polski
New member
When I'm powder-hunting I'm generally not going to fret over a ski destination decision if the projected snowfall is say 6" for one mountain and 8" for another - if the former is a place I prefer because of terrain/vibe/etc I'll happily take that. A shorter ride is always nice, too. But as the upslope event in the northern Greens drew near Wednesday night, forecasts indicated Jay was likely to get substantially more snow than farther south on the spine (with the possible exception of Smuggs, which did wind up coming close, but that's at least as long a trip as Jay for me from NE Mass.). I was worried about wind (thanks riverc0il for the helpful and timely advice in the AZ weather forum) and crowds - both of which did wind up being legitimate concerns but only to a very limited extent - but pulled the trigger and brought my younger son up to Jay, where a friend and his son also would be.
Thought about heading up Wednesday night but couldn't quite get out the door before I started getting tired, so I opted to go to sleep early and depart very early Thursday. Got a solid 5 hours of shuteye and we were on the road at 3:10 a.m., a personal record for a ski trip (though late for some fishing trips I've been on!). Going up 93 and 91 we avoided much snowfall as upslope is by definition mostly local to mountains - Franconia Notch was fairly gnarly and the roads were mostly snow-covered after that, but with virtually no other vehicles on the road the drive was uneventful. After a stop for gas and convenience-store sundries in St. J., we arrived at Jay by 7:30 a.m.
I've never been to the North Pole but I imagine the conditions we encountered upon arrival weren't all that far off. The wind was absolutely howling, and I feared close to the worst as far as wind holds, though I was prepared to skin and I'd brought snowshoes for my son to be able to hike up if it came to that. Temps weren't that bad, low 20s F., but wind chill was significant.
I'd only been to Jay once before, maybe five years ago, so didn't have a great plan for first tracks if upper mountain lifts were on wind hold. Not knowing beter, I parked in the main lot rather than Stateside. I saw several cars heading from there presumably to Stateside and figured that meant something, but I knew the lower mountain lifts - unlikely to be on hold - were going to spin starting at 8 a.m. for the holiday week so I didn't want to futz around. The parking lot attendants weren't sure of the lift situation so only after we got inside did I learn the Jet would be spinning. But since first chair on the Jet wasn't until 8:30, I decided we should just lap the ski-on Metro Quad to start out rather than crossing over and probably dealing with a big line.
We got face shots so I'm good with that decision :-D
Oh yeah, forgot to mention, Jay was reporting 21-23" of powder from the overnight upslope, on top of around 6" a day earlier. They weren't lying. It kept snowing most of the day, perhaps adding another couple of inches mainly blown into the woods.
Our first two runs were down the kiddie glade Half Moon; a groomer laid a track down the middle of it so we could use that to get some speed and then ski knee-deep ungroomed/untracked wherever there was enough pitch. More face shots were had on the third run, on 360. I'm sure this sounds like small potatoes to people who know what they're doing at Jay but in my book great pow is great pow now matter where you get it.
Then we connected with our friends and made our way over to Stateside. By then the Bonnie also was running, with no line, so we jumped on that. Perhaps there was no line because the wind was so brutal toward the top, but we dealt with it.
I'll stop the play-by-play here and just say I was extremely impressed by Jay's extensive glades and the knee- to thigh-deep powder we found in them, with plenty of shots of freshies even if things were a bit tracked out by the time we got to them. Before noon as winds eased a bit the Flyer started spinning but we soon decided we'd ski Jay again yesterday (Friday) and figured we'd hit that side of the mountain then, when the wind was supposed to be light and the Flyer might not live up to its reputation as the Freezer. So the rest of the day Thursday we stuck to the Bonnie and the Jet.
Thursday's runs of the day were through the unmarked strip of woods between Haynes and UN. Shocking how lightly tracked that was. I had fun popping out of those woods from time to time and smashing deep pow bumps on the trails on either side. Timbuktu also was great.
A couple times on steeper pitches in the glades I experienced the strange sensation of triggering a small slide as I cut a turn. Weird seeing a soft snow slab run even if only 10 yards or so. Also, on the first run off the Bonnie I noticed that when grabbing an untracked line to high skier's right on Northway, at times the wind slab above me would crack, though it wasn't quite steep enough there to slide.
Fun with mini-avalanches aside, Thursday's most, how shall I say it, interesting run was the last of the day, Upper Can-Am to Lift Line. Most of the Can-Am headwall was blown clean of virtually all snow, leaving boilerplate that required serious edging to traverse without slipping into a long sliding fall. I was happy to have had a couple days improving my survival skiing skills in low tide conditions at MRG earlier in the week (never did post a TR, too busy prepping to head back north, but it was fun in its own way). But the last 10 yards or so of skier's right on Can-Am was soft and deep with filled-in freshness. I felt completely on my game as I jump-turned the rest of the headwall and bashed the powder on Lift Line. Exhilarating end to a day full of bliss.
Yesterday was warmer with almost no wind. We mostly skied the Flyer, with a few runs on the Bonnie. Sure the main glades were pretty tracked out, and the snowpack had consolidated noticeably at lower elevations, but without an awful lot of hunting we still found some awesome patches of deep untracked in places like Beaver Pond. Nothing like completely silent steep turns.
