Sunday was the bust of this season. With the forecast calling for six to ten inches up and down the Green Mountains, Jay was slotted to receive a major snow storm Saturday night into Sunday morning. Rarely does Jay Peak miss on the big storm predictions. Quite the opposite, Jay almost always receives more snow than expected. But Sunday was a complete and total bust at Jay Peak.
Arriving at a packed Stateside lot shortly before the lifts began loading, I found one to two inches of fluff covering hard pack and scraped surfaces. That is what I get for notching a “powder day” onto my season cost and stat spreadsheet the night before heading up to the mountain. That is just bad Karma. Still hurting from Friday’s romp at Mad River, I set the early alarm and made the line up for opening at the Bonnie chair.
I checked all my favorite spots in short order and there was not much to be found except hard pack and scraped surfaces. There was the occasional nice shot of snow for two or three turns but conditions left something to be desired for the most part. I was tired, sore, and disappointed and decided to pack it up early despite new snow coming down during the late morning.
Jay posted five inches within twenty-four hours as of 4pm. I will chalk up two of those prior to opening and the remaining three falling throughout the day accompanied by increasingly harsh winds. I had hyped this weekend and it did not deliver. Will remember to keep the expectations down next time even when the snow forecasts start hitting double digits. Cannon would have skied better today, truth be told.
3 thoughts on “Sunday Bust at Jay Peak”
You left too early. The afternoon was all deep powder all the time.
Ahh….thats not how I remember it. You must have left too early. After an early lunch the snow was pouring down and the wind picked up. Around 2pm, everything was down except the red chair so we headed across the cat walk and hiked up to the Dip…it was dead, and untracked boot deep powder. By the time we got back to the red chair the line had died down. We hiked up the goat and headed to tram side. Dropping in to Beaver Pond was crazy. It was 3:15 and it was totally untracked. We took the beginner chair back to stateside with BIG smiles on our faces, and took one last run in Hellswoods before calling it a day.
The upshot…you should have stayed…it was a crazy afternoon…..
I am sure I missed a few inches as Jay reported a 24 hour total of six inches as of 4pm on Sunday. But deep powder all the time? That is suspect considering when I left, everything including far skier’s right in the Orchard was tracked out completely and flat as a pancake or bumped. That means at most four to six inches of fresh between the time I left and the resort closing. Not saying I did not miss some good skiing and maybe a few drifts skied really well late in the afternoon, but even the Steve Wright, JPR Marketing/Sales Director, mentioned publicly that Sunday was less than epic.