Jay Peak in 48 hours: a guest report

Here is the first "guest report" on the RJPSR, I hope there will be more. Will, Duper and Jer are three lads from Huntsville, Ontario who went to Jay for the first time earlier this week. Clearly, they have now  been stricken with the Jay Peak bug. Duper was on skis, Will and Jer the single plank. This is their story, as told by Will:

With two days off and snow in the forecast for the east, the only thing left to do was pack up the car and hit the road. Thanks to the trusty advice from the Great El Gordo (editors note: that would be me), we found ourselves heading to the hills of Vermont.

This must be the place.

We checked into Grampas Grunt's Hostel at about 10pm, Sunday, Feb. 13. Even when checking in you could sense that this was a place of history, a place of legends and with tales of the mountain to suit. Gramps got us checked into our room and informed us there would be no breakfast the next morning as he had a poker game to get to that night.

We woke the next morning bright and early and headed to Jay. We parked at Stateside, as this was the first piece of advice given to us from Gord. We knew that this was the side of the mountain to go to for the true "local experience." Little did we know that’s exactly what we were in for.

Standing eagerly at the bottom of the Bonnie, waiting for the lift to open, we met up with a fellow Gramps resident. Ed, aka VW, has been coming to Jay for over ten years. The story has it that he shows up in a different Volkswagen every time, hence the name.  He assured us that, without question, every time he rolls into town he stays at Gramps. More importantly, he let us know that he would be happy to ride with us up the first chair and "show us a few good spots" to check out on the mountain.

Somewhere down a rabbit hole.

Ed ended up riding with us the entire day, showing us the local lines that we never would have found without him. At the top of every run he would just shout, “follow me to the next rabbit hole” and, without fail, after every rabbit hole we found ourselves in some of the best tree skiing in the east. We rode everything from chutes, to tight lines, to wide open glades, all of which had at least knee deep fresh snow covering them.

We rode from first chair to last that day and even got a run in on The Dip, where we ended down at the road and hitchhiked back to the parking lot. We were hooked: Jay was the place to be.

Grampa Grunt atmosphere.

We spent the night at Gramps' again, cooked up a big feast and shared some beers with our new buddy and local tour guide Ed. He told us we were very fortunate to meet up with him, that usually he’s riding with others and he never would have shown three newbies the lines he did. We sat around the basement rec room; Gramps shared some stories of the 80’s, when the hostel was truly the place to be in the east. The wall mounted snowboards and skis, beer stained floors and dim lit atmosphere certainly made you think: that if only these walls could talk.

Our second day at Jay Peak was bluebird skies and sunshine. With the stashes on the windblown side of the mountain covered in snow, Ed continued to show us tree lines and always seemed to find the deep snow. The tram wasn’t running so we did a hike up to the summit to take in the views and get a run in on Valhalla. We also bagged two more runs on The Dip and called it a day after that. Figured we had to end on a high note. We thanked Ed repeatedly for his guide service and hit the road back to Ontario.

Stop taking pictures - let's go riding!

You want me to go where?

The result, three exhausted guys with memories of epic tree lines and deep fresh snow. My recommendation, go to Jay Peak. Check in at Gramps, soak up the atmosphere and hope you are as lucky as we were to run into Ed.

Thanks VW.

Here is a little postscript from Duper:

You know you are at a great mountain when you barely stop to take photos.  I'm still thinking about the terrain, the people and places of northern VT.  It's defiantly in the top four ski trips of all time for me personally. The green coat belongs to William.  Jer had the pumpkin coat.  I'm in grey with the blue bonnet. Last but not least, our tour guide Ed is Johnny Cash dressed all in black.

A single track is always a good sign.

A first for the RJPSR!

The other day, I stumbled upon a site called the Outdoor Blogger Network. Browsing through the blog categories, I thought: "hmmm, there is nothing about skiing here. Skiing happens outdoors and most skiers I know are outdoorsy-type people."

So, what the heck, I signed up and suggested that they add a "skiing blogs" section to their existing "outdoor athletics" category. They agreed with my logic and, lo and behold, the RJPSR is the first ski blog on the site.

So if you have a ski blog,  an outdoors blog, or just enjoy reading blogs about outdoorsy stuff, check out the the OBN.

