Yin, yang and yoyo skiing

The Green Beret has a tough life. He called the other day (on the toll-free # of course, in true dirtbag style), reporting that it was his day off and he couldn’t decide whether to go skiing or not. Quel dommage! On my day off I have to decide what other things won’t get done if I do go skiing. For example, yesterday, I thought I could go skiing AND get a little renovating done. Well, the baseboard installation didn’t start until about 4 pm and the skiing was pretty good. Yesterday, Telemark Dave and I experienced the two faces of eastern skiing: the lunacy of the holidays at a small ski hill and the peace of the backcountry stash.

I met TD and his two sons just after Hidden Bump opened for the day. I was testing my new tele setup for the first time and it is much better. Less work plus faster turns. This is good! We yo-yoed up and down the 300 feet of vertical until about noon, when the grown-ups had had enough. By this time all three parking lots were full and people were parking on the road. Time to go. While the boys waited for their Mom to retrieve them, TD and I reconvened at the liquor store to select a suitable beverage for washing down the smoked Atlantic salmon and crackers Dave generously brought for lunch. Share this with poutine-eating preteens in a crowded ski lodge? I think not.

After some dithering in the beer section, we settled on Creemore Pilsner. With two tall cans stashed in the pack, we headed for our favourite stash, The Pipeline. Even with the recent rains, there was new snow and we figured conditions could be good. This hill is, literally, part of a natural gas pipeline. Though it boasts almost as much vertical as the lift area, a nice pitch, only a few trees and frequently offers knee-deep powder, the ski-in and snowshoe up aspect (not to mention the top-secret location), tends to keep out all riff-raff but us.

Long story short, our one run at Pipeline was the sketchiest and best run of the day. After recovering from the gut-busting straight-up-the-hill snowshoe trek, we enjoyed the beer, salmon and great view at the top. Snow conditions had deteriorated but the run was still very skiable, if you don’t mind threading your way through bonsai hemlocks and balsams growing up in the cut. I used my alpine tele gear for the experience, which had its pros and cons. Mostly cons, due to weighty boards and stiff boots. I resorted to parallel turns so I could negotiate the bushes and still enjoy the fresh tracks. What a contrast to what we had experienced earlier in the morning, only a 15-minute drive away!

Here are a few pictures from a more recent expedition to the Pipeline:

It's nice to have your own private ski area...

TD earning his turns

TD drops in with Utah hot on his freeheels

Skiing too fast for focus!

SBR found some deep powder

Later on at Bonk Hill, in SBR's back 40

nOVEMBER IS OVER

Well Hello Again To all the readers of this website!
This may be my first blog of the year, but it is not the first ski report as I have been on the boards since Nov. 15th. But I figured I would give a report today as November is finally over. I'm still running with the Volkyl's, its my second pair now as I busted the top binding on my last pair, this pair are a lot slower but actually have some edges, so i can sort of carve on the groomers.
As weve put up all the snowfences on the mountain, theres not much more we can do until it snows. There calling for snow Sunday through Monday, so hopefully that will be a big dump. I started the day today doing "Trail Check" which was basaically freesking until we heard the call from our boss Towers to meet somewhere to do some work. But today was the first day we didn't hear anything, and got to ski right up until lunch. Got quite a few runs in, but it gets repetitive skiing the same stuff over and over, but you can always somehow get a different line. The most action I saw all morning, was a little kid on a snowboard caught up on a cliff in Virgin Chutes. As I saw him from the chair, I skied down to where he was, but at that point he had made it out. I told him it was a pretty dangerous place he was riding, he appreciated the advice.
Ski Packing all afternoon today, so side-stepping down the runs, packing down all the powder, it really creates ruts in the snow, looks just like a Cat went up it, so hopefully it will trap some more snow.
Im going to take out the Scratch's next wendesday or thursday on my day off. We're all getting pretty sick of our rock skis, as everyone else is on their good skis.
Thats about all the news from the world of Snowfarming, Ill get back to you with a Powder Report.

Over And Out
the GREEN BERET

Welcome back - winter is here!

How do I know this? Let me count the ways...

