This is a video I made roughly one year after beginning my new life living out of my van.
Parking is one thing I cover in this. The transcript reads like…
Hey, what’s up? This is Ian, and we are hanging out by the river. In this video, I’m going to talk about—it’s been around a year of sort of traveling and living out of my van—and we’re going to talk about parking locations: where you can park and where I parked over the last year.
This water is super clear and cold, super cold. It’s one place when you’re traveling on the road where you can find places like this to jump in the water, wash up a bit, and refresh.
So, let me think of all the places I’ve parked. I’ve parked on Forest Service land, BLM land, Walmart, ski areas (which are often forest land), rest areas, and I’ve done urban parking. I guess the best part is that I haven’t paid any money for parking at all. And the best has been places like this—this area is super awesome.
I came out here to a super remote ski area called Titan Pass Ski Area. Not to be confused, there’s a Titon Pass in a couple of locations, but this one’s in Montana. It’s a really remote ski area—you got to travel 11 miles on a dirt road to get there. When I first heard about it, it was three miles, and I was like, “Geez, I don’t know if I’ll even make it. I’m going to go and check it out,” because my van is a step van so it doesn’t handle very well, plus all my stuff is in it and things rattle, like the doors and stuff.
But it turned out this road was actually in pretty good condition, and the Forest Service told me they recently graded the road. It took me a while—my first night I stayed about a mile in on the dirt road, and then the next day to go 10 miles took a long time, over an hour. I hiked up to the top of the ski area, which was maybe 1,200 feet. It’s kind of a smallish ski area, but it’s on a pretty gnarly mountain, and once you get up, you see all the gnarly mountains around you. It’s really smoky; at night it gets worse, though right now it doesn’t look too bad.
So, I’ve had really good luck, a lot of it coming down to Forest Service land and ski areas. (I worked at two different ski areas.) Last night it was super windy—you could see the sticks on the road and my van was rocking from the wind, and I was a little worried a tree was going to fall on my van. But Forest Service land has been good.
Walmart is super popular, but in my experience, lots of Walmarts don’t even allow overnight camping, or they post a sign that says not allowed, and you might be able to get away with it (that was the case for me). I’ve probably stayed at Walmart maybe 10 times over the year. It’s not a regular place for me. Parking in urban Walmart areas always makes me feel on edge; I don’t really sleep that good because it’s kind of illegal and you know it, and you don’t want to wake up to someone knocking on your door. You’ll sleep better if you just find out the rules on where you can legally park.
Rest areas: a few times I’ve stayed at rest areas, but they can be loud or have bright lights, so they’re not so good for sleeping.
Urban: I’ve done the urban thing a bit, and yeah, I don’t really like it. It’s usually illegal to park in a neighborhood. I’ve parked at a church a few times, and near apartments thinking no one’s going to know, but I didn’t do it too many times because I wanted to stay inconspicuous.
The great thing with Forest Service land is you can legally park for 14 days in one spot. That’s great, and then you can move around to a new location in the forest and get another 14 days. That has just been the best situation. For me, probably 70 to 80% of the time, that’s what I’ve done.
Another sidetrack: when you find a place to settle in, getting a gym membership is great. You get a sauna, a shower, and you can work out. I paid like $60 a month at one place and $70 at another, so you can find cheap ones and it’s a really good deal. Washing up in the creek or a public restroom works too, though warm water is nicer than freezing cold water depending on the time of year and where you are.
Let me check my list here: BLM land (which is kind of like Forest Service land), Walmart, urban areas, rest areas, ski areas, water, cleaning, gyms. I think I pretty much talked about all those things.
I’m walking back to my van right now. This area is super awesome, kind of like a hidden gem. The ski area is tucked back behind these big mountains, and it’s cool that the roads are dirt because it would probably blow up with a lot more traffic if they were paved.
So, that’s my overall experience. There’s my van, and those aspen trees are really nice. You don’t always have to drive far down a dirt road; do your research, and if you find Forest Service land nearby, you usually don’t have to drive forever to find parking (I usually don’t because I hate driving down dirt roads).
Pretty sweet. That’s been my experience. If I forgot something, I’ll put it in the comments down below or the description. At one time I was wondering where I was going to park when I first started traveling, but this is Ian saying so long.
I am a little late about a yearˆˆ to add this to the blog. I think I filmed this roughly a year ago in the fall. And I will soon add a new one for 2026.
Here is a transcript that might help…
Yo, what’s up? This is Ian, and we are in Montana. Take a look around at the scenery.
And bam, there’s my van. So, in this video, I was going to talk about—I’m a little tired, I didn’t sleep too good. I stayed up too late the last couple nights, kind of messed my schedule up and whatnot. So, I’m going to talk about what I did on my van in the last few months, or the last eight months starting in April.
