Curious - how many folks out there are interested in the creation of a lift ticket product that would allow you to purchase in advance, at a discount, then go directly to a lift? We’re looking at the integration of RFID technology as a precursor to putting in a new lift for the 2011-2012 season and we’re interested in feedback. Let us know your thoughts.

OK, I admit, I am fascinated by these quiet, majestic creatures. Where we live in Central Vermont, tourists come during mud season for moose viewing. There’s never a guarantee you’ll see a moose, but local proprietors certainly have suggested to their guests over the years that “there’s a chance.” At Jay Peak, your odds are pretty damn good. Meet JAYne, Jay’s resident moose. You hear stories about “running” into moose, grabbing a quick glance at them as they stand by the side of the road in low-lying swampy areas of Vermont. How about “skiing” into them? OK, not literally into them, but at Jay, if you ride The Metro Chair, when you load at the bottom you’re greeted with a sign, “JAYne is in Moonwalk today. Please leave her alone.” At the top, another, more firmly stated sign reads, “Leave the moose alone.” Clearly skiers and riders must be warned that there is a moose on the loose, but the signs make experiencing a moose sighting that much more desirable. Sure enough, JAYne was hanging out, eating branches off a fir tree, in the trees at the bottom of Moonwalk. Full Moon, Half Moon, Quarter Moon. Queen’s Highway. It really didn’t matter which path you took. You were bound to see her. And stop. And be in awe of this magnificent creature. And then feel a bit sad for her because everyone was stopping and gawking at her, taking pictures. So after I took mine, we skied on. Jay Peak officials confirm that they have had the Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife to the mountain to make sure JAYne was OK and not sick. She’s fine. So each time I hopped on the Metro with my 6-year-old daughter and asked her “Which way next?” she looked at me, rolled her goggle covered eyes, and said, “You know, Mommy.” You really can’t compete with that.

It certainly wasn’t because of the luxurious bed in the new Tram Haus Lodge that was like quicksand as it sucked you in for a good night’s worth of zzzzz’s. I think it was the fact that when we looked out our sliding glass doors, past the private deck, there were two lifts—and a huge mountain staring down at you. When our 6-year-old daughter went to bed on the pull-out couch on Friday night, she knew this too. So it’s only logical that I felt a tap-tap on my shoulder at 3:30 in the morning, right? “Mommy, let’s go skiing.” No, it’s the middle of the night. Then again at 4:30. No, hop in to bed with us (thank goodness for the king). 5:30. No, not until the 7 (that’s our family code for, “Do not wake us before 7 a.m.). Inevitably the 7 arrived. “Mommy, the lifts are open.” No, they’re not, they don’t open until 8. “No, Mommy, there are guys down there getting on the lifts, let’s go.” No, those are the lift workers that have to check the lifts for safety and to make sure they’re running correctly before they let skiers on. “Oh. Well, if they’re getting ready can we get ready?” For those ski areas that have night skiing, it’s traditionally from 6-10 p.m. or thereabouts. Perhaps Jay could start a new trend? After all, there were eager skiers ready to go at 3:30 a.m. and it was still dark.

Out of the mouth of babes—specifically my 6-year-old daughter as she walked to The Metro Chair for the first time. Perhaps it had to do with the box of Lake Champlain Chocolates that lay on our bed upon arrival in the new Tram Haus Lodge. More likely it was the fact that she had just put her ski pants on and buckled her boots in our one-bedroom suite, grabbed her skis out of the locker, and walked just steps to the chairlift. After I explained that if we moved to Jay Peak we wouldn’t actually live in the Tram Haus Lodge, she settled into to Day 1 of her first Jay Peak experience. Because we live in Central Vermont, traveling for skiing takes about 15 to 20 minutes and our daughter had never skied anywhere other than our “home mountain.” But for years my husband and I have made an annual pilgrimage to Jay, for what we all know is a ski experience like no other here on the East Coast. It was time to officially induct our daughter into our own Jay Peak family experience.

So here’s just a glimpse of one of the many moments of amazing “firsts” with our daughter at Jay. After a few warm-up runs on Interstate, we headed down to ski school, where Lauren became our new family goddess. Once she had reassured our daughter that she would not have to ride the lift without an adult (her first lesson experience this season at another resort consisted of a 40-something instructor who thought he was “cool” and just doubled the kids up and put them on the lift, so needless to say our 45-pound wisp of a girl was a bit fearful of high speed quads and chairlifts in general), we were gone and off to the Jet. For two and a half hours we cherished every moment of free skiing, and then headed back for a family lunch and afternoon of laps off the Metro. The problem was our daughter didn’t have the same vision. You see, Lauren rode the lift with our daughter (go figure) and took her to places at Jay that we didn’t even know about. And she wanted to go back out for more. In the trees. With Lauren. Not with us. If that isn’t raising ‘em Jay, I’m not sure what is.