1) The Green Beret has left the East and has already started his ski bum dream job on the Sunshine Trail Crew. Check out the new link in the sidebar for the Sunshine web cam.
2) It's Warren Miller film night in Huntsville. Woo Hoo! Off to see Playground and dream of helicopters.
3) Our friends at Jay are are reporting that the Jet and Upper Haines will be open this weekend.
4) There was enough new snow on the ground this morning to make me put the truck in four-wheel drive. There was not enough snow to make me think it would be slippery so consequently I skidded merrily through the stop sign at the end of the road.
5) I wore Sorels to work today (see # 4).
6) Pudd is e-mailing snow reports to us all and Jonny Jay is vying to be first on the mountain.
7) I'm blogging about snow.

I haven't found it yet but Telemark Dave tells me that the current issue of The Ski Journal has a great article on Jay. Check your local news stand. Here's the teaser:

Jay Peak in the ski news once again

sPrInG sKiiNg

Jay Peak Weather... a weather system that you can never rely on.
Just last weekend, I was skiing in knee deep powder with my buddy (who wants to be known on this website as the Powder Pirate). We were skiing in great snow conditions, wearing full winter gear. It was a mild day but it dumped snow all day long!
Just a couple of days ago, Saturday April 21st, Jonny Jay and I were up at Jay skiing in 20 Degree weather. There was no need for the tuque, jacket, or goggles. Just sunglasses and whatever spring clothing you want to wear.


"the GREEN BERET" blasting down the UN bumps


The conditions were so good for this time of the year, that we even got to take a run down Green Beret and beleive it or not I got JJ to face his fears, and conquer Staircase once more. We had a good run down Staircase, whith not many rocks or stumps.


Jonny Jay cruising down Staircase



The day turned out to be a great day of spring skiing, we even saw a couple of skiers make it across on the Pond Skimming.
I attempted many jumps and drops including the Timbuktu Cliff and the Lift Line Rocks.... but the best jump of the day goes out to the Maniac who jumped out of the Tram.


For all you River Quai lovers out there, this is what it looked like from the top. If you look hard enough, you can see JJ making his way around the rocks.

Comparative snow reporting

Now that I'm back in the great not-so-white north, I can check the Jay on-line snow report. Here's the report for today, which would summarize the conditions Telemark Dave and I experienced this week:

Conditions are ok. Much closer to winter than spring. At least until early afternoon or so. Even then, conditions will be firmer than you expect for most of the day. This is either good or bad. Your call.

Whoever writes this report should hand over the keyboard to the author of the far more "let's call it like it is" JPSP snow report found at the bottom of the Jet on Wednesday:


Then there is the far more open-ended and colourful report found at Mad River Glen the next day:


And finally, the report of the random Jay skier we met at the Goat/Taxi intersection, one of the few soft snow places on the mountain on Wednesday. He skied up to Dave, stopped, looked him in the eye and said one word:

"Smooshie!"

Dave looked at him as if he was speaking a foreign language, or perhaps even, was a visitor from another planet. Random Skier then expounded with a little more detail:

"It's smooshie!"

Ah yes, smooshie snow. How did we miss it the first time?

Blog it if you can...

Well, faithful readers, I'm sitting in the base lodge at Mad River Glen, beside a big pile of "ski it if you can" stickers. What a great hill! I feel like it is 1972. Conditions are fast on the two runs that have been groomed. Everything else is rock hard and/or suffering from a lack of snow. We skied Jay yesterday. Windy, sunny, cold and the snow stayed hard as concrete all day. In fact, it seemed to get harder, except for the lower Goat, which was a wierd semi-frozen slush. Freezer and tram were on wind delay all day. MRG is way more fun in these conditions.

Time to stop blogging like an uber-geek and go skiing!

Editor's note: apparently some readers were thinking I was far more geekish than they realized, toting my laptop to the hill so I could blog on a pirated wi-fi signal. Have some faith, please. The nice folks at MRG have installed a public computer with high-speed access right beside the cafeteria food line entrance. Always on, no charge. Best of all, it's a Mac!

Jonny Jay steps up

SBR here, I'm posting this on JJ's behalf:

Ok I’ve tried three times to put this on the blog and I NOW GIVE UP.

Well boys and girls, if you're not pulling my leg then I am really envious! Sounds like the snow finally stuck on the mountain. While you were blowing up the powder, DC and I were running through the Philadelphia airport, heading for the sun.

Rather than snorkeling through the pow-pow we then strapped on the masks and headed for the coral canyons where white sandy ocean bottom was flanked by 5-10 foot coral walls creating a maze of intertwining corridors of various types of coral. Quite spectacular, except for the sounds of the Devon Cusser (who reserves namechange rights), who was swallowing the ocean beside me!

