# Jay Peak - 5/2/15



## Jcb890 (May 4, 2015)

First things first - a big thanks to *billski* who hooked me up with a free voucher in the "Skiing on the Cheap" thread.  I had never been to Jay Peak before, so I was pretty pumped to get to try it out for free!

*Date(s) Skied:*
5/2/15, Saturday

*Resort or Ski Area: *
Jay Peak, VT

*Conditions: *
Beautiful spring skiing/boarding day.  When we arrived it was about 50* or so, but was warming up fast.  Mid-day and afternoon was in the mid/low 60's.  Some clouds, but not much - mostly sunny for the majority of the day.

*Trip Report: *
What a great day!

Sunny and mid/low 60's all day for the most part.  Coverage and conditions were quite good for it being May 2nd.  All of the trails that were open had plenty of coverage, no need to be going over grass/mud/etc. though one trail did have a pretty thin path of usable trail which made it a bit sketchy.

I have made mention that I'm not a huge fan of bumped up snow... well, I didn't have much of a choice with Saturday's conditions.  Everything was soft and bumped up after a couple of runs.  However, I had a blast!  I'm generally not very confident with my riding on bumps/moguls, but both The Jet and Haynes were completely bumped out and I rode them both pretty well.  Not perfect by any means, but much better than previously.  I noticed that picking my lines and deciding where I was going to be turning 1-2 turns ahead of time made a HUGE difference in they way I was able to ride and maneuver down the bumped up trails.  I went from being thrown around by the bumps and them taking me for a ride, to being able to actually ride and use proper lines to do proper turns and keep a nice rhythm.  I think it helped me progress my riding a bit.

The glades at Jay looked like a blast.  I did not want to risk damaging my board or myself, so I stayed out of them.  However, I'm certainly looking to head in next time I'm up there and they have good snow coverage.  I already can't wait to get back there!

Sorry for the lack of photos of any trails.  Without using my jacket or sweatshirt, I didn't have a good pocket to put my phone in, so getting it in/out was a pain.  All I have are some shots from the bottom and some driving shots.

Driving up to the mountain for the 1st time - I thought it was very cool how it is all flat farm land up there and then BOOM, ski resort.


My wife took this one - she was enjoying a nice beer and her Kindle on the deck down by the Tram.  She got burnt and looked like a lobster on Sunday!  Should have worn some sun screen.  I got burnt on my arms from having my sleeves rolled up all day.


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## Abubob (May 4, 2015)

Jcb890 said:


> I thought it was very cool how it is all flat farm land up there and then BOOM, ski resort.



Thus the Jay Cloud.

Nice report. Completely jealous.


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## dlague (May 4, 2015)

Nice report!  We are crossing fingers to get some turns next weekend!


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## Jcb890 (May 4, 2015)

Abubob said:


> Thus the Jay Cloud.
> 
> Nice report. Completely jealous.



Jay Cloud?  Sorry, I am not following what you are talking about.  Maybe it is just me being dumb?

Thank you, I wish I had been able to get more pictures during the day, it was just too tough to get my phone out of my shorts which were under my snow pants.

I gotta share a super embarrassing moment from Saturday though!

I managed to eat it and face plant real hard getting off of The Jet lift in the afternoon.  I wasn't really paying attention and when I put my board down to get off, it got stuck in slush or something, so I tried to re-situate on the chair, but it was too late.  I hopped off the chair and tumbled forward, just straight face planted down the lift runout.  Utterly embarrassing!  I didn't get hurt though, so I laughed it off and enjoyed a good laugh with all of the people who saw it happen.  Thankfully the snow was nice and soft or I might have really hut myself.  I'll never live it down.


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## Jcb890 (May 4, 2015)

dlague said:


> Nice report!  We are crossing fingers to get some turns next weekend!



Thanks dlague!

I hope you guys get some also!  Their website said they were originally saying they would re-asses and hopefully open next weekend.  I spoke to a couple of people who didn't think they would make it with the heat this week.  But, some of the trails looked like they might be deep enough to keep some stuff open at least.


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## deadheadskier (May 4, 2015)

Jay Cloud = Upslope snow


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## Abubob (May 4, 2015)

Jcb890 said:


> Jay Cloud?  Sorry, I am not following what you are talking about.  Maybe it is just me being dumb?


Not a dumb question if you've never heard of it.

The Jay cloud is a micro climate created by moisture laden air moving across a plain and suddenly encountering a mountain moves up the slope - whereupon the moisture is squeezed from the atmosphere. If it's cold enough snow results. This happens quite often at Jay. It's called "Upsloping".


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## Jcb890 (May 4, 2015)

Abubob said:


> Not a dumb question if you've never heard of it.
> 
> The Jay cloud is a micro climate created by moisture laden air moving across a plain and suddenly encountering a mountain moves up the slope - whereupon the moisture is squeezed from the atmosphere. If it's cold enough snow results. This happens quite often at Jay. It's called "Upsloping".



Oh interesting.  Thank you for the info!


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## Savemeasammy (May 4, 2015)

I was there Saturday as well, with my family.  I did may more runs off the metro than I would have wanted, as well as a handful off the flyer and one off the tram.  It sounds like stateside was probably the better play.  


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## dlague (May 4, 2015)

Savemeasammy said:


> I was there Saturday as well, with my family.  I did may more runs off the metro than I would have wanted, as well as a handful off the flyer and one off the tram.  It sounds like stateside was probably the better play.
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk



Jet chair is definitely a spring skiing area for sure.


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## Jcb890 (May 4, 2015)

Savemeasammy said:


> I was there Saturday as well, with my family.  I did may more runs off the metro than I would have wanted, as well as a handful off the flyer and one off the tram.  It sounds like stateside was probably the better play.
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk



Honestly, I'm not even sure which lifts are which as I was following people around most of the day.  The only lifts I knew that stood out were the Tram and Jet.  We also hit the Flyer quad a few times.  I don't think we went on the Metro quad at all though.

Stateside was nice, but it was closed all morning from what I could tell.  I asked one of the lift attendants on the Flyer Quad or Taxi Quad (I forget) and he said they were having mechanical brake issues early.  I noticed around 11 or 11:30 on one of the other lifts they had a board up for people to write updates and said the Jet lift was open.  We didn't get any runs over there before it was all bumped up, but not sure if that's how it was to start the day also.

If you saw a big dude eat it hard off the Jet chair lift after lunch time, that was me!:lol:



dlague said:


> Jet chair is definitely a spring skiing area for sure.



It was nice!  Haynes and Jet are nice and steep.  It provided a nice challenge.  I think we also hit Can Am which is also nice and steep.  In general, I thought that Jay Peak's blues are closer to many mountains' black diamonds and Jay's black diamonds I found steeper than many of the other black diamonds I can recall - Mt. Snow, Stratton, Killington, etc.

Even with plenty of snow the Face Chutes looked like it would be ridiculously gnarly!


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