Jay Peak, VT - Sutton, QC -- Dec 9-10th 2006

[BigJay]

I posted this on various ski and snowboard website... Day 4 and 5... All non-lift-served... Jay "sort" of doesn't count... We did ride the lifts... but not that much... We prefered skinning and climbing then staying on the open stuff...

Here's the report:

What a great day up at Jay today! It snowed this week and it shows compare to what they had last weekend (euh... yeah... well... there was NOTHING last weekend!).

We got up there and decided to use the chairlift in the morning and try what stateside had to offer... Lots of people on the slopes means it gets skied off pretty quick... We stayed on the Jet which had decent cover and some good snow... Sides were great! Lots of stuff to move around. I went down the Haynes also trying to find some snow... Derreck was skied off by 10AM! After 7 runs, we went for lunch.

After lunch things got interesting cause we decided to earn some powder. We took the Jet and proceded to climb the Northway. It was my first time with the splitboard setup and i really enjoyed it instead of the snowshoes! Skinning is fast and simple... transition time is about 15-20min if you pack everything up good...

We got to the top of the flyer and couldn't believe how much snow there was on the left side of the Ullr's. After climbing the Northway which had almost nothing... we got to Ullr's with about 3-4feet of snow to one side... and bare on the other side... hmmm.... Needless to say we did it twice!

After a run down the Ullrs we took the Metro Quad and climbed some to the top of Green Mountain Boys. Stuff was getting blown off the mountain because it almost looked like summer up there! (ok, maybe not that bad!) We took the Goat and went into the woods of Vertigo... Snow was soft and light... It was a bit above knee deep... but under the pines it was more like 4-6in tops! We sticked with the birch trees! Knee deep was more then plenty!

We did some videos but took very few pictures... In all, it was a great day... Tomorrow we'll be in Sutton... Hope there will be some snow over there...

It felt OH SO GOOD to ride in powder again...

Here's the ride we did by foot:

Also, here's our Sutton Report:

Day no5.
Vertical gain: 3231 ft

After the day we had at Jay, i had to get some more. Sutton was far from being fully open... so they had excellent coverage!

We climbed from the parking lot (yellow) and did 3 runs. The first run (purple) was down a steep pitch with mixed cover... THere was snow but not enough to really lean into... So we switched to the trail next to chair no7. That trail was deep and sweet! Knee deep snow all over... nothing to hit... GREAT!

We met with the AT guys we saw earlier. We decided to follow in there skin track (orange). Spliboard are harder to climb with because they are so flexible... it's hard to get a good grip when traversing... We made it to the top again and went down the trail on the far left of the mountain (blue). By far the best run of the day! Smooth and wide open and needless to say, deeper then anything else available! You could really lean into it and not be afraid to it stuff...

We climbed again (orange) following the skin pack to the top for our last run. The last one was fun... but i decided to drop a small cliff under the chair... MISTAKE! I did a huge core shot on my new splitboard! I'll have to fix it at the shop... The board isn't damaged bad... Just took off some base along the edge... but not delam... pisses me off... but what else can i do! I'll fix it and it will look brand new again! The run was however fun... Lots of snow and little drops all over... precious!

...and here's the video:

YouTube.com - Jay and Sutton 2006 Video

Hope you enjoyed seeing powda' out east!

 

[klrskiah]

WOW nice trip report!! Looks like I was at the wrong place this weekend