Hopefully we have a few more days when the snow Gods will shine on us and maybe we'll get some great spring skiing -- of course Jay doesn't really have spring skiing do they? Not like the old days when Jay would stay open till late April/early May before we would head off to Mad River for the final days of the season. By that time the Jay HARDSCRABBLE starts to soften, but not before! Hope you're impressed that I worked in HARDSRABBLE.

So as our old buddy Chris used to say Ski ya!

See you on the slopes.

Jonny Jay

PS

I am sure the boys thought of me as they were doing face shot after face shot – young showboats!

Who has the ruler?

And I quote:

"We're 100% open, have had more than 14 FEET of snow since February 1st and are poised for a long run into Spring."

Hey, didn't we have trouble finding the fabled five feet snow? Now we have to go looking for 14. I sure hope it's out there, as SBR and Telemark Dave will be headed for Jay the last week of March.

Mother Nature Gave Me A Present

Military Day........ March 4Th ................Pudd's Birthday
I just read Green Beret's post and I could not have said it any better. Best run I had all year including Cat Skiing. Face Shot after Face Shot.
Thanks for the present Mother Nature.

Pudd

PS I took a mouth shot from a 2 inch diameter branch........ but came out of it unscarred.

Military Day - the General and Skiers favourite day

MARCH FOURTH - 2007

This is a day that will be remembered all season. JJ and DC were sitting on a plane on their way to Jamaica, while I was eating oatmeal and preparing for one of the biggest ski days of the season. I wanted to get up to the hill at 8:00 for first trax on the blue chair, but I felt my little Chevy just couldn't make it up that hill, with the reported 12 Inches. No problem of getting up to the hill at a reasonable hour as I got a lift up with Pudd and his HEMI. (got to mountain at 8:20).

Pudd and I were about 15th chair up the Bonny for First Trax, we knew that everyone was thinking CAN AM and River Quai, we had to make a wise choise on what the first run was going to be.
"Power Line?" I said
We decided to go Power Line, about 3rd and 4th down, pleanty of POW to spare. You could really let the skis go, it was a good thing we were both running with the big planks.

When we hit the Taxi intersection, Pudd and I decided to go lower Lift Line, right under the red chair. As there was pleanty of Freshie on Lift Line and the chairs were packed with people, we decided to do the old fashion side by side rush through the powder. I came blasting down the bumps, being hit with snow in the face on every mogul, Pudd said all he could see was my yellow pom pom hat and a cloud of snow. The chairs were cheering us on with yelps and comments. "Dont stop, keep GOIN!!". We never stopped, we needed our speed if we wanted to take the POW over head every turn. When we finished the run, we both stopped to take a breather. "Hey you guys better get up their and do that again, the way you guys skied that!" said a lady on the chair.

After that, we got a lot of good runs in, Pudd had to leave early, to make it back to SO. So I skied the rest of the day by myself, I managed to find first trax and powder all day long. I had a great line down Lead Boots later on in the day and all the secret stash's were in great shape.

As Pudd left early, I had no lift back home, so I had to hitchike back to Montgomery CTR. After about 10 minutes, finally a big diesel Ford 2500, Landscaping truck from Eastern Ontario with 4 or 5 kids inside pull up and tell me to get in the box. This monster of a truck barely made it up the hill as we were going about 20 kmh spinning all over the place, I thought we were going to have to get out and push. It was a good thing I was still earing my tuke and goggles though, It was a chilly trip down to Montgomery.

While we're waiting, here's the local report...

I'm looking forward to some excellent reports from this weekend, assuming you all made the epic drive through the blizzard.

SBR had to content himself with night skiing at Hidden Bump, which is always entertaining. Conditions were very good - lots of tracked up loose snow and very few people. The skiing was fun too, except when the 8 year kid straitlining the big hill launched off my rear twin tip, causing me to fall over in the middle of a high speed tele-turn. Never got up so fast in my life, roared down to bottom, stopped him in his tracks and gave him a grumpy old guy lecture on the perils of skiing too fast.

Comment of the evening, overheard from below as I sat in the dark on the chair:

Hoser on skis #1: "this powder is tough going, eh?"

Hoser on skis #2: "yeah, it really bogs you down."

They were snowplowing the edge of the run...

Much to report...