Social media case study: hate VS debate.

Disclaimer: In case you haven't figured it out, this gang of Jay Peak skiers live a long way from Jay Peak. That's why you aren't reading an account of how great the skiing is right now. So if like me, you WISH you were at Jay Peak right now, and need something to distract you from the powder stories, feel free to read on.

Unless you have been living under a rock, with only dial-up Internet access, you'll have noticed that social media services like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs and the like are increasingly being used by businesses to promote their products and services. In the tourism industry, which, like it or not, ski resorts are part of, progressive operators have been using social media for some time because they know that “creating the conversation” between themselves and clients, or even better, between clients and clients ABOUT the product, is a relatively easy way to keep people thinking about their operation. And if you keep thinking about something good, you'll want that something, even if you have to drive seven hours to get there.

The trouble is, keeping on top of the blog, chatter and tweet is yet another thing for the marketing person to do, more tasks to be completed in an already busy work day. Hopefully, the marketing person's boss gets it and doesn't chastise them for “spending too much time on the Internet.” Fans and followers come to expect regular blog posts, Facebook updates, tweets and responses to their comments. And you never know when it just might blow up in your face (book).

Let's take a look at two recent Facebook incidents that underscore the need for vigilance and responsibility. Two ski resorts, Jay Peak and Sunshine Village (near Banff, Alberta) have had Facebook blow-ups recently and dealt with them in very different ways.

If you follow ski industry news (and who doesn't, he asked facetiously) you will have heard about the recent public relations meltdown at SSV. If not, the very short version is that a junior patroller pulled the pass of someone who was skiing in a closed area. Turns out that the someone was Taylor Scurfield, the son of the resort's owner, Ralph Scurfield Jr. Shortly afterwards, several senior patrol and operations staff were fired. The remaining patrol had a bit of a protest and more were fired, including the rookie patroller who pulled young Scurfield's pass in the first place. Now the skiing public is up in arms on-line and the ex-employees are launching a wrongful dismissal suit. You can read the full story, along with links to various other discussions and articles, on MadPatSki's excellent and detailed recent blog post. But please come back.

At this writing, Sunshine Village has taken down their official Facebook page (the page that appears to be official is a “mirror” site, apparently not managed by the resort). When it was up, there was much heated discussion, a lot of hate, many people got banned, popped back under a new name, banned again, and so on. Several other pages have popped up, including pages for supporting the wronged patrollers, boycotting Sunshine, etc. etc. If you are on Facebook, try a search and you'll see what I mean. What a mess. The resort management appears to have completely given up on trying to communicate about the situation and mitigate this public relations disaster. There is no indication that anything is amiss on the resort's web site. The score: social media backlash, 1; Sunshine Village, 0. This will be a very interesting story to follow.

Meanwhile, over at Jay Peak's Facebook page, there has been some heated, but friendly, debate about the ongoing development project. As you can imagine there are a lot of people for it, and a lot of people against. The waterpark, in particular, seems to get folks pretty riled up. The screen shot below is of the Jay Peak Facebook post on Jan. 31. What started out as an innocent photo and comment about the waterslide developed into a 108 comment debate about development with the “fors” and “againsts” well represented throughout. It is worth reading. No matter what your stand is on the development, you have to admire the Jay Peak marketing team's thoughtful and attentive replies to the stream of comments. It takes a lot of work to stay on top of this stuff and keep a professional level of response going. The score: social media dialogue, 1; Jay Peak Resort, 1.

PS: The Jay Peak development story keeps popping up in various places, check out this recent thread on AlpineZone and several pages of back and forth on the TGR East Coast Stoke thread (note: the discussion starts about half-way down the page and goes on for about two more). Word of warning, if you have never visited TGR before, be prepared for some, uhhh, colourful language and more than colourful characters.

Ahh, the life of the east coast skier...

If there was a classified job ad for becoming an Eastern Skier during Christmas Week, it might read something like this:

Eastern Skiers Wanted for Holiday Skiing: must have sharp edges, ability to make the most of any ski conditions, highly developed sense of irony and a deep yearning for soft snow. Must be willing to drive long hours and line up for ski conditions that would cause a western skier to get in the car and go home. Should not be fazed by rocks, twigs, grass or gravel on runs of any level. Skiers with pristine bases need not apply.

