Space Between Trees

OK. Here are the highlights. Let's try to save words here. - Headed up on Thursday night with Big Air. Skipped worked on Thursday. Wanted to get some pow before the crowds. - Met Jaba and Payne, who also headed up on Thursday night. - Typical Friday at Jay. No Lines. Lots of Pow. - Met with Jeremy, Brian, Kathleen early in the morning. Later in the day, we met up with them again and Jeremy's brother Kyle, who was visiting from Steamboat. Jay currently has a deeper base than Steamboat. We did a real fun gang run down Expo and Expo glades at the end of the day. We looked like a Warren Miller movie scene. Those types of runs are always fun. - Very rusty on the first few runs on Friday. New board felt clunky. - First day on my new Board (Custom X 158). Definitely felt short compared to my old 160. But by the end of the day, it felt very natural and I stopped being concerned with it. The new board is going to be Jibtastic! Should I add a Malalo to the quiver?? - Looping t...

Trail Report for Jay December 1st and 2nd. After some early morning car troubles due to the early December cold weather (5 degrees!), I got to the hill at about 9:30am. First run done was Timbuk. I didn't even waste time with the trails. There was plenty of base. It's amazing how good shape the Jay Peak is already in. Theres already a solid, though, not deep base in the trees. After the huge week of snow they are getting right now I think it'll be much better. But seriously, the base is as good now on December 1st as it was in late January last year. And probably better because the ground is definitely more frozen. For the first run, I was a bit rusty. So it wasn't the most enjoyable run. Also, timbuk had already been beat up a bit. So I met up with the some other skiers and we decided to hike over to powerline for our second run, because the entire main side of the mountain was closed so we were sure to get some fresh pow over there. Powerline was the shit. Definitely ...

March '07. Awesome. That's it. and since it was 5 months ago, that's really all I remember. March started with me feeling a bit depressed, because the week after getting back to Boston after the out west trip I felt super anxious to get back to Jay peak. Initially another trip north was going to be delayed more than a week because I had planned on attending the Pogues show on Saturday, March 10th with Chaz, Rook, and Jenn (coming up from NY to attend the show). But I said f' this and decided to skip work on Friday (again!) and do a one and done day up at Jay. So, that's what I did. BTW, I should mention that I had 4 consecutive Fridays off in a row between mid Feb and mid March. Classic. I think during the winter I should just commit to 4 day work weeks and spend three days snowboarding. That would be much easier on my constitution. Let's get this done. Friday, March 9th was another awesome day. Good temps and great conditions since it had snowed a bunch during ...

Time to revisit my trip "out west". I put this in quotes because every time I talk to someone, it's always "out west" but I don't get too specific. Which I guess is a running theme in this blog. I don't get too specific, especially when it comes to other people that are involved in the events. I usually use code names for my friends that I ski/board with. One reason for this is to protect the innocent. The other is because I really don't want you to get to know who I am. I'm anonymous on the internet, much like everyone else. So are you. I don't know who is reading this blog on a regular basis (and I'm using the term 'regular' loosely here since I updated it quarterly). It could be 5 people, it could be...well, 10 people. I'd be amazed if more than 10 have ever viewed this thing. But, you know what? Whatever. I do this for me, not you - the anonymous voyeurs. I don't want to forget these special tim...

My last Trail report on Jay, I was all giddy because Jay was about to get the biggest snow storm that it has gotten in years. But little did I know that it would start one of the best months for Northeast skiing in years. It seemed as if every weekend we skied MADPOW. The reports were so good for the weekend of February 16/17/18. That I couldn't wait. I had to head up on Thursday night and get my pow turns prior to the mad rush of Saturday. So I took off work (this is the reason I have been stockpiling vaca days for years). At this point I don't remember the ride up, so it must have been fine. Big Air and Keith had already jumped the gun and decided to get up there on Thursday. Their ride up was a little tougher. I think it took them 6 hrs and they didn't arrive until approx. Noon. Fortunately, all upper mountain lifts were closed due to high winds until 1pm so they didn't miss anything. Instead they were busy shoveling 3ft+ of windblown snow from the SS Jay driveway. ...

I'm a bit giddy right now. Just a little bit. It's Wednesday evening during one of the biggest Nor'easters to hit Vermont in YEARS! It barely snowed a few inches here in Boston, but Jay has already reported 2 ft today. 2 FEET! And their expecting blizzard/heavy snows until Friday AM! So yes, I'm a bit giddy. But a report on the upcoming can only happen after it has occured, so you won't read about an epic upcoming days. Let's report on this past weekend instead. Jay got about 13 inches at the end of last week. The report mentioned that much of it was wind blown, which in all truth, is good news as the snow usually blows into the glades. On Saturday, I arrived at the mountain just as they started loading the first Bonaventure chair, which is approximately 8:30. Looking up at the mountain, you could tell that the wind had taken much of the fresh snow off the wide trails, specifically Can Am. Amazingly enough, I didn't head right into the trees on the first run...

To start, I have snowboarded every weekend except for one in January up at Jay this year. I think this is a feat unto itself if you consider how dire the conditions have been. Temps were above average (WAY ABOVE) until the second weekend in January. Still I got 9 days of riding in before January 15th. Really nothing to report about conditions or good riding days, except for Dec. 28, the Thursday before New Years. The resort got about 6-10 inches of fresh that day and I cut the ropes all day long. Found some great stuff but there was virtually no base prior to this so I had to be careful. Found great stuff on Green mountain boys and Racer. Even hit up North Glade and Beaver Pond later in the weekend. I want to thank Matt, Jason, Lindsay, Leah, and the Vominator, for coming up over the New Year's weekend. I had a great time and I hope you did, too. Hopefully next time Matt and Jason will be able to get on the mountain. Things started improving weatherwise halfway through the month. ...