The Jay Cloud in action

Let's start with a quote from Monday's snow report, probably not much different from the weekend's (no mention of wind, though):

Expect primarily machine groomed and packed powder conditions today with the odd spot of hardscrabble and/or windblown in those unprotected areas you love so much. Base depths are running to 4' in spots, 2' in others.

What is it with the hardscrabble?

Is this hardscrabble or simply a rock?

After a pleasant evening at the JJ secret hideout, BT and I arrived in Monkey Centre on Friday. Feeling under the weather, BT decided to rest up at the JJ clubhouse, pending the arrival of JJ and the Devon Cusser (more on that later) later in the day. So, off I went to Jay, camera in pocket, in search of the elusive hardscrabble. Arriving just in time for the half-day ticket, I learned that the tram had been closed all day and the Freezer had just shut down due to wind and frostbite danger. Hope there was nobody on it! And no kidding, the wind, even at the Stateside Chalet, was howling.

What to do? Bundle up and go skiing! While gearing up indoors, I did my best to use up an entire picnic table by myself and almost pulled it off. Other skiers in the locker room were claiming that is was "really cold." I later realized that you should never trust the weather reporting of people from Long Island or Connecticut. Ask someone from Vermont, Quebec or Ontario (except for Toronto). In my humble opinion, it was only "pretty cold." The raging wind amped things up a bit but it all seemed quite normal to me. As for the snow, it was generally quite good. True packed powder on probably 80% of the skiable terrain. It was the other 20% that made things exciting. Just when I was getting in the groove, out of nowhere, sheets of glare would appear on some windblown trail section. Also out of nowhere, hardscrabble would appear, grinding one's skis to a complete halt. This is never good for freeheelers. Where was that five feet of snow? Conditions had definitely improved since Christmas but Powder Paradise is definitely somewhere else. The hitchhiker I picked up on the 242 reported that the woods up there were "OK." Hmmmm. Only "OK" does not justify missing several lift-assisted runs while waiting for a random ride back to Stateside.

Hardscrabble ahead on the River Kwai

On Saturday the weather deteriorated but the skiing improved. For one thing, the company was better. The JJSC was well represented by JJ, the newly named Devon Cusser, Blue Toes (now feeling better) and SBR, your humble reporter. After the traditional oatmeal breakfast, we struggled off to the hill for a 10 am start. Despite the wild wind and cold we had a fun day (except for our excursion on the Goat).

Why don't those women want to lift their legs for the picture?

Some highlights:

- fine company
- fast snow and good conditions, mostly.
- JJ's powerslide on the upper Can Am (aka Supertrail). I went right and had a great run!
- Seeing snowshoers on the Goat. That was surreal. They were hiking up the middle of the trail, under the Freezer, apparrently oblivious to the fact that skiers and snowboarders were approaching at a high rate of speed and in very little control. Hello!

Things to rant about over a bottle of Barefoot:

1) People who eat bought lunches in the Locker Room. It's bad enough wangling a table among the other picnickers. The poutine-eaters should stay upstairs.

2) People who save tables in the locker room. For an hour.

2) What's the number crisis facing the ski industry? GLOBAL WARMING. Who's leaving the Jay Peak Audi gas guzzler running for 20 minutes while he checks out gate receipts Stateside? BILL STENGER. Get a grip Bill, turn the car off.

3) The Goat. Here's how the Devon Cusser got her name. JJ, a little bored of the Northway, says "let's do something different." I say, "let's ski the Goat." BT and JJ agree, knowing it will be unpleasant but a change of pace. DC says, "I hate the &%$#*@>*%$# Goat." Well, we skied it anyway and she was right. It was truy a run to be hated that day. And closed, probably, due to dangerous conditions. It's just a little bit sketchy when the Icefields start halfway down the rock cut section and don't end until just before the River Kwai.

4) Tourists that interrupt your peaceful checkout at Sylvester's by yelling at the clerk, "do you have a bathroom?"

If you can't go skiing...

You might as well read about it.

If you haven't seen it yet, look for a new (and pricey at $14.95) ski mag called The Ski Journal. It is a classy and well done publication, printed on heavy paper, with a wide range of editorial (from new school to the Spademan binding in issue # 1) and has very few ads. They claim that it is a "reader supported" publication. Good luck to them!

Maybe I should change the name...

With all this talk of hardscrabble, I'm considering changing the name of this blog to The Hardscrabble Times, or something like that.