Hi, I'm SBR and I'll be your tour guide in my new red jacket!

This Christmas Week, many eastern skiers were interviewed and hired for the job. In five days at Jay Peak, we experienced full-on brutal winter, wind, strange in-between winter weather, spring and even a bit of late spring conditions. In fact, everything but the glorious powder day. The Jay Peak snow report even admitted to "wind scoured" conditions on day two. We weren't sure if this was a new kind of grooming or perhaps a bad thing. The good news was that lines were minimal, we found good snow around the margins and if you didn't mind fast, firm conditions, the skiing was pretty fun.

A short summary from the SBR point of view:
Dec. 27 - Too cold for pics. Sunny. Very windy. Tram and Freezer on wind hold. Skiing fast and scrapy, good on the edges.

Hey, let's go up the Tram!

Dec. 28 - Weather as above except snowing a bit. Tram on wind hold. Freezer freezing.
Dec. 29 - Temperature better. Almost zero visibility due to freezing rain / snow / wind / snowmaking fog.  Freezer loading every second chair due to "slippage" (according to lifties). Could this have been due to the fact that the snow guns were blowing snow on the cables? Skiing as above, much better on natural snow runs like Derick and Liftline (bumpy and fun). Jonny Jay demonstrated the iconic Jonny Jay Jet Turn on the JFK. Taxi was a horrorshow of ice and stumbling snowboarders. Haynes was a skating rink on a tilt. Big Show bruised his ribs performing the new "rollover recovery technique" on Haynes (ejected and landed chest-first on his binding. Ouch).

The nephews question Uncle SBR's judgment on the Tram ride idea.

Dec. 30 - Total weather change. Sunny, warm, spring conditions. Haynes still icy. Goat unusually excellent. JFK, Derrick, Kitz all bumpy and soft. Grooming minimal but snowguns going full blast. JJ, Throckmorton, Gollum, and I skied Kitzbuhel and it was "run of the day" for all of us. I was very impressed with how well Gollum was skiing on his new rockered skis. Hmmm. There may be something to this rocker thing.

And then the sun appeared!

 Dec 31 - Raining in the morning but the weather cleared up quickly. GM Boys finally opened. The freshly packed human-made snow there was the consistency of mashed potatoes but fast and fun. JJ, I and the great-nephews skied Valhalla. What a mistake! Nobody was hurt. The glades are skiable but not quite ready for prime time.

Quotes of the week: 
1) 15 year-old Gollum and I took a few runs late in the day after the others quit. We did Liftline again, he said to me: "I love skiing moguls." This from a kid skiing on park skis with tip and tail rocker, listening to Eminem on the ear-buds.

2)  On the Tram, on the rainy morning of New Year's eve, the upper windows are open for ventilation. Rain is coming in and soaking those of us in the front half of the tram car. Some wag comments: "they must be getting us ready for the waterpark!"

Getting ready to do the RFID dance in the Flyer line-up

Then there was the RFID...
We all got our new RFID tickets in various forms, some Jay Cards, some season passes and a few 581 cards. Everybody at Jay Peak was trying hard to love this new technology. When it works, it's easy. The paddles flip and you pass through the gate and board the chair. Every now and then it doesn't quite work and you have to do the new "Jay Dance," a little hopping up and down number that magically causes the gate to open. I had my pass in my pants pocket and on the rainy day, one lifty even suggested that I rub my leg against the plastic scanner thing to get it to read. Lo and behold, it worked. The jury is out and we remain optimistic on this technology. Personally, I hope the 581 card gets some convenience factor added in so I don't have to get in line for a new ticket every day.

We skied Liftline a lot more than usual - it was in great shape.

Blue Toes schusses the hardpack on Ullr's. The West Bowl looks invitingly sunny.

Jonny Jay likes his new skis, now that they stay on his feet.

A young hot-shot on the Derick Hot-Shot. There was some hardscrabble.

Dear Santa: please send Jay Peak some snow for Christmas!

