Burke Mountain Swallowed Up By Jay Peak? Is Burke Becoming "Jay Peak East"

[kingdom-tele]

ha, I wrote glade to trade instead of glad to trade.

face chutes? seriously, 300' constitutes extreme now? Besides, unless your in the tram line with your headlamp your still skiing pile to pile, I suppose that is technical NE skiing.The best parts of J are not even in J. Unless your looking for moguls with over trimmed trees that every mooch can side slip through.

where at J other than Haynes, Jet can you GS high speed arcs without having to pull your pud while you glide back to the lift reminiscing about those 4 turns you just made before you had to dodge pylons through kokomo, at burke there is rarely anyone on the trail, never mind the lift lline. You spend your time skiing, not gliding the top and bottom halves for the 700' of east coast extreme.

but yeah, they get that arcade and I can see how the 2 hour drive from a real mountain will be worth it

I said great intermediate, not shitty

 

[dlague]

ha, I wrote glade to trade instead of glad to trade.

face chutes? seriously, 300' constitutes extreme now? Besides, unless your in the tram line with your headlamp your still skiing pile to pile, I suppose that is technical NE skiing.The best parts of J are not even in J. Unless your looking for moguls with over trimmed trees that every mooch can side slip through.

where at J other than Haynes, Jet can you GS high speed arcs without having to pull your pud while you glide back to the lift reminiscing about those 4 turns you just made before you had to dodge pylons through kokomo, at burke there is rarely anyone on the trail, never mind the lift lline. You spend your time skiing, not gliding the top and bottom halves for the 700' of east coast extreme.

but yeah, they get that arcade and I can see how the 2 hour drive from a real mountain will be worth it

I said great intermediate, not shitty

Did not mean to push a button! We like both and ski both every year and I find more options at Jay. With that said, you are right fewer people and often the woods at Burke are yours alone and Burke does have great glades.

We do not spend our whole day in the woods either. We spend about 30% of our time skiing glades which is generally early part of the day. If we have days where things are crunchy then I skip the woods until later once others chopped it up a bit. We also like to run some cruisers and lap the chair as fast as we can on a variety of trails and generally close out the day just making fun turns!

G Jay does have some crappy trails like Kokomo, Taxi, Northway and some really long run outs abut not everyone is and expert. And... there are not to many resorts that do not have boring run outs - even Burke is plagued with that.

Ski Burke and Jay and have fun with both!

 

[Smellytele]

I do agree that Jay does not have great intermediate skiing trails. They seem to be the trails that get you from point A to the skiing you really want to do. They blues tend to be scrapped off and full of people. I go there for the trees and the trees alone. The non tree trails to me are really not that great for the most part.

 

[fbrissette]

II go there for the trees and the trees alone.

Amen to that. If you're not a tree skier, you got the awesome view from the top (after the 40 minutes Tram wait...) and a lot of stuff to do at the bottom. And clearly that is enough for a lot of people, and this is where Jay was right with its development plan. They are limited into what can do with the mountain to transform it into a true all-ability great ski mountain, so they chose to make it a great family all-season resort.

 

[dlague]

Amen to that. If you're not a tree skier, you got the awesome view from the top (after the 40 minutes Tram wait...) and a lot of stuff to do at the bottom. And clearly that is enough for a lot of people, and this is where Jay was right with its development plan. They are limited into what can do with the mountain to transform it into a true all-ability great ski mountain, so they chose to make it a great family all-season resort.

Burke will be there soon! It seems like the focus of many ski resorts is to build year round revenue streams. My concern with Burke is - once new facilities are added and it does become a destination location where traffic on the slopes increase to the point where it gets skied off quickly.

For example:

We skied at Burke three times the January had a refreeze and skiing was limited to snow making trails with thin spots, end of February was decent but some natural snow high traffic trails had thin cover. And in early March we were skiing as much in the woods as possible but our skis paid the price more thin cover.

Now add more people!

 

[thetrailboss]

Burke will be there soon! It seems like the focus of many ski resorts is to build year round revenue streams. My concern with Burke is - once new facilities are added and it does become a destination location where traffic on the slopes increase to the point where it gets skied off quickly.

For example:

We skied at Burke three times the January had a refreeze and skiing was limited to snow making trails with thin spots, end of February was decent but some natural snow high traffic trails had thin cover. And in early March we were skiing as much in the woods as possible but our skis paid the price more thin cover.

Now add more people!

My concern is that they will invest their EB5 money into the amenities and not upgrade or expand snowmaking...hence more people on the same snow surfaces and more problems. Burke's beauty is that it is relatively quiet and not too heavily traveled. The difference in snow surfaces between Burke and Sugarbush was dramatic in my years because of the traffic (in part).

 

[kingdom-tele]

EB-5 money is only for amenities, see J and all the dramatic changes they have made to the ski hill, why would burke be any different

besides, homogenizing the ski experience requires things that have nothing to do with skiing, can't see how snowmaking would matter if I can float with 900 incontinent "friends" or maybe just work on my tailwhips and triple lindy's when the skiing sucks

it would seem a waste of money to make any enhancement to the ski hill, isn't there more money in corralling the masses away from the money sucking ski expense

 

[thetrailboss]

Right--EB5 money, with its job creation requirements, usually is put into hotels, amenities, etc instead of ski infrastructure.

