Jay Peak 3/15/2008

I'll skip the formalities here. The place is still recovering a bit from a deluge of ice. The groomed stuff is fine like any other mountain. The woods are a mix of slicked down turns, tree debris, ice chunks from the branches and low branches-subideal.

If they get no new snow soon-the spring skiing will be outstanding. Yesterday, the sun only peaked out around noon and you could feel the benefit on the hard surfaces right away. We took one run down an ungroomed trail (Kitzbuehel?) before the sun hit it and it was wicked bad. It looked like a nice bump trail but the piles on the bumps had sheet of 3/4" thick ice crust (pic below) over softer snow. Between the bumps was hard ice. That will probably be sweet on a warm day though.

Still a fun day but not stellar conditions-still straddling winter and spring terrain.

Thanks for the report. I feel more comfortable not driving four hours round trip today. About what I expected but second doubts have been nagging me this morning. First weekend aside, this is about as bad a March as I can remember. I don't care about the rain/freeze event... I just wish if it was going to warm up and go full on spring skiing that it would just hurry up and be done with it. This straddling the freezing mark a week after a rain/freeze event is the type of crap we normally need to put up with in January. If it ain't gonna snow any more, let's get on with the spring skiing already!

You'd be just as well to go to Cannon or Loon and save yourself about 3 hours of driving. The bases are deep right now and I'm looking forward to sunshine. I was at Cannon on Friday and around noon it became great but our day was cut short by one of my son's buddies who crashed in the trees and got hauled down to the hospital in Plymouth. He's fine - just bruised up. I'm grateful that he's okay but sill a little disappointed to have missed the best condtions of the trip.

riverc0il said:

I don't care about the rain/freeze event... I just wish if it was going to warm up and go full on spring skiing that it would just hurry up and be done with it. This straddling the freezing mark a week after a rain/freeze event is the type of crap we normally need to put up with in January. If it ain't gonna snow any more, let's get on with the spring skiing already!

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I hear ya. It's coming though. Down here we had several days after the last big rain event where everything set up solid. Starting about mid-week, we finally got into the corn cycle. Spring skiing in the Northeast is going to rock this year.

ckofer said:

You'd be just as well to go to Cannon or Loon and save yourself about 3 hours of driving.

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Indeed. One better, I am just not skiing this weekend at all and save myself all the driving. I was ready to head over to Cardigan but it isn't warm enough for the snow to corn up a bit like it did yesterday and it is way too late in the season to be skiing Cannon or Jay on groomers only.

Greg said:

I hear ya. It's coming though. Down here we had several days after the last big rain event where everything set up solid. Starting about mid-week, we finally got into the corn cycle. Spring skiing in the Northeast is going to rock this year.

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Can't come soon enough. Might be corning up down there but we are looking at more cold for next weekend up here. Fox has botched almost every forecast for the past month so I put no faith that this incoming storm mid-week will give us anything better than sleet with cold coming in the backside. I normally don't like to make these calls until all is said and done, but the lift serviced season of 07-08 definitely did not live up to last season.

Maybe it has just been the weather lately. Very gloomy around these parts. Meh. I just ain't feeling it lately.

riverc0il said:

Maybe it has just been the weather lately. Very gloomy around these parts. Meh. I just ain't feeling it lately.

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I was bummin' hard last week. Your first corn harvest will cheer you up. Looks like powder is still a possibility later this week...

Greg said:

Spring skiing in the Northeast is going to rock this year.

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Absolutely. Any sunny day should be good as long as the temps are above freezing.

ckofer said:

I was at Cannon on Friday and around noon it became great but our day was cut short by one of my son's buddies who crashed in the trees and got hauled down to the hospital in Plymouth. He's fine - just bruised up. I'm grateful that he's okay but sill a little disappointed to have missed the best condtions of the trip.

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Between Rocket and Zoomer? I saw the aftermath of the crash, good to know he's OK.

riverc0il said:

First weekend aside, this is about as bad a March as I can remember.

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Agreed. Glad I got killer conditions the first weekend and don't feel bad at all about being in Florida last weekend. I'm surpised Jay is still bad in the woods. Some of Powderfreaks reports from mid-week at Stowe looked pretty delicious. I would've figured Jay would've gotten some of that snow to if not more.

Jay only got an inch or two out of the storm that Stowe got. I think the rain/freeze hit Jay worse than Stowe. I was up there last Sunday and it was some of the worst conditions I have ever attempted to ski in (lifts were closed, we hiked up a short way, then turned around). Jay has missed a lot of good snow this year, especially after mid-January. The last two months, I have have visited Jay only a half dozen times or so (well below average).

By the sounds of this I am glad I have missed it all. There is nothing in the forecast. We are supposed to head up on Friday for easter, but if we don't get any snow I may stay home. If we are not going to get any snow 6+ or 50+ degree sunny weather then I am done. Pretty sad that I say this.