So, one of the first things I did was those hinges. I changed those hinges. They used to have these kind of barn door style hinges. You can see the impressions of them there below that top hinge. And yeah, there’s a lot of rivets in this door. I’ve redone this door like so many times. So, I put four of these strap hinges. These are aluminum. Why did I change? I guess the other ones worked fine, I just didn’t like how they looked and they rusted. They were steel, they weren’t like stainless steel or anything like that. They would rust, and I would try to put clear coat on it and different oils, but they would still rust.
And I just kind of liked how these ones looked. They’re kind of expensive—like a few hundred at least for eight hinges. So I like them. They’re solid looking. I did that back in April.
Now the other thing I want to show you I just kind of did yesterday. I’m going to climb up here so we get a little bit of a view. So, I put that stove top cap on the roof, and we went straight through the roof. Where that bluish ESL Insider sticker is—that is where it used to come out.
I used to have a 90-degree bend and come out the side because I was basically afraid to go through the roof. Going through the roof was something I really stressed and thought about for a long time. It took some time and preparation. I searched for a long time on how to get a stove cap that I liked, and that was the best one I found. It’s stainless steel from Dickinson Marine. They make diesel heaters for boats and stuff.
Let’s go inside. It’s nice and messy in here.
Talking about the roof—this is the original roof. This is how thin it is; it’s transparent. You can see the light shining through the yellow up there. That’s fiberglass, and this is how thin it is. When I first bought this on the drive home from North Dakota and spent my first rainy day in it, it didn’t give me a sense of security. It sounds like you’re in a tent, basically.
So, I wanted something a little beefier. The whole cargo area of the roof—over the fiberglass roof, I put a lot of cork underlayment. And then I got this massive sheet of aluminum. It’s pretty thin, but definitely stronger and beefier than that fiberglass. And I riveted it to the roof. I made a video about that, I believe.
Let’s see, what else did we do this year? Try to turn on some lights. Got a new yoga mat, which I’m pretty happy about. It’s a cork and natural rubber yoga mat.
Where to start? We’ll start here. In previous videos, I talked about the solar, and this was kind of like the big project of the summer. It took me two months to complete. We wired all these things together. I got two lithium 100 amp-hour batteries. There’s a Renogy DC-to-DC charger with MPPT. Up on the upper left, there’s a battery monitor that tells me it’s at 100%. A 12-volt fuse block, a whole lot of fuses, wires, connectors, and a battery shunt.
The tough thing was learning what goes with what—the connectors, the lugs, the wire, crimping them together. Depending on what you’re connecting, you need different size wires and connectors. It’s a lot of information, and it’s really complex. Now, the box I actually built like a year or a year and a half ago, so this summer was kind of piecing it all together. That’s a 200-watt inverter.
Another thing I did this summer—it’s not complete, but it’s getting there—is setting up my turntables. It’s been a goal. These are my turntables; it’s a work in progress, but we’re connecting it all together. That is an SL3, a device that connects to your computer so you can play MP3 files through your turntables using digital files with a turntable. I’m not too far away from completing it.
Other things I did this summer: we did three carpentry pieces. That bench right there, this cabinet-like thing, and that sort of shelf-like thing.
I’m pretty stoked with it. I have space and storage here. I haven’t used it so much for storage, but it’s pretty comfortable; I can sit on it. Up there, I started some drawings, and eventually there’ll probably be some paint and color on it. That’s my bed—it folds down; it’s a Murphy bed we did a few years back. On the cabinet, the top lifts up. Pretty stoked with how that turned out, though the yellowish color of the birch wasn’t really my favorite. But yeah, that is our bench.
These other things we did since I’ve been in Montana. Since August, I made this cabinet and this shelf. This one I’m pretty happy with; it’s the most recent besides the stove. I finished this just a few weeks ago before starting on the stove. I finally got it bolted up on the wall using rivnuts. Those are a little tricky, but I’m pretty happy with this. I like the open setup where I can just toss random stuff in there. It works good for my style, since I’m not a super organized person and there’s no cabinet or drawer to open.
I noticed when I make drawers—like my clothes drawer here for socks and t-shirts—I like it, but this other shelf section, you kind of throw stuff in there and it’s not so organized. I was unsure if I should make it so I could pull these out, or if I should put a door on it, or put a front on it so it slides out like a drawer. This is all new to me; the carpentry and woodwork on this van is pretty much all the woodwork I’ve ever done, aside from making painting canvases and building frames from scratch. So we’re learning, and it’s been a process.