SBR and BT are headed for Jay tomorrow, with a quick visit to the secret headquarters of the Jonny Jay Ski Club. Nestled on the side of a side road in deepest rural Canada, this stone and wood fortress sees few visitors, but those that find it are well rewarded with wine, Scotch and random pet fur.

Crowded Week-End at Jay

What a crazy week-end at Jay Peak. Never in my life have I been there with it being so crowded. The official Jay website was emphasizing the fact that they picked up 5 feet of snow. I'm not too sure where all that snow went because when I was standing on the top of River Quai looking down on one of the best pitches Jay's got to offer. My eyes were shocked when they came to realize that there was nothing more than 6 inches of windswept snow over a "hardscrabble" span of rocks, stumps and ice. I did find some snow in Timbuktu and a few runs OB (First Tracks through Red Beret). The 5 feet of powder was not an inaccurate measurement, as I shoveled through 4 feet of snow to make it to the door of the Jonny Jay Clubhouse. I think that the only accurate measurement that can be said about the whole week-end would have to be the 150 foot singles line running up the U.N.

Goat Icefields were in decent shape with still a pretty good slide and to all of you who stayed home this week-end fearing the JPSP Avalanche Warning, lets just say that the only thing on the Ridge is frozen "hardscrabble"

Today at Jay

Today's weather at Jay was followed by this comment on that other Jay report:
"Powder with some packed powder. We wouldn't rule out the odd windblown, hardscrabbled piece of trail either, though, so ski and ride with good care."

Hardscrabbled?!

The so-called writer concludes with a jovial "Hope to see you." I hope not.

Sincerely,
Blue Toes (aka JC)

Back from the West

Just Returned from the west. It was the best skiing I have ever done. Very steep and very deep. I think I represented the east pretty well. It took me a while to realize that there was not going to be ice or a snow gun around every corner. It had not snowed in two weeks but we got fresh tracks every run. The westerners were whinning about no new snow in two weeks but that seems to be the way they roll.

Jay is reporting 60 inches of snow today......... alas I have to stay in southern Ontario this weekend. Please save some turns for me!!!!!!

Pudd

Epic storm headed for Jay Peak

Here's the forecast from Dr. Weather:

TOP 10 HISTORICAL BLIZZARD TO BRING 2-3 FEET SNOWS TO SOME NEW ENGLAND SKI AREAS--SOME PLACES NEAR 4 FEET?

And the Jay area forecast:

Orleans-Essex-Caledonia- including the cities of...Newport...Island Pond...St. Johnsbury

310 AM EST Tue Feb 13 2007

...Heavy snow WARNING in effect from 1 AM Wednesday to 7 AM EST Thursday...

.Today...

Mostly sunny. Highs 10 to 15 above. Northwest winds around 5 mph.

.Tonight...

Partly cloudy until midnight...Then cloudy with snow likely after midnight. Snow accumulation a dusting to 2 inches by daybreak. Cold with Early lows 2 below to 7 below zero...Rising to 3 above late. Northwest winds around 5 mph...Becoming northeast after midnight. Chance of snow 70 percent.

.Wednesday...

Snow...Heavy at times. Additional snow accumulation of 8 to 12 inches. Highs around 17. Northeast winds around 5 mph...Increasing to 10 to 15 mph in the afternoon. Chance of snow near 100 percent.

.Wednesday night...

Snow heavy at times until midnight...Then snow likely after midnight. Areas of blowing snow. Total snow accumulation 1 to 2 feet. Lows around 7 above. Northwest winds 10 to 20 mph with gusts up to 30 mph. Chance of snow 80 percent.

.Thursday...

Mostly cloudy with a 40 percent chance of snow showers. Highs around 11. West winds 15 to 20 mph with gusts up to 30 mph.

.Thursday night and Friday

Mostly cloudy with a 40 percent chance of snow showers. Brisk. Lows 5 below to 10 below zero. Highs around 15. Wind chill values as low as 30 below.

.Friday night...

Partly cloudy with a 40 percent chance of snow showers. Cold with lows around zero.

SBR and Blue Toes are headed there next week, we think. Save some snow for us!

