The VT Blog

Jay Peak: When It Rains It Snows

Posted on by Robert

Storms are fickle things on the east coast, especially in March. A storm raises ropes at one ski resort and drop ropes at another. While it was raining in much of ski country the Jay Cloud was forming just south of the Canadian border. Cam, John and I trekked north to chase some late March pow.

Jay Peak first chair

We arrived Monday before lifts started spinning, and scored ourselves an upfront parking spot. In defense of March, that is one of the perks this time of the season.

It was 10 degrees at the base, snow was coming down and the wind was whipping. I lowered my expectations for The Tram and The Flyer but raised them for everything else. It’s safe to say I was counting on an all time day.

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Tagged: Indy Pass, Jay Peak, Powder, VT6 Comments

Suicide Six Pilgrimage

Posted on by Brownski

The second coolest thing about Suicide Six is it’s name. Suicide Six. It sounds gnarly and dangerous. According to legend, it got its name when the original owner was contemplating moving his rope tow from a smaller, low pitch parcel across the road. Somebody looked at the steep face of hill number six and declared that trying to ski it would be suicide. That’s a great story.

Suicide Six

The coolest thing about Suicide Six is that it’s where lift served skiing began in the United States, all the way back in the nineteen thirties. It’s the site where the engine from a Model T Ford was re-engineered into a rope tow for the first time – in the United States at least.

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Tagged: Indy Pass, Ski History, VT8 Comments

Jay Peak: Playing the Long Game

Posted on by Harvey

Three weeks ago Doug Fish of Indy Pass sent me an email. “I’m coming East, here’s my schedule. When are we skiing together?” I looked at his itinerary and started to weigh my options. I needed some time.

Jay Peak

When it comes to weather, the farthest out I look is 240 hours. Each day, I do one simple thing; I check the GFS 240 hour snowfall map for the CONUS (aka Continental US). By noting the difference in the map vs the previous day, I can see if the GFS is seeing snow on that 10th day. Sometimes I leave a browser tab open and refresh it each morning, to more easily see the change in the modeled storm overnight. It’s a bit of a game as storm tracks flip back and forth each day.

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Tagged: Indy Pass, Jay Peak, Powder, VT12 Comments