JAY, Vt. (WCAX) – We may have just finished our first heat wave of the year, but believe it or not, there’s still some snow Jay Peak has tucked away for an event this weekend.
At Jay Peak, the lifts are lifeless and the snow guns silent. Most of the slopes are green, but hidden near the Stateside part of the resort, there’s still a smattering of snow. The pile of the white stuff is hidden under hay to keep it cool since being harvested in late April.
Some small bragging rights to be the only ski area in Vermont open this summer, if only for a day.
“Folks will have a good time sliding. Not many folks can go sliding in late June in Vermont, but we’ll be doing it here,” said the resort’s Ted Fleischer.
It’s part of an event on Saturday called the Solstice Sessions. Along with the skiing, there will be a concert with various bands. It’s the first time they’ve hauled in snow for the event. “This is our pile of snow, it’s going to get all cleaned up and the hay of it,” Fleischer said. Dense-packed snow that he says will be like spring skiing.
Fleischer says it’s not the extreme heat that we’ve had in the last three days, but the amount of rain that has caused much of the snow underneath the hay to disappear. “I think we lost two-thirds of what we initially piled, ” he said. But Fleisher says there’s enough to make the summer terrain park fun for skiers and snowboarders — about 20 feet wide and 100 feet long.
Just off the side, Nathan Todd is among the workers busy setting up for the event. He’s on the fence about snapping on his snowboard
“If it looks good. If I wake up and they’re, ‘It’s gnarly, come out,’ then I want to come and do it for sure,” Todd said.
“They’ll get on snow in late June and have boasting rights for all their friends,” Fleischer said.
Summer on the slopes.