal ski trail that was cut on Big Jay this summer.

Officials will be holding a public meeting at Jay Peak Resort on Saturday, Dec. 15, at 4:30 p.m., to explain this action and to answer questions from the public. The meeting will be held in the “Stateside Base Lodge” building at Jay Peak Resort.

Big Jay is the highest peak in the Green Mountains without a maintained trail system. This property was acquired in 1993 by the State with the assistance of The Green Mountain Club and the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board to protect the Long Trail and important natural habitat. Big Jay is part of Jay State Forest and is a popular location for backcountry skiing. Though adjacent to the Jay Peak Ski Area, Big Jay is not within and is not serviced by the ski area.

In July of this year, the Green Mountain Club received a call from a tram operator at Jay Peak Ski Area, who reported that a large swath of trees had apparently been cut at Big Jay.

In following up on this report, it was determined the illegal ski trail was more than 2,000 feet long and up to 60 feet wide and that nearly 1,000 trees had been cut. The alleged perpetrators have subsequently been arrested for the trail-cutting and are currently awaiting trial.

“While we have been concerned about some light cutting in the past by backcountry skiers and riders at Big Jay, this new cut goes way beyond that and poses significant environmental and safety concerns,” says Jonathan Wood, Commissioner of the Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation. “We feel it is necessary to keep people off the illegally cut trail, for their own safety as well as to allow for restoration to occur.”

While skiers and riders will not be permitted on the illegal trail and will not be allowed to access Big Jay directly from Jay Peak Resort, backcountry enthusiasts can still skin in or snowshoe up into Big Jay from Route 242 and ski or ride down. However, the cutting of any vegetation in this area whatsoever will not be permitted and will be strictly enforced.

Saturday’s meeting at Jay Peak Resort will provide an opportunity for the public to hear more about this issue. Questions or comments can be directed to State Lands Director Mike Fraysier, VT Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation, 103 South Main St., Waterbury, VT 05671; phone: (802) 241-3682, email: mike.fraysier@state.vt.us.

2007-2008 Season, Cannon Mountain, December, Powder Day

One Powder Run at Cannon

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Wincing in pain, I awoke without an alarm this morning after yesterday’s strenuous powder day at Burke. Everything hurt from my lower back to just behind my knee. Plans were already hatched to combine lift serviced and earned turns at Cannon to maximize powder potential almost a full week after the last storm hit New England. Original plans included the possibility of a full skin of Tuckerbrook but due to my tense and sore muscles I dialed plans back a bit.

Arriving at the Peabody Lodge, Cannon’s excellent staff were working the parking lots to alert potential customers that power was currently out but may be back online later. “No worries” I told a lot attendant. Pointing to my bindings I mentioned that “I have my own power.” Lifts were still running on backup power to get the remaining customers off the chairs before the bull wheels stopped turning. Since the power just went down, I decided to not wait for what could be a few minutes or a few hours.

Not long after I began skinning, I heard the tell tale hum of power being delivered to the lifts. No worries as I was off the grid regardless and heading for whiter pastures. I was baffled by the amount of traffic inflicted upon the mountain in the past few days and felt like a royal Johnny Come Lately as I picked up a well packed down skin track. There was plenty of fresh powder to still be found but I would not enjoy the pleasure of laying down first tracks today.

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2007-2008 Season, Burke, December, Powder Day, Video

Killer Powder Day at Burke

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Thankfully for powder hounds, Burke Mountain stuck to their scheduled first day of operation. Even though two feet of snow was added to Burke’s slopes this past week and skiers have been coming down with that rare illness known as powderitis, Burke held true to their first day. Massive powder reports from the more well known mountains and Burke’s perception as being off the beaten path and not a major mountain combined to make for an amazing powder day without much competition. Powder hounds killed it in Burke’s glades all day while most skiers were bumping elbows in long lines to fight over a few left over well hidden scraps at ski resorts along the spine of the Green Mountains.

Today was simply sensational. Boot deep untracked was found on every single run right through closing time with the first few runs featuring untracked snow almost top to bottom before the main trails and glades started getting chewed up. By noon time, the main routes and trails had a fairly choppy and bumpy packed snow but the glades and trees skied extremely well all day.

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2007-2008 Season, December, Jay Peak, Powder Day

Powder Day at Jay

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Fringe benefits of working in academia include University shut downs on powder days. With a foot of snow walloping much of New Hampshire, I ventured up to Jay Peak for a mid-week powder day. Thankfully, the new Michelin X-Ice snow tires had been mounted on Friday or else my day would have been substantially different and less powdery due to an unplowed six inches of dense compacted powder at go time. Three hours later, I was clicking in at the Stateside Lodge and skiing towards the Jet at Jay thirty minutes past first chair.

My unexpected tardiness combined with an abundance of College kids (due to the new Triple Major pass) and the lack of uphill capacity (Bonaventure and the Freezer were not spinning) resulted in quickly readjusted plans and expectations. Much to my dismay, almost all of Stateside was completely tracked out by 9:45 A.M. when I plopped my butt onto the Jet Triple Chair. I immediately went for the trees but found lots of tracks.

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2007-2008 Season, December, Jay Peak, Powder Day

Early Season Trees at Jay

Trees at Jay

Considering what we were skiing on last year at this time, I really have no right to be anything but thankful and grateful for the tremendous early season bounty of natural snow blanketing Jay. But familiarity, perspective, and relativity often combine to suggest strange things, such as half the mountain being open and three powder days within two weeks of opening day is not enough to satisfy.

Yes, when I arrived at Jay I was disappointed to see “only” a few inches in the parking lot. That disappointment escalated as I made my first run finding the wind had removed most of the powder from Derick, Haynes, and U.N. as I madly cut across the trails on Stateside’s southern flank searching for the goods. As per usual, high winds at Jay indicates the powder will be found in the woods. But I “only” found a few inches in the first few open glades I skied. Perhaps the expectations were a little too high today considering it is “only” December 1st!

The trails at Jay quickly melted away from my mind as I searched for powder in the woods. I was eventually rewarded later in the afternoon with six inches of fluff which I repeated three times before calling it a day. The crowds showed up en masse around ten and proceeded to lay to waste the few precious inches of good snow in the open glades. With lines at The Jet backed up out of the corrals and the groomed trails featuring a despicable mix of hard pack, frozen groomer tracks, rock, and ice, it was definitely a day for trails untouched by the groomers. Lower trails near the Bonaventure Quad were stupendous natural snow romps. However, the trip down Montrealer to Northway to Taxi made those trails almost unworthy of the effort required to reach them.

With a storm rolling in Sunday evening through Tuesday of this coming week, Jay is seriously setup for one of its best December’s ever. Half the mountain is already open and two dozen trails on the other side of the map have enough snow to open once the Green Mountain Freezer fires up next week. For those able to take a vacation day on Tuesday and Wednesday, epic things are awaiting. The rest of us will have to settle for sloppy seconds next weekend. But I am okay with that because it is “only” December.

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