A MILD DAY IN THE GLADES AT JAY PEAK

Day 32 of my ski season led me to Jay Peak in northern Vermont. With warm temperatures and rain coming tomorrow and Monday, it was an easy call. It will get colder after this system moves through and it will likely snow at some point, but the mountain was 100% open today. Get it while it’s good.

Yesterday, I skied at Titus Mountain in northern New York with Pro Skier Darren White and today he joined me at Jay Peak. We spent all day skiing glades with a natural snow-only trail or two mixed in. Darren is a monster in the trees and I’m a low level-intermediate. The good news is I can mostly keep up with him, except when the going gets tough.

The mountain was fully open today and all nine lifts were spinning. We didn’t ride the tram, but we did ride the Green Mountain Flyer, the Bonaventure Quad and the Jet Lift. The Flyer had issues all day and was stopping frequently. We were even stuck in one spot for about 20 minutes in the morning. The Bonaventure Quad was stopping a little more frequently than usual, too, but not nearly as bad as the Flyer. Lines for the lifts were only bad when the lifts were having issues. Aside from that, there either wasn’t a line or it was a fairly short wait.

Temperatures were above freezing and there’s been some melting on the natural snow-only terrain. Coverage is still pretty good on those runs and in the trees, but thin spots are developing that weren’t there earlier in the week. There’s still plenty of snow across the mountain and it was all certainly skiable, but we were definitely having to watch out for rocks, tree roots, etc., where the snow wasn’t as deep.

Thanks to the mild temperatures, the snow was very soft. Where there was natural snow, if it hadn’t been compacted by skiers, it was very dense, slow and, at times, a little sticky. This made the glades a little more difficult than usual for me, but I was able to ski most just fine. The one that gave me trouble was Andre’s Paradise. There’s a lot of snow in there and a lot of it was untracked. I really struggled to link turns through it today.

Glades that skied really well today were the Expo glade and Timbuktu. The snow in both was very enjoyable, especially Timbuktu, which is probably my favorite glade on the mountain. I love the terrain through this area. It’s truly a joy to ski. They both have some thin spots forming, but, like I said, there’s plenty of snow. More snow will melt over the next few days, but as long as the mountain gets a decent amount of snow later next week, I think the recovery period will be short.

I’m still not sure if or where I’m skiing tomorrow. It’s going to be mild and rainy. Normally, it would be an easy call to just go to Whiteface, which is my home mountain and it’s close to me, but since I’m blacked out there due to the holiday period that’s not an option.

- Lincoln