Jay Peak 2/27-28/2016
Date(s) Skied: 2/27-28/2016
Resort or Ski Area: Jay Peak
Conditions: epic powder over glare ice
Trip Report:
So I'd never been to Jay before and wanted to take the kids on an adventure, so I made reservations for this weekend. Younger kid (5) isn't skiing yet but childcare is free if you're staying on the mountain, and there's this nice waterpark. Then it transpires that older kid (11) is not really into this skiing thing anymore; he's getting on for being a teenager so who knows what's going through his head. Taking both of them up there to make older kid sit in the hotel room seemed like kind of a stupid plan and it was too late to cancel, so I pinged my friend John, who is more fun to ski with than my older kid and requires less supervision. He was happy to come along as a last-minute substitute, so up we went.
Saturday dawned crisp and clear and they'd gotten a little snow overnight. Up the Freezer (which is well nicknamed), down Ullr's and into Andre's Paradise, where I said "I'm going to complain to the management, it's this place that's been hogging all the snow this year!". Most of you know how awesome the woods at Jay are, but, well. they were pretty awesome. Did Beaver Pond Glades on the next run and that didn't suck either. Everything that wasn't woods was pretty scratchy, so we kept looking for interesting woods shots. Got into this horrible steep scraped-off thing skier's left of Northwest Passage and that's where I ended up in need of a new helmet.
Was in a bit of pain and kind of freaked out after that; it was by far the scariest fall I've ever had. As in, first thought after I stopped sliding was "ok... can I feel my toes?". After going to first aid to get checked out I went up to the room and lay down with a bag of snow behind my neck for a while. John stayed with me until he knew I was OK and then went out until lunchtime. I was feeling better at that point so we had a longer-than-expected lunch at the Foundry, then I bought a new helmet and we went out again. I was still pretty stiff, so we stayed on the cruisers, such as they were, for the afternoon. Over on Stateside I stopped to pick up someone's dropped pole after they fell, and after returning it remarked to John that he had the same poles I did. Then realized I'd given him one of mine, so I had to chase him down to the base of Jet to exchange them.
I had dropped the waterpark from our reservation when I switched to going with John, which turned out to be a poor choice since the hot tub there was feeling like a really good plan for my back and neck. So we bought a day pass (and bathing suits), did one of the slides and went to the tub, which was more a warm tub than a hot tub but the jets were nice.
Next morning it had snowed a whole bunch. We got packed up and, on our way down the elevator, someone asked me "How's your neck?" Which had me REALLY CONFUSED-- is this someone I know who saw my Facebook post and I'm not recognizing out of context? No, turns out it was someone John (who was with me) had been chatting with the previous night and mentioned my little spill to.
And now we come to the freaking epic ski day part of the tale. All of you who were not at Jay yesterday, I'm sorry. There was tons of untracked and barely-tracked powder all over the place, and even on the cruisers the powder held up for nearly the entire day. (Though it appeared to be 6 inches of powder over 2 inches of glare ice over raw dirt.) Lower part of Everglades (we went in from JFK) was really sweet, and Beaver Pond was just amazing. Kitz Woods was lots of fun too. My legs finally went on strike over unfair working conditions around 3:30, so John went for a last run, which turned out longer than he expected because he ended up helping an injured skier.
Kind of appalling I'd never been to Jay in 45 years of skiing. Definitely going back there sometime.
Resort or Ski Area: Jay Peak
Conditions: epic powder over glare ice
Trip Report:
So I'd never been to Jay before and wanted to take the kids on an adventure, so I made reservations for this weekend. Younger kid (5) isn't skiing yet but childcare is free if you're staying on the mountain, and there's this nice waterpark. Then it transpires that older kid (11) is not really into this skiing thing anymore; he's getting on for being a teenager so who knows what's going through his head. Taking both of them up there to make older kid sit in the hotel room seemed like kind of a stupid plan and it was too late to cancel, so I pinged my friend John, who is more fun to ski with than my older kid and requires less supervision. He was happy to come along as a last-minute substitute, so up we went.
Saturday dawned crisp and clear and they'd gotten a little snow overnight. Up the Freezer (which is well nicknamed), down Ullr's and into Andre's Paradise, where I said "I'm going to complain to the management, it's this place that's been hogging all the snow this year!". Most of you know how awesome the woods at Jay are, but, well. they were pretty awesome. Did Beaver Pond Glades on the next run and that didn't suck either. Everything that wasn't woods was pretty scratchy, so we kept looking for interesting woods shots. Got into this horrible steep scraped-off thing skier's left of Northwest Passage and that's where I ended up in need of a new helmet.
Was in a bit of pain and kind of freaked out after that; it was by far the scariest fall I've ever had. As in, first thought after I stopped sliding was "ok... can I feel my toes?". After going to first aid to get checked out I went up to the room and lay down with a bag of snow behind my neck for a while. John stayed with me until he knew I was OK and then went out until lunchtime. I was feeling better at that point so we had a longer-than-expected lunch at the Foundry, then I bought a new helmet and we went out again. I was still pretty stiff, so we stayed on the cruisers, such as they were, for the afternoon. Over on Stateside I stopped to pick up someone's dropped pole after they fell, and after returning it remarked to John that he had the same poles I did. Then realized I'd given him one of mine, so I had to chase him down to the base of Jet to exchange them.
I had dropped the waterpark from our reservation when I switched to going with John, which turned out to be a poor choice since the hot tub there was feeling like a really good plan for my back and neck. So we bought a day pass (and bathing suits), did one of the slides and went to the tub, which was more a warm tub than a hot tub but the jets were nice.
Next morning it had snowed a whole bunch. We got packed up and, on our way down the elevator, someone asked me "How's your neck?" Which had me REALLY CONFUSED-- is this someone I know who saw my Facebook post and I'm not recognizing out of context? No, turns out it was someone John (who was with me) had been chatting with the previous night and mentioned my little spill to.
And now we come to the freaking epic ski day part of the tale. All of you who were not at Jay yesterday, I'm sorry. There was tons of untracked and barely-tracked powder all over the place, and even on the cruisers the powder held up for nearly the entire day. (Though it appeared to be 6 inches of powder over 2 inches of glare ice over raw dirt.) Lower part of Everglades (we went in from JFK) was really sweet, and Beaver Pond was just amazing. Kitz Woods was lots of fun too. My legs finally went on strike over unfair working conditions around 3:30, so John went for a last run, which turned out longer than he expected because he ended up helping an injured skier.
Kind of appalling I'd never been to Jay in 45 years of skiing. Definitely going back there sometime.