Throughout the month of January we asked all new parents at North Country Hospital in Newport if they wanted to be entered in a draw to win a lifetime season pass for their new babe.  Not surprisingly, they were all keen.  On Friday, we randomly selected a winner - young Alexander Jensen who will, for the rest of his life, have free access to Jay Peak.  We’re also throwing in 5 years of ski and/or snowboard lessons and 5 years of equipment rental to get him started on the right foot.  When our EmStarr called to give his parents the good news his mom said “Is this a joke?”.  Once she was persuaded she wasn’t being pranked, a very excited mom-Jensen compared winning the lifetime season pass to winning the lottery.  Aw shucks.

Congrats Alexander, our First Skier of the New Year.

It’s the seventh Saturday of the Eight-Week Program, and we’re stuck down at Sealevel for work. It’s also my son Luke’s eighth birthday. Already resigned to a no-ski day, I’m hoping to sleep in, at least till 7:30 or so. Luke, however, has other plans. In the pale gray light of dawn, he wakes me up, going, “Daddy, Daddy! I just had the awesome-est dream!” It’s 6:10, and I’m not ready for coffee, let alone second-hand dreams. He interprets my grunt as affirmation to continue, though, and says, “I was skiing in the powder in the trees? And there were trees that were down, like in the middle of the moguls, and we were jumping over them. It was so sick!”

“Maybe if you go back to sleep, you can get back into your dream,” I mumble.

“No, Dad. You can’t just go back into a dream. Jeez.”

Hours later, he’s watching Scooby Doo, an episode set in a snow-covered expanse in what has to be the Himalayas. A yeti, who turns out to be a robot driven by a girl who looks sort of Tibetan, chases our heroes down massive, open bowls of powder. I ask Luke to tell me again about his dream—was he jumping the fallen tree trunks, or was he riding them, like rails? “More like rails and ski jumps,” he says, a look of far-off wonder in his eye. “We were really high up in the air.”

It’s funny; in my Hippie Literature class, an elective for high school seniors, I’ve been lecturing for the past ten days about Ken Kesey, the Merry Pranksters, and the Grateful Dead—cosmic connections, now-almost-clichéd allegories like “You’re either on the bus or off the bus” and “Turn on, tune in, drop out.” Then, seemingly out of the blue, my son has his first skiing dream, at the exact time we would normally wake up for a Jay day. Can you say synchronicity?

Rewind until two weeks ago, when I went to collect Luke from the Shred Shack, the base for the Eight-Week Program. I was a few minutes late, so most of the other kids had already split. Rolling around, mostly on the big piece of PVC tubing that’s half-submerged in the snow, are Luke and another kid, both in helmets and ski boots. At first, it looks like they’re locked in a death match, jiu-jitsu on the funpipe, but I quickly realize they’re just playing. Satisfied that the program has fulfilled one of its goals—to create ski buddies amongst the young shredders—I turn my attention to the boys’ instructor, Josh and promptly learn that my kid has spent the day in the woods, hunting precious powder, turning on to secret unmarked glades that I’ve never skied. “He’ll be able to show you a whole new mountain,” says Josh.

Later, on the drive home, Luke tells us, “That was the best day ever.”

“Ever?” says Yupin.

“Best day of skiing in my whole life.”

“Better than when you won that race with Phil?”

“Um. Yep.” He then goes on to tell us everything he’s supposed to, as if he’s reading from a script: the powder, the bumps, the trees, hanging with his new buds on the chairlift.

“I didn’t think I liked moguls,” he says, “but the ones in Beaver Pond are awesome.”

He’s beginning to use that word a lot. That and “sick.” It makes the English teacher in me very very proud.

A greater source of pride is the fact that not a year ago, the only woods that Luke skied were in the Moonwalk and Bushwacker range. Now he’s skiing my terrain. It’s only a matter of time before he moves beyond me, so it’s good that he’s making ski buddies up here. They’ll have the whole mountain before we know it.

When we headed up again the following weekend (the Saturday before his birthday dream of skiing) I didn’t have many expectations. How do you top the best day ever? There wasn’t as much fresh snow, the wind was stronger, and the sun wasn’t nearly as beamy. Conditions looked to be hard and fast; the woods would be more skied out. I didn’t anticipate long tales of stashes and secret runs.

But at the end of lessons, the report was similar to that of the previous week. Instructor Josh told of Green Beret. “At first Luke fell near the top and lost a ski. But then he put it back on. I thought he was going to be a little tentative going down, but he then just ripped it. He really started putting his turns together.”

Ripping Green Beret! I know it’s a familiar metaphor, but all I could think of was salmon. I actually made a jumping movement with my hand, telling Josh, “So he’s made a leap.”

