On Friday November 3rd, Jay Peak fired up the snow guns on The Jet and Haynes as unseasonably low temperatures continued throughout New England. Jay Peak plans on bumping up their opening to the weekend before the Thanksgiving Holiday and will have plenty of snow to do so, even with the pending warm up next week. All the major players let loose their guns this week to capitalize on a rare shot at prolonged early November snow making. The masses also descended on Jay Peak to capitalize on a chance to ski and ride early season man made snow before the lifts start moving. Where were all these people the past two weeks when Jay had epic late October snow? I have no idea.
While I had prepared myself for Jay to have substantially less snow and worse conditions than my first four days in October, I had not prepared myself for the massive disappearance of snow. Approaching the mountain, Can Am and Power Line (which were both socked with snow last week) bore huge brown spots and disastrously thin cover. The lower slopes at Stateside were no longer skiable nor skinable, so I carried my skis on my pack and began hoofing up Derick Hot Shot.
Snow Guns were going full blast on the upper half of The Jet and Haynes. The moist man made snow had thickly settled onto Derick which made skinning a real pain. A low angle switch back skin track ascended Derick as skinning straight up the fall line was not an option. Upon reaching the top of Derick, I had a few options but went with my hunch that Timbuktu might have enough cover remaining to be worth while. Natural snow is much more preferable over man made snow regardless of time of year.
Tree skiing in October and November is simply sick regardless of conditions, though conditions in Timbuktu pushed the term sick to the breaking point. A hardened crust of snow, rain, wind buff, and consolidation provided just enough base to get through Timbuktu with only minor base damage and no core shots. A half inch of freshly fallen snow made Timbuktu look primed but I knew better and skied the more open lines with all due caution and restraint. It was an excellent run, but I will be happy when Timbuktu has proper base levels for worry free tree surfing.
Exiting out of Timbuktu onto Derick, I caught Heaven's Road back across Haynes and The Jet, putting the skins back on at Northway. Northway was an absolute pain in the ass to skin up. The wind buffed and frozen over snow made for slippery and precarious skinning. I cursed silently under my breathe at first, then later was very vocal and open with my profanity.
The snow was terrible and did not look like it was getting better with elevation, so I banged a left up Montrealer for a second run down Timbuktu. I strayed out to skier's right and the boundary tape, but found snow closer to Derick was better due to man made blow in. My lower back and legs were rather tired from the difficulties with the two skins, so I decided to call it an early day after two runs. Two tree runs during the first week of November no less!