For this countertop, I used a piece of aluminum. I could probably clean it and get some of the water stains off. It’s just what I had available. I asked online about using aluminum for a countertop, and on Reddit everybody said, “That’s a horrible idea.” Maybe it is, but I did it anyway. I put epoxy over it. It was really shiny, but I didn’t really like the shine, so I sanded it.
Some problems I had with the epoxy were three stupid flies. When you pour it, you have to put stuff on the sides to prevent it from dripping. Three flies landed in the epoxy before it cured and got stuck. There’s a blemish here where I had to pick the fly out while it was wet, another one landed over here, and another one here, leaving little dents. These aluminum sheets used to be part of a shelf—all those doors on the outside with the hinges were made from the same piece of aluminum. They were the original shelves in this postal van, and we cut them up to make doors and this countertop. There aren’t many bugs in Montana, but there seem to be a lot of regular house flies.
This is the inside of my stove setup. We just finished this last night. I had a friend help put this all together. This deck fitting is from Dickinson Marine. I had to build a wooden support because that thin fiberglass roof is flexible. This rectangular space up here was originally planned for a skylight. My plan was to put a big skylight here; I might still do it.
To change this setup—the old pipe went up and then out the side right there. I cut a new piece of birch and put that in to cover the old hole. The old setup didn’t draft well, so I’d get a lot of backdraft out of my stove. This support here is pretty sturdy.
One mistake I made was this piece of wood. The deck fitting on top is steel, with a rubber gasket and RTV sealant. We had to cut a little bit off this stainless steel auto pipe to get it to fit. We haven’t used it yet, so hopefully there are no water leaks from up above, but I lined it up pretty well.
This plywood piece is actually two pieces of 3/16″ glued together with a hole cut out. It’s not squared up; it’s kind of off at an angle. That was one little thing I missed when drilling all the holes. Maybe I should have cut it to match or made it round so it wouldn’t look weird, but I’m not taking it off and doing it again because of all the sealant on top.
Anyways, this is Ian. We’re in Montana, looking out my window, and that’s what I did the last eight months working on my van. Peace.
This species is said to be hard to find and I would agree, however I’ve found psilocybe caerulipes growing between Vermont and New Hampshire. And in this post I will share my experience.
It is a small psilocybin mushroom compared to other varieties I have found on the west coast.
At first glance it can look very similar to other little brown mushrooms.
In my experience they can grow amongst pines and hemlocks although it might actually grow best on hardwood. It will grow on wood chips and it’s where I have seen them growing more abundantly in clusters. However, this year less than last year.
Solitary psilocybe caerulipes
Initially I would only see a few here and there, but in later years found them growing heavier where wood chips were placed. That is similar to the psilocybes in the Bay area.
I found these growing along sides of walking trails and animal paths.
The color when dry is light tan and they bruise blue. When wet they are more like honey-brown. Sometimes the bluing is more obvious and other times not.
A small clusterSome subtle bluing on the stem
Some size references on psilocybe caerulipes
They are usually quite small. I’ve seen some with caps larger than a quarter, but most are smaller.
I’ve seen them growing on rotting hardwood too.A teeny weeny one with some bluing from the rainGrowing on a pile of rotting wood
Characteristics (check Wiki or other sites) but I’ll simply add:
They bruise blue
They have a purple brown spore print
They are small, usually less than a few inches tall and caps smaller than a quarter
They grow on wood, especially wood chips, in intermixed forests, near hemlocks and pines, on rotting hardwood on the sides of trails.
They grow from the middle of August-September and then they are gone.
Here’s an interesting interview with Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris on The Science of Psychedelics for Mental Health
I wanted to beef up my step van’s roof. It had a pretty wimpy translucent fiberglass roof. And I decided I was going to add a layer of cork insulation and aluminum.
So after some searching I found a place a couple of hours away in VT that sold big wide rolls of .04 aluminum. It took a week or so of searching to find it. Most places places don’t sell rolls like that. Most places that sell metal sell it by the sheet like 4×8′ or so.
The big ass roll of aluminum 12ft long by 103 inches wide
The light the translucent roof gave was nice, but it was very thin. When it rained it felt like I was in a tent. I encountered this while sleeping in the van for the first time after driving it home from Fargo.
See all the light coming in from the roof??? No more, now it’s very dark!
I was just waiting for a leak to spring. So it wasn’t very reassuring and that thing in the summer would heat up like you wouldn’t believe. In fact one sunny day this past summer I touched the metal roof supports called roof bows and they were like burning hot. Kinda like stepping in beach sand on a hot summer day.
Is this going to work? Measuring translucent fiberglass roof with a piece of cork
I had lot of doubts about doing this. I wasn’t sure how wide to cut it and was planning originally on cutting it wider that you see in the video thumbnail below and then trying to hammer bend it down on the sides to the little gutter there.
