Good morning, January thaw! I didn’t make it to Jay last weekend. In fact, I only made it 200 yards down the road because I finally found a good spot to build a road gap. This was my first legitimate jump of the year. I’ll be hitting this again except we’re going to use a sled instead of a car and there will be a bigger lip so I can start spinning. I might hold some of that footage for my end of season video.

This video is in an article over at Ski The East (thanks Mike). Thanks again for all the support from the TGR guys.

There weren’t any serious dumps this week, so I thought Jay wouldn’t be so hot. Then, I remembered Jay is always best when it snows a few inches throughout the week. I ripped around Jay Saturday and finally got to the backcountry spot Ian and I reconed last Fall. I’ll let the video speak for itself.

By the way, there’s a good crash segment at the end of this video.

The storm that was suppose to hit on New Years slowed down and hit us 2 days later. Unfortunately, it was a wild one. Smuggler’s Notch was the place to be with waist deep snow, while Stowe, which is just on the other side of Smuggs, was all windblown on the trails and wind packed in the trees. Jay Peak wasn’t any better. I know the wind protected pockets well, but it didn’t do Ian or I much good. Instead, we skied until about noon and then headed to the cemetery to ski some short, open lines we’d been eyeing since the Fall. Those buried in the cemetery must have been skiers because the snow was deep and extremely light.

Special thanks to Rogge at Ski The East for writing the article, I Ski Dead People, on this and all the props from the TGR and Newschoolers crowd.

Ian got some great shots of me wreaking havoc on the pow. Click the video link below and make it full size in HD. I threw Ian’s stills.