Jay: New Year’s Day Powder

Face Chute

An overperforming storm combined with New Year’s Day hangovers and holiday crowds heading home to make for an epic first day of the New Year. Despite the forecast only calling for about four inches, the Jay Cloud delivered a solid foot with deeper drifts. While I was going to bed early and setting my alarm for 5:15am, a lot of other skiers were partying late and planning to sleep in. The vacationing holiday crowds were leaving early and who knows where the powder hounds were.

I went right at it with boot deep untracked down Can Am and then onto the Jet where I found more untracked boot deep in the trees for my second and third runs. Top to bottom boot deep untracked on a third run during a holiday weekend is something else. Despite knowing the reasons, I still couldn’t help but wonder how it was possible, how was this happening?

I met some friends after my third run and we continued to find great untracked snow in the trees off the Jet. Boot deep was the rule though occasional knee deep and deeper drifts were found. We worked the Bonnie a bit and then went back to the Jet and found still more untracked snow after lunch.

It was hard to tear ourselves away from the reliable boot deep untracked, but I had been eyeing the ridge all afternoon. I rarely ski the ridge due to the wait for the tram but given the lack of crowds, I suspected we could easily get a one tram wait and get a quality run off the ridge. The one tram wait turned into a two tram wait due to the lower maximum capacity of the tram (used to be 60, now it is only 40).

The wind was picking up but thankfully we were able to catch the last tram before they shut the lift down due to the wind. The wind was really honking as we crested tower two and the tram car took the full impact of the wind. I was reconsidering a run off the ridge when we found JPSP had roped the walkway solidifying my thought that the wind was a bit much for skiing off the ridge. We took the Face Chute as a consolation prize where we found stellar snow below a sporty entrance.

4 thoughts on “Jay: New Year’s Day Powder

  1. Was also there on the 1st . Corona had great snow. Curious why the stateside parking lot fills in so fast when there are so few people there . Arrived at 9.20 am to be one of the last cars in. Hotel guests maybe.

    1. Good question about the Stateside lot. I arrived around 8am and I had to park about halfway back already even though it wasn’t crowded. I think the hotel contributes. They also have that separate lot for the Stateside hotel but I never see cars parked in it. I know they created more space by pushing back the lot but the new buildings also took out old spaces. More people may start Stateside now than before due to the learning center being Stateside. Probably a combination of a lot of things.

      Orchard definitely had great snow! We went out a few times and we were still finding untracked snow late in the afternoon. Place usually gets hammered quick these days, nice to not have a powder frenzy and just relax. I probably skied more “trails” than normal for a powder day. We hit Can Am, Upper River, Liftline, Canyonland, and Face Chutes… normally I just go into the woods and never come out again. Pretty rare that I spend that many runs on the map. Just goes to show how good the snow was throughout the day.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *