# Jay Peak 2/27-28/2016



## ceo (Feb 29, 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.


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## bdfreetuna (Feb 29, 2016)

Thank God for that helmet.

Tighten up your binding for less double eject action. 9 falls out of 10 you're better off with a ski or two still attached.


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## yeggous (Feb 29, 2016)

bdfreetuna said:


> Thank God for that helmet.
> 
> Tighten up your binding for less double eject action. 9 falls out of 10 you're better off with a ski or two still attached.



I don't know that this is true. Why do you say that?


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## KustyTheKlown (Feb 29, 2016)

That line that emerges at the turn in northeast passage SUCKS and looks inviting from the "entrance". It should be roped off. I love sketchy and everytime I've gone down there (twice) it's been too narrow and sketchy to ski with any fun. Glad you didn't get hurt and got to enjoy yesterday. Will probably go down as our best eastern day of the year, and is up there with all time Jay favorite days for me


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## KustyTheKlown (Feb 29, 2016)

And your 11 year old needs to get his priorities straight. Hopefully one day he will long for the time when dad took him skiing and paid. I know I still do at 30.


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## Not Sure (Feb 29, 2016)

bdfreetuna said:


> Thank God for that helmet.
> 
> Tighten up your binding for less double eject action. 9 falls out of 10 you're better off with a ski or two still attached.



If you have to constantly crank your heels that's a problem . I've had many bindings over the years and never happy with that solution. Get New Bindings! . Bad boot interface , crap steel for springs or just bad binding design . 

As far as a ski still attached ?... I think that is condition dependent soft snow would agree but the last set of crappy bindings I had I blew a heel in Tucks on an icy day. The ski that was still attached soon ended up grabbing something and ended up behind my head.


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## bdfreetuna (Feb 29, 2016)

yeggous said:


> I don't know that this is true. Why do you say that?



9 falls out of 10 you'll be glad your skis are still attached rather than having to hike up a trail to find them or search around in the snow in the woods for them.

The difference between having your DIN at 6 and 8 is unlikely to ever cause an injury but save you frustration.

Now I don't recommend everyone set theirs at 11, but I find at that setting I'll still eject when necessary. Depends on your body weight and how you ski.. but if you're set at a 6 and suffering from unwanted ejects that's why.


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## ceo (Feb 29, 2016)

I don't know that a tighter binding setting would have helped. Eject or no eject, I was going down and it wasn't going to be pretty.


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## Whitey (Mar 1, 2016)

KustyTheKlown said:


> And your 11 year old needs to get his priorities straight. Hopefully one day he will long for the time when dad took him skiing and paid. I know I still do at 30.



MY oldest went thru a phase where he sorta became disinterested in skiing and waved off of a couple of trips.   But after about 2 seasons he came out of it and rediscovered his love of skiing.   He's back now and is the 1st one to say "I'm in" when I say "I'm thinking about skiing ______".      Sometimes it's just a phase.


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## tnt1234 (Mar 1, 2016)

Glad you're ok.


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## bdfreetuna (Mar 1, 2016)

ceo said:


> I don't know that a tighter binding setting would have helped. Eject or no eject, I was going down and it wasn't going to be pretty.



Probably not. But a lot of the time having the skis still attached means you don't slide as far. And you can sometimes maneuver yourself to avoid hitting things downslope. It's also easier to spin around and get the feet downhill with skis attached. That's my thinking anyway.


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## SkiRay (Mar 1, 2016)

Yes, Jay is great. We agree 100%. We hope they have snow in a few weeks when we do our HAJ there.