 

[dlague]

Right--EB5 money, with its job creation requirements, usually is put into hotels, amenities, etc instead of ski infrastructure.

That's what it looks like so far! Although, there is some trail expansion in the works, but better chairs would be nice.

 

[Smellytele]

That's what it looks like so far! Although, there is some trail expansion in the works, but better chairs would be nice.

Better chairs where? Burke? They already have 2 good chairs with the 3rd just used for backup.

 

[dlague]

Better chairs where? Burke? They already have 2 good chairs with the 3rd just used for backup.

I was talking about Jay Peak! I agree with Burke with exception of the flats between Sherburne and Mid Burke express. Then again probably not much they can do about that. Hence, why we avoid lower Burke to begin with as we'll as the fact that it is mostly beginner terrain on that part of the resort.

 

[thetrailboss]

I was talking about Jay Peak! I agree with Burke with exception of the flats between Sherburne and Mid Burke express. Then again probably not much they can do about that. Hence, why we avoid lower Burke to begin with as we'll as the fact that it is mostly beginner terrain on that part of the resort.

I watched them do the excavating/work in 2011. That runout may not be great, but I am impressed with wht they did. The fact that they could make it flat if not have some pitch is amazing because if you look closely the slope goes down from Mid-Burke to the Willoughby Quad. This is a pretty significant grade. They initially were going to have the Mid-Burke Express start further down the slope and have skiers and riders ski down under the pond and over through where the snowmaking air compressor building is now. But that did not happen I imagine because of cost and having to relocate the compressor house.

 

[thetrailboss]

That's what it looks like so far! Although, there is some trail expansion in the works, but better chairs would be nice.

Yeah, unfortunately, the terrain expansion at Jay is on the typical Jay schedule...which is the multi-decade ordeal it seems. I remember skiing there in 2002 and having a ski ambassador point over to West Bowl and say to me, "next season there will be a lift there." Boy, it has been a very long year! :lol:

The first time I skied at Jay was in 1992 and they were advertising the Golf Course and homes that were "coming soon." That golf course was not built until several years later.

 

[dlague]

Yeah, unfortunately, the terrain expansion at Jay is on the typical Jay schedule...which is the multi-decade plan it seems. I remember skiing there in 2002 and having a ski ambassador point over to West Bowl and say to me, "next season there will be a lift there." Boy, it has been a very long year! :lol:

I grew up skiing there and I have heard that over and over again as well. I was hoping that Bonnie was going to get replaced at a minimum this year.

 

[thetrailboss]

I grew up skiing there and I have heard that over and over again as well. I was hoping that Bonnie was going to get replaced at a minimum this year.

Yeah it was supposed to be last season, but then "definitely" this year, and now we are hearing next year. So that means we're looking at probably 2020 or so.

The lift infrastructure at Jay is very old. The Jet was mid-1980's and the Bonnie came shortly thereafter. Hell, Flyer was what, 1999 or so? It is now almost 15 years old. The Metro was a reused Sugarbush Lift, circa 1995, and the Village Double is an old Hall that they reused from somewhere else. I know that they installed the Taxi Quad last year, but I consider it to be insignificant at best because it does not really provide a lot of terrain that most folks here would use.

 

[dlague]

I know many do not want to the Jet triple go away due to traffic concerns, but the lines get super long over there and it is a line I do not bother with except for the occasional run now and again!

 

[thetrailboss]

I know many do not want to the Jet triple go away due to traffic concerns, but the lines get super long over there and it is a line I do not bother with except for the occasional run now and again!

We've heard of different plans for the Jet...one being a new HSQ and the other being the Bonnie simply reused. If I was a betting man, and based on their track record, I'd say that they will reuse the lift if they do anything.

 

[dlague]

Considering their approach you are probably correct!

 

[halfpintvt]

Right--EB5 money, with its job creation requirements, usually is put into hotels, amenities, etc instead of ski infrastructure.

I'd like to know what kind of jobs the EB5 money will create for local residents.........Right now the job count seems to be in the -10/20 range. Jay Peak doesn't seem to be very forthcoming with information and now that Tim McGuire has left the Mountain I wonder how often the Burke Selectboard and Planning Board will be updated on Mountain activities. I'm starting to have nightmares about Bavarian Castles and French Chateaus.

 

[thetrailboss]

I'd like to know what kind of jobs the EB5 money will create for local residents.........Right now the job count seems to be in the -10/20 range. Jay Peak doesn't seem to be very forthcoming with information and now that Tim McGuire has left the Mountain I wonder how often the Burke Selectboard and Planning Board will be updated on Mountain activities. I'm starting to have nightmares about Bavarian Castles and French Chateaus.

FWIW: http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/...f-Jay-Peak-project-s-foreign-money-not-public