Yet another day in paradise. The mid-December mark has passed and Jay Peak has struggled to open new terrain due to abnormally mild temperatures and a complete dirth of natural snow. The Green Mountain Flyer (a.k.a. The Freezer) debuts this weekend with one route down to the Tram Base Lodge. Jay offers up ten trails this weekend with five lifts turning for a two trail per lift average. Thankfully, the addition of the Freezer and Metro Quad servicing Intermediate and Beginner terrain has taken much stress off The Jet area by the Stateside Lodge. However, despite having five lifts turning and ten trails open, Jay was not able to offer a connecting route to allow skiers access to the Stateside area from the Tramside area. Despite more elbow room and slightly better overall conditions, I found the afternoon of skiing uninspiring and elected to stay home on Sunday despite having a Season Pass.
I rolled out of bed around 9:30 A.M. and spent the better part of the next hour deciding if skiiing was worth it or not. I decided it beat spending an afternoon doing Kakuro puzzles and went for it. I opted for the Tramside lot not knowing there was no connect to the Stateside area and thinking I would stay for the Season Pass holder party. After a few hours of skiing, I decided I couldn't be bothered with the celebrations. The amount of non-New license plates in the parking lot was amazing. Jay is not worth driving up from Boston right now, let alone New York or New Jersey or Virginia.
I took three or four runs off the freezer which all blended together. Goat (one of my least favorite trails in all of New England) was blah with frozen granular surfaces on the upper section and a thin cover messy disaster under The Freezer. Conditions improved on Lower River Quai with softening snow conditions and okay soft moguls forming on skiers' left. Interstate felt like one with additional skiers funneling off the Metro Quad and race training set up on skiers' left. I opened up the skis and let run some nice big arcs on the soft snow with occasional thin spots. Middle and lower sections of the mountain were in Spring Skiing form with soft mushy snow and thin spots to avoid.
After a car shuttle to the Stateside Auxilery lot, I discovered that things were a little bit more exciting over on The Jet. Upper sections of Haynes were very scraped and generally sucked with race training on Lower Haynes on skiers' left. The Jet was moderately better feautring relatively decent snow conditions due to less traffic and warmer temps that softened the snow. The Jet had occasional loose snow on the edges of the trail, frozen granular up top, and snow softening up to spring like conditions down low. Moguls under the lift line were uninspiring.