Jay Peak Story

Riding is different every day, at every mountain. Not every day will be the best day. Riding in great conditions you can have great fun. Groomer day, time to work on some skills....... Anyway, I always see someone posting here that they had the worst day at Jay, and will never return. Let me share a link with you from someone that had the best week ever there, and cried when it was time to leave:  
http://www.elevatedlocals.com/east-coast/2014/2/20/jay-peak-moving-on-up

Anywhere that snows can get powder(assuming they don't groom it to death)

Powder day at mountain creek
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1C39ryGw_g

Wolf creek pow day
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3_fni4YFSo

Mt bachleor 5 feet epic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UE0sJVK1lLo

Also, again scoring pow at jay peak OUTSIDE of the super tight trees on actual trails where you can open it up seems rare. Unlike the wolf creek video or mt bachelor where they have both glade pow AND trail pow.

Snowbird
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2je4lne25B8

Now THAT's powder at snowbird.

Snow ridge pow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BojksnpwdAg
Not sure why the guy is in the woods when he's got the wide open trails all to himself. If that gladed section is the steepest part they should cut a trail down it.

Sick pov video of switzlerland
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nilzzF0v9Y

Why does PowAss have such a problem with Jay Peak, again?

mattchuck2 wrote

Why does PowAss have such a problem with Jay Peak, again?

 I'd tell anyone who wants to ski northern vermont to go to jay peak instead of stowe. I simply don't believe it's the snowiest area in the east(I believe snow ridge is and they average 230 inches a year) and is absolutely no comparison to many mountains out west. I just tell it like it is. Jay peak is one of the snowiest ski areas in the east though for sure. I'll give it that. I just simply question 350inch plus average they say they get.

"But none of that matters in the trees. You go to Jay for the trees. More than half of the mountain is glades. "
From the article


That sums up jay peak right there. If you want western style snowbird wide open powder on trails then that's not really the place. If you want to try to dodge trees at slow speed(at high speed if you have a death wish) then it's good. I don't. Give me powder on a actual trail instead of cross country skiing in tight ec trees. Just look at that first picture, one wrong move at 15mph and you're dead or massively injured. Crazy risk. You can barely even move. It's NOTHING like SLARVING a huge wide open turn ona trail. Why not just ski a trail?....because they don't seem to have descent pow on the trails. It's all wind drifted into the trees. It's possible that's where a lot of these snow totals come from....drifts. There's a reason people fly out west instead of flying out east to ski.

Apologies in advance to all for feeding this ... I. Just. Can't. Help. Myself.

Gore claims and average of 150 inches per season.  I'm confident that claim is legit, as I track those numbers myself and record them:

http://directory.nyskiblog.com/Gore-Mountain-Snow-Totals-f5001434.html

(I admit it's a little nuts to do it).  While I can't measure every snowfall myself, I check Emily's numbers again my own experience at our cabin which is at ~1950 feet.  Emily's numbers are taken at 1500 and are almost always just slightly below what I measure.

So if Gore's 150 is legit, and Jay get's less snow than Snow Ridge at 230, let's say Jay is at 229...

That is just not credible. I can't prove it except to say that there would have to be a well organized conspiracy along the Green Mountain spine for Jay to claim a little more than Stowe, who then claims a little more than Bolton etc all the way down the line to Mad, Killy, Mt Snow etc.

Harvey wrote

Apologies in advance to all for feeding this ... I. Just. Can't. Help. Myself.

Gore claims and average of 150 inches per season.  I'm confident that claim is legit, as I track those numbers myself and record them:

http://directory.nyskiblog.com/Gore-Mountain-Snow-Totals-f5001434.html

(I admit it's a little nuts to do it).  While I can't measure every snowfall myself, I check Emily's numbers again my own experience at our cabin which is at ~1950 feet.  Emily's numbers are taken at 1500 and are almost always just slightly below what I measure.

So if Gore's 150 is legit, and Jay get's less snow than Snow Ridge at 230, let's say Jay is at 229...

That is just not credible. I can't prove it except to say that there would have to be a well organized conspiracy along the Green Mountain spine for Jay to claim a little more than Stowe, who then claims a little more than Bolton etc all the way down the line to Mad, Killy, Mt Snow etc.

Look at the precip map harvey for VT. Mt snow with it's 150 inch average gets a ton of up slope effect. So does killington which is a solid 4k mountain. Now mt snow does get less than jay peak/stowe due to lattitude obviously, but I don't personally believe they get more than double the snow up north than at mt snow.

Havery, do you believe jay peak gets 125 inches more snow than snow ridge on average? That's almost gore's ENTIRE seasonal snowfall EXTRA.

Yes, with this qualification.

