thesnowway.com

Just enough snow fell Thursday through Friday to reopen most natural snow and tree terrain. But not one inch more. I was hopeful that the snow would keep going Friday night. But when I arrived Saturday morning, it was clear that the snow only fell during operational hours on Friday.

Still, I was able to find pockets of untracked and lightly tracked snow in the off-map woods. It just wasn’t enough to earn the “powder day” tag. I was rather surprised that Jay had reported a 48-hour total of 12 inches. But that did include two days of skier traffic.

Lower elevation woods were problematic with occasional coverage issues and some sticks poking through. But it was far better than my last visit when even on-map glades were not skiable and lower elevation natural snow was approaching bare-ground territory.

I skied a half-dozen runs before the crowds became a headache. They were not worth dealing with for a few inches of hard-to-find powder that had mostly been tracked out. It was clearly Canadian vacation week and it seems like the travel boycott was all bluster. They’re back.

I can’t really complain. While the forecasts did suggest more overnight snow, it was just really nice to be back on natural, powdery snow and in the woods. Two weeks ago, things looked grim. Now, the base has been saved and surface conditions have improved. Though, the scratchy lunar base is still lurking under the new snow and easy to scrap down. But at least we’ll have a spring.

As much as the first two months of operations at Jay were amazing, the last two months have been pathetic. Last night, a few inches fell on top of a lunar landscape. Only groomers were skiable. And lower elevation natural snow areas were starting to show cracks.

The first few runs were nice, but once the new snow was pushed around, the frozen base became apparent. The snow would continue in the afternoon and evening making Sunday the better day. But after Sunday, there would be a massive rain storm, warm temperatures, and a hard freeze.

Jay barely got into the February blizzard that delivered record snows to southern New England. The last major one-foot-plus storm was in late January. March is often the snowiest month. But this winter, it looks like it will be the least snowy since October.

If we are not going to have more storms, I’d prefer the weather change to spring ASAP so we can at least have some nice spring skiing days before the melt out. But currently, we keep getting teased by a few inches, following by rain, then warmer temperatures, and finally a freeze.