Jay, Vermont — Whereas the chances appeared to not be of their favor, there are numerous methods ski resorts can supply lift-service snowboarding and driving in June.
The primary is to be in a snowy atmosphere at a excessive elevation, with locations like Arapahoe Basin and Timberline Lodge coming to thoughts. The second doable option to pull this off is by producing quite a lot of snow with snowguns, as Killington has carried out for the previous three years.
The third possibility is to protect snow by overlaying it. Tarping snow is pretty frequent in Europe, however ski resorts within the U.S. have begun overlaying snow with tarps and/or hay to protect it for summer season terrain snowboarding occasions. For instance, Hyland Hills and Trollhaugen have used these ways for rail jam occasions. This previous weekend, Jay Peak grew to become the newest to efficiently use this method.
In Might, Jay Peak Resort introduced they had been preserving some snow for a terrain park session on June twenty second. They hid the snow below the hay, which largely blocks the solar from what’s below it, leaving a portion of snow nonetheless accessible for the occasion.
On Saturday, Jay Peak Resort hosted its annual Summer time Solstice occasion. That is sometimes a dwell music competition to commemorate the start of the summer season. What differed this yr from prior concert events was that they constructed a terrain park with some leftover snow.
Jay Peak Parks put in varied rails and containers throughout the snow patch, permitting terrain park skiers and riders to fine-tune their abilities. The crew at Jay Peak Parks did nice work to verify that there have been ample options for various ability ranges.
Tickets had been $50 for a one-hour session and $100 for the total day (4 hours). The slushy snow patch was serviced by the Stateside Magic Carpet from 12-4 pm, though many individuals determined to hike up. These tickets included entry to the concert events.
The principle occasion that day went to their Summer time Solstice music concert events on the close by Stateside Amphitheater. The present featured units from DJ LOCAL DORK, HIGH BREAKS, DOPAPOD, and LAZY BIRD. As well as, that they had a ramp for skate boarders.
So the million-dollar query is: Does this imply that Jay Peak was the final mountain within the Northeast to have lift-serviced snowboarding operations this season? I believe it’s in the end topic to interpretation. Killington was the primary and final in New England to have chairlift serviced operations this previous ski season. Nevertheless, they obtained beat out by Ski Ward, who had a snow floor skiable from a magic carpet in October, and Jay Peak had this occasion to make it the final within the area to have snowboarding. I believe having constant operations (i.e., operating the lifts a few days every week throughout early/late season) is the important thing to being thought-about the primary to open/final to shut. Nonetheless, I additionally get the opposite aspect of the argument.
No matter your opinion on that debate, Jay Peak is certainly one of many main gamers in New England spring snowboarding (even earlier than this occasion occurred), and so they had snowboarding and driving in June this yr. They’re calling this the inaugural summer season Solstice snowboarding occasion, so avid skiers and riders at Jay could possibly be snowboarding in June for years to return.
Picture Credit: Jay Peak Resort, Harrison Johnson