This blog was started back in 2007 when we noticed that there were some discrepancies between what the mountain was reporting and what we were seeing "on the ground." After skiing at Jay Peak the last two days, all I can say is "the more things change, the more things stay the same."

For example, today, the Jay Peak web site is reporting this: "Home of the most snow in the east?  I think so, over five feet of snow has fallen since mid-November and with the 5-7" we picked up over the past 24 hours, it's now very close to six feet." If I am not mistaken, this is what is known as "magical thinking." I'm not going to deny the snowfall amounts, as there have been well-documented accounts of huge powder dumps in Vermont recently. Unfortunately , the part missing from the equation is that not all that snow is still on the ground. Some of it melted in early November. A lot of it got washed away in the big rain event last week. I can only assume that most of the snow that was falling as I drove to Jay on Monday got blown away into hard-to-reach (read: closed) parts of the mountain. As usual, and to give the Jay snow reporter his due, it was snowing pretty heavily as I left the hill yesterday.

In spite of all that, we still managed to have fun and get some nice runs in. Conditions were fast and carvy (is that a word?). And also as usual, even with a brief two-day visit, there is much to report. Here are a few pictures to set the scene and you'll just have to wait for the detailed report coming later. I have to admit, it was too cold for taking pictures on the lift or most places on the hill.

It was a cold morning at SBR HQ to start the trip

From our extensive fleet of four-wheel-drive vehicles, I chose the Snowbaru. 

Some people start their drive in the city, I start in the moose-infested hinterland.

Jonny Jay hiking across the tundra to protect his new bases

The Prophet Brothers take a break. It would have been a good day for those RC4s.

Someone else's tracks on the River Quai. Typical of closed runs: snow on the edge, grass/rocks in the middle.

It is 2:42, -12 C, time to hit the 242 - I'm done.

Snazzy recycled tables in the Locker Room lend themselves well to spreading out.

It was a little blustery on Wednesday, even the Jet was on wind delay.

I should have taken the scenic route home...

Verrry interesting...

For all you Jay Peak development-watchers out there, check out the video below and read this thread from the AlpineZone forums. Make sure you go all the way to page 2, where Steve Wright replies.

In my recent chit-chat with Steve Wright, he let me in on some of those plans but I was sworn to secrecy. Arrggh, I've been scooped by a YouTube video with Vietnamese subtitles!

SBR's historical Jay Peak ski quiver

Putting up pictures of your ski quiver seems to a popular topic for ski bloggers and forum posters. Hey, why not? You've done the thinking, spent all this money, made good (and possibly bad) decisions, so why not brag about it a bit. When considering a picture of my own quiver, I realized that I wasn't really sure where to draw the line between "quiver" and "collection," plus I knew that, for the purposes of this blog, there needs to a Jay Peak angle on the topic. Then, inspired by reading MadPat's recent post on the Canadian Ski Museum, I realized that my own collection of skis is a personal history of sorts, not merely yard-sale fodder, as some wags have suggested.

There are almost 40 years of Jay Peak memories in these boards!

While splitting wood this morning, I had a brainwave. Why not assemble all the devices I have used to slide down Jay Peak that are still in my possession, and tell their stories? Believe me, some of these go back a long way.  So here they are, with a little bit of "Jay Peak memory lane" thrown in for good measure.

Note the classic BC sticker. That is BC as in the prehistoric cartoon character!

Dynastar MPI Equipe, 195 cm, Salomon 502 bindings, made in France, circa 1974ish. What an awesome ski this was. Three layers of metal, including one functioning as the "Omega core," GS cut and everybody told me they were too short! They had a pretty wide shovel for the time and were great powder skis. I have many fond memories of floating through the woods at Jay on these skis. This was before they called the woods "glades" and put them on the trail map. I used these skis for many years and sadly, they are no longer skiable due to some serious age-related delamination. 

Don't you love those 80s colours? Ahh, the days of teal and pink.

Atomic ARC Team HV6 RS, 200 cm, Tyrolia 490 bindings, made in Austria, circa mid-80s. These skis are race-stock ice-slayers. RS stands for "riesenslalom" (giant slalom), not sure about the HV6. Probably "high velocity, Mach 6" because that is what is required to make them turn. Not so good in the trees! I bought them from a friend who was on the Ontario ski team at the time. Still skiable, so these will be the weapon of choice if there is ever a "Longboard Day" at Jay. Best Jay memory on these skis? Hmm, probably that time on Ullr's when there no people on the run and the throttle got opened up a bit. Maximum riesenslalom!