The "Jay Cloud" visits Muskoka

The RHSSCC got pounded yesterday. How much snow was there? So much snow that I buried the car on our own road! When I drove home after work, our road had not been plowed (why do we pay property tax?) and neither Jenny or our neighbour had been out all day, so I got fresh tracks by car for the last 500 metres or so. There was so much snow billowing over the hood of the car that I had to stop halfway up the last hill (couldn't see!) and let the wipers clear the windshield. Then I couldn't get going again, so had to turn around, go back to the last driveway and take a run at it, following my own path (even the amazing Subaru AWD couldn't overcome the combination of low clearance, steepish hill, slippery base and fresh snow). This time I made it to the top of the hill before having to stop and clear off, even with the wipers going full tilt. The new snow on the road was up to the top of my Sorels - at least 10". Very light and fluffy too. Spent 20 minutes clearing snow out of the engine compartment - the space between the grille and radiator was filled with snow.

The scene of the crime, in warmer times
Our driveway is on the left, at the top of the hill in the background. I got fresh tracks from the black mailbox on the right all the way to the end of the road.

Cleaning up

I told him to clean up the debris on the trails!
At least he picks up his own dirty socks.

Cat skiing vs. dog skiing

While Pudd is out west spending his hard-earned cash to get some motor-assisted runs, some of us are earning our turns among the hardscrabble rocks and trees of the Canadian Shield (there's that word again!). I think of it as training for Jay Peak. Plus it's fun and free. For those not in the know, the RHSSCC (Ravenscliffe Highlands Ski, Snowshoe & Country Club, located at SBR and Blue Toes' woodland hacienda, affectionately named Hundwalden) is home to some of the finest tree skiing in the wilds of the small hills in which we live. Back in the fall, Telemark Dave and SBR spent a full day discretely pruning some of the grabbiest trees on the West Ridge but have had to wait three months for enough snow to makes the runs skiable. Yesterday was the day.

While TD was off yoyo skiing with his kids, SBR took a break from flooring installation and went for a backcountry expedition. Utah the wonder dog was in snow over his head. No green plastic tele boots and twin-tip Sick Birds here! We are riding metal-edged 175 cm touring skis with old leather tele boots. After warming up with a ridiculous bushwhack, I skied both glades we cut back in the fall. I was a little cautious due to being alone and not wearing my knee brace. Skied "Right Glade" first, which is more open. All was well, found a nice mellow line, remembered the virtues of rear foot steering in Telemark technique, then suddenly, snag! My rear foot (left one with the bad knee, too) caught a discarded evergreen from the pruning brigade. Fortunately I was going slow and no injuries ensued. It did take a lot of cursing and a complete sideways (downhill) somersault to extricate myself. NOTE TO SELF: remove all pruning debris, no matter how much snow you anticipate. Made it down with no further incident then, after some deliberation and rest, booted it back up and skied "Left Glade" in a state of hyper-awareness. The deep snow helped me keep the speed down and the result was very fun, smooth, slow-motion skiing (for Jay skiers this little pitch is as steep as North Glade but much tighter). This line takes you all the way down to the pond, a total of about 10 turns; woohoo!

After such a good run, I decided that I should quit while I was ahead, so I skied across the pond, got mired in slush and had to spend 10 minutes scraping ice off the bottom of my skis (thank Ullr for metal edges). The remaining ice helped with grip though, as I skied right up the bush road back to the clubhouse with nary a herringbone!

Utah the wonder dog "wade training" for powder skiing

Pudd goes west!

I am taking all my lessons learned on the Goat Ice Fields to New Denver BC. I will be representing the East and Jay to the best of my abilities Cat Skiing. I will report when I return.
Nihil Sine Labore

What does this mean?

And I quote:

"We got some more machine made down on the Goat today so that should be in good shape for tomorrow."

OK, were they making machines on the Goat and just forgot the "S?"

Or will the Goat be in good shape, or perhaps the elusive "machine made?"

We got?

Aiiieeeee!!!!

Good question!

One of our faithful readers wants to know:

Just read the ski report today and they have "about" 100% of the lifts open. Wondering if that means they drop you half way???!!!

Fun and games

I enjoy the occasional hard Scrabble - after skiing, not during! Call me silly but I prefer not to mix my board games.

Cold Week-end on the Freezer

I think what the snow report is referring to as the "windblown hardscrabble" is most likely the earthquake cracks in the middle of the Goat Icefields, which spand for about 100 feet right around the Green Mountain Boys Bend. The Goat Icefields were in great condition this weekend. The ice was as fast as its been in years, resulting in a few minor crashes (see Pudd's story below - SBR). Thank God, the JPSP kept all the beginner and intermediate skiers on the Goat Run where it was supposed to be hard-packed corduroy. We wouldn't of wanted them to end up in Andres Paradise, where it was marked as being very "Thin cover, with lots of Ice". As I did ski both these runs this week-end, im sure the signs were just mixed up because the only thing I found out in Andre's Paradise was a little bit of Northern Vermont FRESHIE.