I think 230 is low for Snow Ridge. If you ever met Judy who does the snow reporting at Snow Ridge, she's very conservative.  She does something noone else does. If Snow Ridge has one bad year, she lowers the claimed average by 30 inches.

I believe Jay exaggerates by 10%.  I think Stowe's numbers are probably a good approximation for what Jay gets. Maybe a small advantage to Jay, but wind probably equalizes that out.

Look those town numbers Peetex posted for North Creek showed an average of 105 inches.  500 feet up Gore is report 150.  Those maps have no way to account for that.

Harvey wrote

Yes, with this qualification.

I think 230 is low for Snow Ridge. If you ever met Judy who does the snow reporting at Snow Ridge, she's very conservative.  She does something noone else does. If Snow Ridge has one bad year, she lower the claimed average by 30 inches.

I believe Jay exaggerates by 10%.  I think Stowe's numbers are probably a good approximation for what Jay gets. Maybe a small advantage to Jay, but wind probably equalizes that out.

Look those town numbers Peetex posted for North Creek showed an average of 105 inches.  500 feet up Gore is report 150.  Those maps have no way to account for that.

You're not getting that much extra snowfall from just 500 feet outside of lake effect county.(north creek still gets lake effect I know, you can see it in the map but difference is probably due also to different measurements by different people in non lake effect areas when you're talking only 500 feet) Also this map I posted below shows elevation.

The map I posted below takes into account elevation changes(tug hill plateau)
Map is From the buffalo national weather service.

Snow ridge could easily get 250. But that's still 110 inches more than jay peak.
The map clearly shows north creek, ny area with it's extra elevation squeezing out the moisture from the LES

Boonville ny averages 209 inches per year. http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/cgi-bin/cliMAIN.pl?ny0785 
They're a little farther south than snow ridge, but same elevation Gradient is tight though.

If you look at the map snow ridge isn't even on the tug hill bullseye. That's more like montague/highmarket area.

PowderAssassin wrote

  Give me powder on a actual trail instead of cross country skiing in tight ec trees.

You don't need to jump on an airplane and fly out west for a powder day on a wide open untouched "trail"


Although this was taken last April on a spring corn day in the BC. It's not all tight trees. BTW - it's not me.

Here is a nice report on what you can find if you just do a little work:
tbatt in the EC BC.

Now you would probably whine about having to do a little work and oh do we know how you hate work.
It's not all tight trees and boiler plate.

But trying to teach you anything is like trying to teach a pig to sing.

Swine song ?

Jay's snowfall is for the most part legit.  The upper elevations of the northern Greens get the most snowfall in the east by far...

I measure snow for Stowe, and can tell you that snowfall gradually increases as you head north up the Spine.  Killington gets more than Mt Snow.  Sugarbush more than Killington, Stowe more than Sugarbush, Jay more than Stowe.  Its not a conspiracy, it really does all make sense when you consider in the east, snowfall averages increase with latitude given similar other geography.  The Spine is all similar in that its a wall the concentrates lift in the atmosphere over the ridge.  This is different than spots like in the Adirondacks and White Mountains, where individual peaks can allow airflow to move around them.  The Spine causes more of a concentrated lift as its not like air is able to freely flow around the barrier.  It has to go over the barrier.

Here's a cool page from the NWS that summarizes the effect:

http://www.erh.noaa.gov/btv/mountain/profile/froude/

The northern Greens are for real with upslope on both an east wind during nor'easters, and then the real deal upslope on a NW flow which can produce 15-30" in 24 hours during the good events.  But what the Greens really have that other spots don't, is the near daily 2-5" type snowfalls.  Some weeks with the right pattern it'll snow every day...not huge amounts, but such that by the end of the 7-day period totals are like 18-24".  You just didn't notice it because it was only 3" per day.  Personally I have no real issues with Jay's snowfall, or anyone's seasonal averages along the Spine.  

powderfreak wrote

 Some weeks with the right pattern it'll snow every day...not huge amounts, but such that by the end of the 7-day period totals are like 18-24".  You just didn't notice it because it was only 3" per day.

There ya go PA. I tried telling you that awhile back but you wouldn't believe it.

jays totals are legit I've been skiing there almost 10 years and have skied jay almost a 100 days. I've never had a bad day there but i don't ski groomers, all bumps and trees for me.

Powderfreak thank you.

PowderAssassin... this post is written by the guy who is widely recognized as an accomplish meteorologist. He could be the foremost expert on Green Mountain spine winter weather.  And he lives it every day.  When I saw his post last night I was tempted to lock the thread as his word on this topic is widely accepted to be the last word.

December in the Dumps from Jay Peak on Vimeo.