Finally made it to Jay Peak in Vermont over this past weekend. Conditions in Northern Vermont were fantastic for late December - the rain on Xmas eve was followed by over a foot of snow. (If I have time, I write a trip report/resort review over this coming weekend.)

The glades at Jay were better than advertised. Overall, I would rate them as the best in the East and better than most out West. There was plenty of snow cover in the trees and most glades had adequate spacing between the trees. (A lot of the treeded runs at Sugarbush, Mad River, Stowe, Smugg's can get pretty tight.) The only downside of the Jay Peak glades was that they were easy to find and popular, hence, they got skied off pretty quickly. Most of the runs I skied were more bump runs than powder runs.

Mild temps and snow at Jay Peak in December. What a treat..... Me jealous...

How are the lifts at Jay? I hear that the tram closes often because of high winds.

The tram ran without interruptions on Sunday and Monday, despite it being windy on the uppper third of the mountain. I didn't take the tram that much since the lines were pretty long and you only got about 200-300 feet of additional vertical by taking the tram.

There were issues with the other lifts the two days I skied Jay. Timberline wasn't the only mountain having lift problems; fortunately the problems at Jay weren't as severe. Bad timing for Jay Peak since Xmas week is the busiest week of the year. The Jet triple was down most of the two days. The other two quads had frequent stoppages. At one point the high-speed quad (Green Mountain Express?) was stopping every four chairs or so, followed by an immediate restart. Needless to say, the lift lines and the ride up were longer than normal. However, I don't think I ever waited more than 15-20 minutes for a chair during the worst of the malfunctions.