I think Jay did pretty well during Christmas week, despite the rain/freeze. They made a good recovery. I went once during the vacation week and left after 2 hours when the crowds picked up. But that day did have the Tram/Freezer closed, so tough to say. Surely, the Christmas week started as good as or better than any.
Speaking more broadly, we are going into our second major rain/freeze event this coming weekend. Despite the prolonged cold, it seems like many areas are behind on snowmaking… significantly more so than I would expect given the cold. Perhaps that speaks to resorts being more cautious with snowmaking. Or perhaps areas have been maxed out for a while, so we don’t see a noticeable improvement during exceptionally cold stretches.
Despite an all time record November-December snowfall at Jay, I’m going to have to say this season has not been as good as last year. Last year was just super consistently great. This year, the weekends have been a challenge, often having the worst skiing weather of the week. I’ve gotten out some mid-week days when the skiing was quite good. But I feel like last year was more consistent.
Obviously, a lot of season left to go, but 2nd best during the past 10 years for me so far. My best guess is that NoVT skiers are quite happy, MA/CT skiers are probably happy. But NH/VT/MA boarder to the white mountains have not done exceptionally better than “longterm average” (but still probably better than “recent average”). That is my armchair analysis, having only skied Jay this season but observing the overall trends.