I will say that as someone who favors places like MRG and Magic with extremely low uphill capacity, when we crossed back from the Bonnie to tramside in mid-afternoon I found the massive skier traffic on scraped-off Upper Goat Run to be downright frightening. I found refuge in the woods. Never did see a need to endure the long line for the Tram, either.
An amazing couple of days. Sorry for the text-only report but I took few photos; Thursday was too cold and both days there was too much powder to be skied.
Thought about heading up Wednesday night but couldn't quite get out the door before I started getting tired, so I opted to go to sleep early and depart very early Thursday. Got a solid 5 hours of shuteye and we were on the road at 3:10 a.m., a personal record for a ski trip (though late for some fishing trips I've been on!). Going up 93 and 91 we avoided much snowfall as upslope is by definition mostly local to mountains - Franconia Notch was fairly gnarly and the roads were mostly snow-covered after that, but with virtually no other vehicles on the road the drive was uneventful. After a stop for gas and convenience-store sundries in St. J., we arrived at Jay by 7:30 a.m.
I've never been to the North Pole but I imagine the conditions we encountered upon arrival weren't all that far off. The wind was absolutely howling, and I feared close to the worst as far as wind holds, though I was prepared to skin and I'd brought snowshoes for my son to be able to hike up if it came to that. Temps weren't that bad, low 20s F., but wind chill was significant.
I'd only been to Jay once before, maybe five years ago, so didn't have a great plan for first tracks if upper mountain lifts were on wind hold. Not knowing beter, I parked in the main lot rather than Stateside. I saw several cars heading from there presumably to Stateside and figured that meant something, but I knew the lower mountain lifts - unlikely to be on hold - were going to spin starting at 8 a.m. for the holiday week so I didn't want to futz around. The parking lot attendants weren't sure of the lift situation so only after we got inside did I learn the Jet would be spinning. But since first chair on the Jet wasn't until 8:30, I decided we should just lap the ski-on Metro Quad to start out rather than crossing over and probably dealing with a big line.
We got face shots so I'm good with that decision :-D
Oh yeah, forgot to mention, Jay was reporting 21-23" of powder from the overnight upslope, on top of around 6" a day earlier. They weren't lying. It kept snowing most of the day, perhaps adding another couple of inches mainly blown into the woods.
Our first two runs were down the kiddie glade Half Moon; a groomer laid a track down the middle of it so we could use that to get some speed and then ski knee-deep ungroomed/untracked wherever there was enough pitch. More face shots were had on the third run, on 360. I'm sure this sounds like small potatoes to people who know what they're doing at Jay but in my book great pow is great pow now matter where you get it.
Then we connected with our friends and made our way over to Stateside. By then the Bonnie also was running, with no line, so we jumped on that. Perhaps there was no line because the wind was so brutal toward the top, but we dealt with it.
I'll stop the play-by-play here and just say I was extremely impressed by Jay's extensive glades and the knee- to thigh-deep powder we found in them, with plenty of shots of freshies even if things were a bit tracked out by the time we got to them. Before noon as winds eased a bit the Flyer started spinning but we soon decided we'd ski Jay again yesterday (Friday) and figured we'd hit that side of the mountain then, when the wind was supposed to be light and the Flyer might not live up to its reputation as the Freezer. So the rest of the day Thursday we stuck to the Bonnie and the Jet.
Thursday's runs of the day were through the unmarked strip of woods between Haynes and UN. Shocking how lightly tracked that was. I had fun popping out of those woods from time to time and smashing deep pow bumps on the trails on either side. Timbuktu also was great.
A couple times on steeper pitches in the glades I experienced the strange sensation of triggering a small slide as I cut a turn. Weird seeing a soft snow slab run even if only 10 yards or so. Also, on the first run off the Bonnie I noticed that when grabbing an untracked line to high skier's right on Northway, at times the wind slab above me would crack, though it wasn't quite steep enough there to slide.
Fun with mini-avalanches aside, Thursday's most, how shall I say it, interesting run was the last of the day, Upper Can-Am to Lift Line. Most of the Can-Am headwall was blown clean of virtually all snow, leaving boilerplate that required serious edging to traverse without slipping into a long sliding fall. I was happy to have had a couple days improving my survival skiing skills in low tide conditions at MRG earlier in the week (never did post a TR, too busy prepping to head back north, but it was fun in its own way). But the last 10 yards or so of skier's right on Can-Am was soft and deep with filled-in freshness. I felt completely on my game as I jump-turned the rest of the headwall and bashed the powder on Lift Line. Exhilarating end to a day full of bliss.
Yesterday was warmer with almost no wind. We mostly skied the Flyer, with a few runs on the Bonnie. Sure the main glades were pretty tracked out, and the snowpack had consolidated noticeably at lower elevations, but without an awful lot of hunting we still found some awesome patches of deep untracked in places like Beaver Pond. Nothing like completely silent steep turns.
I will say that as someone who favors places like MRG and Magic with extremely low uphill capacity, when we crossed back from the Bonnie to tramside in mid-afternoon I found the massive skier traffic on scraped-off Upper Goat Run to be downright frightening. I found refuge in the woods. Never did see a need to endure the long line for the Tram, either.
An amazing couple of days. Sorry for the text-only report but I took few photos; Thursday was too cold and both days there was too much powder to be skied.
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