This was certainly unexpected. During the week, Jay picked up two feet of fresh powder over the course of five days. These small snow falls mostly isolated along the spine of the Northern Green mountains added up through the course of the week. Friday through Saturday morning brought another foot bring Jay’s seven day total up to three feet. Surely most of the snow prior to Friday night’s eight inches would be tracked out. Surely I could not hope to find boot to knee deep powder on Saturday morning?

With only a half day of skiing scheduled due to a late afternoon call into work, I spent the majority of the drive from Ashland to Jay deciding whether I should skin up Big Jay where I would find a guaranteed three feet of untracked or risk a morning of skiing Jay Peak where I figured I might find a foot of fresh in isolated pockets. The decision came as I entered the town of Jay and stopped to buy a sub, I was going to skin Big Jay. Or was I? Rounding the bend as I approached the Jay Peak Resort entrance, I saw moderately deep looking tracks on Jet and Haynes. I couldn’t risk a potentially big day lift serviced for only one big run of earned turns. It was on.

Due to purchasing a sub in Jay, I was running about five minutes behind the lineup. First tracks on Jet, Haynes, or Derick were not to be had, unfortunately. Just over half a foot of fresh powder had fallen over the freshly groomed slopes, one of my favorite snow conditions. But by the time I reached the summit of The Jet, the groomers had been slammed. Into the trees I went where I discovered insane boot to knee deep powder with waist deep drifts. Absolutely sick. I was completely dumbfounded and speechless after my first run. By my second run, I had already exceeded the earned turn powder vertical of Big Jay with approximately an equivalent amount of powder depth.

By my third run, cars begin piling into the Stateside lot but The Jet was still ski on. I hammered some of my favorite lines going for personal preference rather than “sure shots” as I normally do on a high competition morning. Two more shots found waist deep drifts, knee deep was the rule today on the untracked. Un-freaking-believable!

By 10:30 the hordes finally showed up and stacked the line queues on both the red and blue chairs. Thankfully, I I was able to hook up with my good ski buddy Nhski who was also riding the singles line and called me out. Having skied so many days solo this season, being able to share the late morning with Nhski totally made the day go from insanely good to epic. We did a few laps on one of our favorite sections of the hill before I had to call it quits and leave for work. By noon time, the singles line for The Jet has wrapping up hill, almost to the exit point of the U.N. trail. My last ride up featured a lift line wait of just over fifteen minutes. The Single Chair at Mad River likely had shorter lines than The Jet at Jay did today.

Skiing today was simply sensational. Perhaps the best skiing of the season to date. I am hard pressed to think of a better day than today in the past three months. Certainly the quantity and quality of great skiing with knee deep untracked every run in the woods was far and above what one can normally expect on a high competition powder day.

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