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## cgull (Mar 2, 2016)

KustyTheKlown said:


> That line that emerges at the turn in northeast passage SUCKS and looks inviting from the "entrance". It should be roped off. I love sketchy and everytime I've gone down there (twice) it's been too narrow and sketchy to ski with any fun. Glad you didn't get hurt and got to enjoy yesterday. Will probably go down as our best eastern day of the year, and is up there with all time Jay favorite days for me



Jay is apparently...liberal about what should be roped off.  (And I'm a regular at Wildcat.)  On Saturday, Upper River Quai appeared to be 75%+ grass/rocks/iceflows, and unskiable except for a thready line down skier's right.  And yet it was open, albeit with three signs or so at the gate.  And people were skiing a line right under the tram, dropping through the rocks at the top, for the extreme skiing video opportunities.

The...thing off Northwest Passage we entered on Saturday was *ugly*.  It was totally exposed in an Eastern sense:  not "you fail this turn, you'll slide, you'll die", but "you don't execute this turn perfectly, you'll be thrown headlong into something gnarly and it'll be ugly".  What we dropped into was full of stuff like two-foot slots between a rock and a stump, in an eight-foot-wide chute.  Doesn't really matter how tight your bindings are if an Ent reaches up out of the snow and grabs your ski and sends you headlong, which is what I think happened here.  I suspect it was moderately skiable on Sunday, and possibly even nice, but neither of us were going back there.

It was definitely the Weekend of Injured Skiiers for me.  First evaluating ceo to see if he was in one piece and then getting him down and observing him for a while to make sure he was merely hurting and not broken, then on Sunday finding a skiier who'd fallen on the piles of soft snow coming down Upper Exhibition at 4pm, and figuring out her knee was too hurt to ski, then calling/waiting for patrol (a patroller showed up just as I'd gotten through my cellphone and Jay's almost-useless main number to the ski patrol desk), then skiing down to her son, then skiing with him to the rest of their family and explaining what was going on.  I hope to repeat none of that anytime soon.

I was pretty sure ceo had broken, torn, or agitated something pretty badly after his fall.  I was relieved and amazed when he recovered to just plain having fun on Sunday.

Still a maahvelous weekend.  Best Eastern snow I've had this year.  The snow that fell Saturday night was dense but not at all wet, and it held up beautifully in the trees through the day for the best and most tree runs I've had this year.  It appears the warmth on Monday trashed it though.


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## cgull (Mar 2, 2016)

cgull said:


> Doesn't really matter how tight your bindings are if an Ent reaches up out of the snow and grabs your ski and sends you headlong, which is what I think happened here.



That said, I recently upped the setting on my off-piste skis after walking out one time too many.  I agree with Kusty's thinking, but tighter bindings won't save you from catching your ski on the wrong thing at the wrong time.


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## STREETSKIER (Mar 2, 2016)

Bullshit on tree skiing your asking for trouble  don't believe the hype weekend tool-bag ,trails aren't even covered 
I see the pics they suck you are skiing on the forest floor

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## yeggous (Mar 2, 2016)

STREETSKIER said:


> Bullshit on tree skiing your asking for trouble  don't believe the hype weekend tool-bag ,trails aren't even covered
> I see the pics they suck you are skiing on the forest floor
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk



Huh? You mean this past Sunday? The trees were great. I was in there too.


Sent from my iPhone using AlpineZone mobile app


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## tnt1234 (Mar 2, 2016)

And they were good Saturday.  Some areas more coverage than others.  I thought Deliverance maybe should have been closed, and Timbuktu was thin.  Otherwise, we had found a lot of good solid runs.

But Jay is a unique beast.  Reports from stowe weren't encouraging re: the trees, and I can't imagine mid or southern vt. having coverage in the woods.


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## yeggous (Mar 2, 2016)

tnt1234 said:


> And they were good Saturday.  Some areas more coverage than others.  I thought Deliverance maybe should have been closed, and Timbuktu was thin.  Otherwise, we had found a lot of good solid runs.
> 
> But Jay is a unique beast.  Reports from stowe weren't encouraging re: the trees, and I can't imagine mid or southern vt. having coverage in the woods.



Yeah I got in a bit of trouble at the top of Deliverance on my last run Sunday. I didn't have the energy left for that much exposed rock, and my edges paid the price.


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