Good thing pink wasn't the new black back in the 80s

Karhu XCD Extreme, 198 cm, Rottefella Super Telemark bindings with Voile plates (bindings have been re-purposed to a pair of touring skis), made in Canada, circa 1988. These replaced an earlier pair of the original Extremes, known to telemarkers as "red sleds." This ski was ahead of its time and most of the boots of the day did not have the power to drive them to their full potential. I sure had to work hard to keep up with the posse on their alpine skis! Strangely, my best Jay memory with these skis is going over the handlebars at the top of JFK and landing head-first in a tree well. Once they got over their hysterical laughter, one of my strong young nephews helped pull me out before I suffocated.

The BASE jumper on the base is even cooler than the metalflake top

Burton Rippey 158 with Burton SI bindings, made in USA, circa 2001. This board rides even better than it looks and the step-in binding is tailor-made for old farts. After borrowing snowboards for a year or so, I decided to buy one and snowboarded almost exclusively for three years. Now that my knee is fixed, I might just take it up again. Same problem as telemarking though, it is hard to keep up with the skiers and they stop in all the wrong places. On a spring trip to Jay with Blue Toes I had two unforgettable runs. One was top-to-bottom on the UN, a rare event on a snowboard (it had been groomed flat as as a pancake and I think I was the second person down). Later that day, after BT had gone in, I hung out at Sky Haus till the three other tram riders had disappeared, then enjoyed a totally surreal run on perfect corn snow, riding in complete solitude from the summit all the way to the lower Goat.

Gotta love the Euro graphics: I think they were trying to make them look "woodsy"

Fischer Big Stix 75, 175 cm, Rottefella Cobra R8 binding, made in Austria, circa 2004. Originally mounted with alpine bindings, these were my first pair of "fat" skis. No longer fat by today's standards, they will go down in history as the ski that tore my ACL (of course it was the ski's fault). They make a great "everyday" tele ski and I still use them frequently. This ski reminds me of fun times cruising with my family on mellow runs.

The Sick Birds await transformation on my snazzy new work table.

Rossignol Sick Bird, 171 cm, about to get fitted with new Black Diamond 03 tele bindings, made in Spain, circa 2005. These skis have a lot of holes in them. I went from telemarking in lace-up leather boots and the Karhus to these skis and four-buckle plastic monsters. Had to learn to ski all over again! Then I switched the alpine/tele set up between the Big Stix and the Sickies, which worked a lot better for me. Despite being on the stiff and heavy side,  they are taking on a new life as a back-country ski for skin up, ski down kind of stuff. I recall being completely humbled on my first run with these skis, on the Queen's Highway of all trails, because I couldn't make a tele turn.

I really like the understated graphics on the Prophets

Line Prophet 100, 172 cm, with Salomon Z12 bindings, made in China, circa 2010. Have I told you how much I love these skis? In my opinion, this is the ideal "one ski quiver" for Jay Peak and I am really looking forward to getting back on them with two functional knees. My first run on these skis was a high-speed early morning blast down a freshly groomed Goat, and I knew I had found the right ski for me.

Missing in action: I think the first skis I used at Jay were a pair of white Arlbergs with screwed-on edges and cable bindings.  Once I got serious, I upgraded to some blue Fischers (model name escapes me) with early Solomon step-ins. The first ski I bought with my own money was the Rossignol Allais Major but I soon sold those and got the Dynastars. Between the Dynastars and the Atomics, Pudd sold me an amazing pair of skis known simply as the Rossignol GS. They were a joy to ski on but suffered from a lack of durability.

So there you have it. A personal history of skiing at a single mountain, as told by a collection of skis and one snowboard. And now that I've written it all down, I realized (and if you know me, you'll probably agree) that the collection above also reflects my somewhat schizophrenic relationship with sliding on snow and explains why Telemark Dave has given me the name Mr. Multiglisse. Does your quiver tell a story? I'll bet it does!