Jay Peak - 12/11 and 12/12 - New England Telemark Festival

[David Metsky]

Date(s) Skied: 12/11 and 12/12

Resort or Ski Area: Jay Peak

Conditions: Variable, mostly good cover, much better in the woods on Sunday

Trip Report: This weekend was the NET VT Telemark Festival. There were lots of freeheelers up at the mountain, there were always excellent ones to watch while riding the lifts. The Green Mountain Flyer, lower Quad, and Jet Triple were the only lifts running, no Tram or Red chair. On Saturday all the glades were closed, many were open on Sunday. Beaver Pond Glades were OK, Timbuktu was quite good later in the day.

Not a lot of terrain is open yet, but what is open was in pretty good shape for this early. Some bare spots and a few icy patches, but mostly packed powder where groomed. The ungroomed had a bit of a nasty crust in places. We got some nice snow on Saturday night, which made the trees much better on Sunday.

Roads were nasty Sat night, saw some nasty accidents heading over the road to Mongomery, cars were all over the place. You could barely walk on the road surface.

 

[beswift]

The dark side of Skiing

Yeah, I forgot to mention that on my Drive up the Ottaquechee Valley to Killington last Tuesday, I saw two young men standing next to a SUV and flapping their arms like Big Bird while a good samaritan was scratching the back of his head. The SUV not only was sitting in a deep ditch on the cliff side of the hiway, it had tipped over on it's side. On my return36 hours later, it was gone to some tow truck driver's credit, but I bet it sat there overnight. Been close to there, but not yet over the edge. I won't try and discourage you, though, with what I've experienced with Vermont and other Mtn. or Winter road travel. Maybe you could give us a run-down on the types of vehicles you saw on that road.

 

[David Metsky]

Re: The dark side of Skiing

Maybe you could give us a run-down on the types of vehicles you saw on that road.

Pretty much everything with 4 wheels was sliding. The road was a sheet of ice, and the only thing keeping people under control was snowtires, common sense, and a very light touch on the brakes.

I also slid the next morning turning into the Jay lot, but lots of folks were doing the same in that spot. Just needed to slow it down a bit.

On Sunday the snow guns were blowing near the top of the Green Mountain Flyer, making it an extremely uncomfortable ride up. Jet was much better, and the snow was better on that side of the mountain.