Jay Peak Gets 16 inches

While the rest of New England has been getting wet today, up at Jay Peak it's been snowing all day. This may sound like an ad for Jay, but that's what's been happening. By early afternoon Thursday, Jay had four inches and weather.com says the snow will continue through the night. (Update: by Friday evening they had 16 inches). Jay is scheduled to open on Saturday. Sweet.

More New England Openings
Mount Snow opened last Saturday (11/10/07), the earliest date since 1998! In fact, they opened earlier than Killington, which almost always takes the title as the first to open and the last to close. (Maybe this is changing under new management.) Mount Snow's early date may be attributable to the 101 new fan snow guns they just bought. (I'm getting a tour next week.) I've seen similar fans in action at Blue Hills and they do a great job of producing some very realistic snow in pretty marginal conditions.

Killington and Attitash are also scheduled to open this weekend. Unfortunately, the snow they've made so far is now rapidly heading toward the valley floor as heavy rain hits the area. But they will probably get snow as the temps drop this evening.

Free Lift Tickets
Two weeks ago I announced that the first New England Snow Detective reader to ski and send in a report within 24 hours will receive two free lift tickets to Sunday River. That deal is still up for grabs. So get moving. (Many thanks to Jackson's Ski Outlet in Easton, MA, for providing the prize.)

Boston Ski Expo
The Ski and Snowboard Expo starts tonight. It's at the Bayside Expo Center just south of Boston off Route 93. For those of you who haven't been before you can often pick up very good early ski season deals. You'll also find on sale lots of ski equipment and clothing. Tickets are $10 plus parking, but you can get $3 off if you go to their web site and give them your email address www.onthesnow.com/bewi/boston

More Openings Soon
Even more mountains are scheduled to open soon, and the weather for the next ten days is supposed to stay cold at night with no signs of rain in the forecast. No doubt the ski areas will be doing their best to cover their slopes with snow for the Thanksgiving holiday next week.

Others to open soon include:

Maine
Sugarloaf 11/16

New Hampshire
Cannon 11/23
Loon 11/21
Waterville 11/17
Wildcat 11/24

Vermont
Killington 11/16
Okemo 11/17
Smuggler's 11/23
Stowe 11/21
Sugarbush 11/22

Tell Your Friends
Please tell your skiing and snowboarding friends about this blog. The more people who sign up the better intelligence I can collect about New England ski conditions. All they have to do is send an email to skimail@mac.com and I'll put them on the list. I promise not to sell their email to anyone and they won't get any spam from me. Just good accurate ski conditions information.

Now get out there and enjoy the great outdoors. And don't forget to report back.

Thanks