| Well-known for its Off-piste skiing, Jay Peak Resort offers 24 tree-skiing areas, or Glades, covering approximately 100 acres, which have been trimmed of small vegetation to provide enjoyable off-piste skiing. For every six glades that the resort "thins or trims" only one appears on the trailmap. Jay has 76 trails covering 385 acres (155 ha) of skiable terrain.
The summit is at an elevation of 3,858 feet (1,176 m), with a 2,153 foot (656 m) vertical rise. Jay Peak enjoys the largest average annual snowfall (355 inches or 9 metres) of any ski area in Eastern North America, including Mount Washington (which averages 645 cm / 253.9 inches annually on the summit).
Jay Peak is currently serviced by 8 lifts, comprised of 1 aerial tramway, 5 chairlifts, 1 t-bar and 1 magic carpet. These lifts give the mountain an uphill capacity of approximately 12,000 skiers/hour. The oldest of these lifts, the aerial tramway, also known as the "tram", and is the only one of its type in the state of Vermont. This tramway was originally installed in 1966 by Von Roll, and upgraded in 2000 with new cabins from Swoboda. In the mid 1980s Jay peak began to upgrade their lift capacity.
In 1985 they purchased the Jet Triple chair from Doppelmayr to replace the Jet T-Bar. This was followed in 1987 with the purchase of the Bonaventure Quad which replaced the old Bonaventure Double. In 1999 the resort removed the Green Mountain Double chair, which had serviced the north side of the mountain for 30 years, and replaced it with the Green Mountain Flyer (dubbed the "Green Mountain Freezer" by skiers because of its notoriously cold ride due to the strong winds blowing on it) [3], the mountain's first high-speed detachable chairlift.
Other lifts that currently serve the mountain are the Metro Quad, the Village Double, the Queen's Highway T-Bar and the Magic Carpet.
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Retrieved on 2007-07-27 |
