Jay Peak opens this weekend

Thanks to snowmaking and a little help from Mother Nature, fans of sliding down the White Ribbon of Death will be able to ski off the Jet Chair starting this Friday. Personally, I'm content to wait for a little more terrain to open before making the long drive to Vermont but it's reassuring to know that our favourite mountain is waking up.

So, if you, like me,  are not going skiing this weekend, here are a few Jay-themed places to schuss over to on the Internet. For followers of the Jay development saga, there is a good article on the process and philosphy over at Teton Gravity Research:
Waves of Change - Jay Peak's $50 Million Expansion

The description of Jay area nightlife is priceless and I thought it was pretty clever of them to use the retro font from old Jay brochures in the lead image:

And if you haven't had enough of being Raised Jay, have a look at JPR's new microsite, raisedjay.com. Yes, that's right, a micro-site. For those of you who haven't spent time in windowless rooms listening to marketing people blither on about such things, a microsite is "... an Internet Web design term referring to an individual or a small cluster (around 1 to 7) of pages which are meant to function as a discreet entity within an existing Website or to complement an offline activity...  The main distinction of a microsite versus its parent site is its purpose and specific cohesiveness as compared to the microsite's broader overall parent website." Got it? For more on microsites, and their inherent dangers, read the rest of the Wikipedia entry here.

If there is a 'specific cohesiveness' to raisedjay.com, it is the honest feel-good vibe typical of Jay Peak's marketing material. There are some charming stories, nice photos and my favourite part, The Vault, allows you to browse through many years of quirky ads and slogans. And if I win the contest, you can be guaranteed a monthly blog about the experience.

Winter is coming!