The Green Beret, somewhere in Andre's Paradise. Photo by Pudd.

Good Weekend at Jay

I encountered everything at Jay this weekend, cold temps, high wind, cordoroy, hard pack, ice, powder, rocks and grass. When I read the snow report on Monday morning apparently there was something else "windblown hardscrabble". I guess it was there but I am unclear what it is.

We found some good powder in Andre’s Paradise. The highlight of the day was the upper Goat Ice Fields. My young friend and I decided to trade skis. His skis were loose on me, so we decided to ski the Goat and trade back when we got to North Glade. It was about 3:00 pm when we started down the Goat and you could only see about 20 feet in front of you, with frequent white outs because of the high winds. I looked to the right to see my buddy pass me then we hit the ice ( a cross between a hockey rink and an earthquake zone). Usually the “goat power slide” is a way to show off for the chairlift because it is only 30 feet long. This time the slide went from the turn to the chairlift tower. My loose ski ejected and it was a race between me and the loose ski, we both stopped at the feet of my side kick. Needless to say, we traded our skis back.

High wind + snow=Low visibility
(The weather channel said on Saturday that the wind on the top of Mount Washington was 100 mph with a wind chill of -70 F. I do not think Jay was far off.)
Is it hot chocolate time yet?

Photo of the Day

I hear what you're all hagging about with the snow report, but what about that photo of the day? Is BK going to get his a.. in gear and take it out of Adobe Flash Player 9 so we can set the photos as our wallpaper or what!!!!

How about those new video games they have in the entrance to the tramside cafeteria. There is much less room to get by but now they have "Big Buck Hunter," which is a classic game to play while you're taking a hot chocolate break.

Short but to the point

Now this is a snow report. Dateline, Monday January 15, 2007:

me and harry had to take the snorkels out this morning on the UN

- contributed by The Green Beret

It all started here...

Pudd sent us all this report, direct from the Jay Peak newsroom:

Weather has certainly taken a turn for the better here in FunWorld. Forecasters calling for another storm this weekend with moderate snow. Our last round popped open another 25 trails and now pins us at 50 trails with more expected to open today. Expect machine groomed and packed powder conditions today with some windblown in spots where the wind has, well, blown. All 8 lifts are scheduled to spin but winds will gust today so stay tuned to jaypeakresort.com for operational updates today.

And he wondered aloud:

Fun World?????????

To which I replied:

Funworld...wallyworld....stengerworld....Who writes this stuff? How can a storm produce moderate snow? And what is moderate snow, really? Since when do runs get "popped open," "pinning" a hill at 50? I'm glad the Kitz didn't pop open while we were skiing it at Xmas. I might have fallen through the cracks. Oh yes, and the lifts are spinning too.

Then Jonny Jay got in touch:

For those of us who try to write for a living it's obvious this guy has to throw
out his thesaurus! Trying to reach that hip new generation I guess -- what else
could it be. Well we'll be sure to check out Funworld for you this weekend...

Followed by Dougskis:

I believe Jay has outsourced the writing to New Delhi to save mucho bucks. This explains why the snow depths are never right because they just throw a dart.

However the outsourcing has produced some lingo problems but I am sure B.S. will be on it.

For example I am sure they meant to refer to a Perfect Storm in which can account for the truly odd "moderate snow"

As for funworld there is a rumour that B.S. has a line on a some ferris wheels and roller coasters he can purchase for a song and install in the parking lot. This explains the reference to spinning?

As to "pinning" I think it was a typo and he was pining for the days when we had a lot more than 50 runs open Jan 17th.

The one thing that can't be explained is "popping", maybe amphetamines or most likely it is an oblique reference to Mickey's eyes

And so it starts - the world needs to know this!.

The Real Jay Peak Ski report is dedicated to poking fun at the Official Jay Peak Resort web site, Jay Peak policies, staff management and facilities.

All of us who love be at Jay are most welcome to contribute while pointing out the warts and foibles of our favorite hill.

Jay Peak golfers you are welcome too!!!!!!!!!! We skiers will be suprised if the golf course is as perfect as the pictures.