On the way home, it was déjà vu all over again when I asked Luke about the skiing.

“Best day ever,” he said.

“You said that last week,” I protested.

“Yeah, well, this was even funner.”

“How come?”

“I don’t know. Green Beret?”

Part of it’s his age, I’m sure, because he still lives mostly in the now; thus every new great experience is the best. But another part is the result of rapid progress. When you’re taking on amazing new trails and learning new skills, of course each day is going to be better than the last. Skiing begins to flow, like inspiration, creativity. There are special forces at work here, whether we’re aware of them or not; as we progress in any snow sport, we’re becoming like dancers—living, physical art.

So it should be no wonder that a week after his jump to Green Beret, on the heels of his two best ski days ever, Luke has his first real skiing dream. I still think it’s pretty far out, though, that it pops up the day after my lecture on the group mind of the Grateful Dead. It’s as though his consciousness has connected into the mountain-sports collective, that somehow his lessons have developed not only his confidence and technique, but taken him Furthur. No doubt about it, this Eight-Week Program has been the ticket to ride the magic bus.

We’ve got an overly friendly Moose hanging around the resort.  Here, Bill gently tries to persuade him that the beginner slope might not be the best hangout.

The Jay Peak Ski Club will be hosting their annual auction this Saturday, February 13th from noon to 6pm just outside of Tower Bar.  Bid on ski equipment and apparel, professional sports tickets, golf packages, vacation condo and hotel stays, flights, and more (items valued at $25,000). The silent auction will open at 12:00pm and the live auction begins at 1:30pm. Go to jaypeakskiclub.com for more details including a list of auction items.

Funds raised from the auction goes toward helping kids from the Jay Peak ski club train and compete in ski racing against kids from other mountains around Vermont. They represent Jay Peak.  In the past graduates of the Jay Peak Ski Club have made it to both the U.S. and Canadian National Ski Teams. More recently Nolan Kasper of the Jay Peak Ski Club ( 2001) was named to the U.S. Olympic Team and will be competing in the Slalom event at Whistler February 27th. Be sure to watch for him!

Read it.  Salivated.  Decided it was worth a blog post:

APPS
Oysters on the half shell. $2 each
Baby greens, cracked black pepper, shallot mignonette.

Tea smoked duck breast $12
Parsnip potato salad, kumquat cumin glaze.

Winter Tart $11
Vermont Butter and Cheese Co. herbed goat cheese, roasted red peppers, caramelized onions, roasted beets, maple aioli, and parsnip chips.

SOUP & SALAD
Vermont apple and cheddar salad $10
Local mixed greens, candied pecans, pomegranate seeds, apples, shaved sharp cheddar cheese, strawberry- champagne vinaigrette.

Lobster Bisque $9
Fresh Maine lobster, tarragon crème fraiche.

MAIN COURSE
Land and Sea $35
Woodcreek Farm petite filet, fresh Maine U-5 Scallop, grilled asparagus, duchesse potato, tomatoes béarnaise sauce.

Stuffed Misty Knoll Chicken Breast $26
Stuffed with Cabot Vermont cheddar, asparagus, homemade pecan and amaretto waffle, wilted greens, and a bourbon cider glaze.

Free form Lasagna $24
House made beet and poppy seed pasta, layered with spinach, walnuts, caramelized onions, Vermont goat cheese, spaghetti squash, on a bed of local baby greens, with a cheddar butternut squash puree.

Curry Rubbed Ahi Tuna Loin $ 28
Sesame coconut-lime risotto cake, ginger rice wine & blueberry butter sauce, grilled bok  choy.

DESSERTS
House made chocolate lavender mousse $8
Fresh Lavender, semi sweet chocolate, and house made ginger snap cookies

Locally made red velvet cake $9
A rich, moist, sweet cake with a dark red color, layerd between chocolate and vanilla topped with a creamy white icing.

Call 802-327-2323 for reservations.

Countdown to Mardi Gras is well underway.  We’ve been prepping for weeks and have, what we think, is a pretty great line up for the week of Feb 22nd - 27th. You can check out all the details here.

And we’re finalizing the details on our 2nd annual fundraising dinner for Green Mountain Farm to School scheduled for Wednesday, February 24th.  The evening will kick off in the International Room at 5pm with live music with Steve Vance, cocktails and wine tasting.  At 6p we’ll start serving a sampling of local dishes from Kingdom restaurants, local farms and New Orleans’ inspired light-bites.

Tickets will be $40 in advance or  $60 at the door.  Limited space available so please call Jay Peak Customer Service on (802) 327-2215 or email customerservice@jaypeakresort.com to get your tickets.

Watch jaypeakresort.com for more details.