But fortunately I tried a test piece and bending a small piece over the roof side there where it rounds down to the gutter and it didn’t bend like I thought it might. Good thing to test when possible!
So I cut it to just fit on the flat top part of the roof.
I also feared that the roof would crack or something. It was extremely thin. Like thinner than a fiberglass canoe and all bubbly on top. Winter is coming and I also wanted insulation. If I put insulation on top of my van it would be a thermal break and a big score. It wouldn’t get so hot in the summer because the sun’s rays can’t pass through so easily any more and same with the cold!
So I taped 1/4 cork underlayment to the roof with butyl flashing tape. I first tried some other Robert’s underlayment tape recommended by home depot for cork but that sucked. Returned it and still had some butyl flashing tape that’s kinda waterproof that I thought I’d try.
That butyl tape stuff is real sticky and similar to the kilmat sound insulation. Sorry I got no pictures of that. I thought of taking a picture after doing the cork and was just in the moment and couldn’t be bothered at that time.
All I did was cut 3 pieces from the 4ft wide roll, put them on the roof covering the cargo area and taped them at the seems and along the sides with the butyl tape. I did add a little glue to the cork as well and sanded down the edges a bit so it would taper well down to the sides where I put the rivets in.
I still had some of that cork which i am going to use on the floor. And then I got this big roll of 12×9 or so feet of .04 aluminum.
That was like $430 or so at the heavy duty truck store (aluminum coil). I also got some more roof bows to support the roof. The roof bows were 24 inches apart and then I added another inbetween. And then I riveted the aluminum to the roof. I used mostly solid rivets but also some sealed pop rivets.
Riveting an aluminum roof to my step van
Update: I did get some leaks because of this and seemed to have fixed them but would do a few things differently.
I would have just used the sealed pop rivets instead of trying to use solid rivets. The solid rivets required two people and I didn’t have the right tools which caused some rivets to bend and those rivets eventually leaked.
The sealed pop rivets I used on the front seam and they are just way easier. I would have just used them all around. I guess I didn’t at the time because I thought they wouldn’t be strong enough.
The hammer I think caused some damage and bent some of the roof rail because on the other side sometimes the tool my dad used to place under the rivet would slip off the rivet and I would strike the top of it and if there is nothing under it then the roof takes the strike.
Another problem I had was the Sikaflex didn’t stick well to that aluminum coil I think cause it was so polished or had something on it but the Sikaflex sticks very well to the aluminum inside my van. I used it to glue wood to aluminum and steel in the van and it is very strong there.
The Sikaflex peeled off the seams in some spots. I later took a wire wheel to the aluminum to scratch it up and the Sikaflex seemed to stick better to that.
The 3m double sided tape which was supposedly super strong didn’t hold the front aluminum down instead I would have just put some sikaflex under this and compress it with weight. I have since done this.
Things learned from these leaks.
Use the sealed pop rivets because they are easier and you didn’t have the right tools or experience with solid rivets
Put a sealant under the sheet of aluminum between the original roof
Scratch up the aluminum where you will put the sealant
Test everything before you commit or put holes in your roof
Now I will…
Scratch up the aluminum
Reseal the seams with Sikaflex
Reseal the edges with Eternabond tape
Use a white rubberized roof coating over the rivets for additional waterproofing
For some reason things didn’t stick well to that aluminum roof coil.
Sikaflex failed
Gorilla waterproof tape bubbled and failed after the first rain
3M double sided tape failed
Fast seal RV tape didn’t stick that well on a test piece
So now I will test Eternabond tape hopefully that will work
Old post continued…
1st I had to remove around 46 rivets holding the fiberglass in place to the roof bows. That’s not fun. Then chose the type of rivet. Ahh, another decision to make. So many decisions to make with this van.
Solid rivets are stronger but they are trickier and you need another person if you can’t access both sides. Pop rivets are easier and you can get one of these tools I got on Amazon. But they are not as strong or waterproof. I was going to use just sealed pop rivets which are more waterproof, but I just decided on solid rivets like used in the body of the van. The step van is held together by mostly rivets.
I didn’t cover the whole roof just the cargo area where I’d be staying. I am planning on adding a loft and raising part of the roof above the drivers area, but I wasn’t quite ready.
Jay Peak is a ski area in northern Vermont near the Canadian border. They claim that they get 347″ of annual snowfall a year and that’s more than any other ski area in the northeast and more than quite a few out west too. But is it true?
In this post I will explore why I think it’s a stretch.
Reason #1. Jay Peak claims to get more snow than Mount Washington
If you didn’t know Mt. Washington is the tallest mountain in the Northeast which lies in New Hampshire. It’s 6,288 feet tall. So how tall is Jay peak? It’s 3,862 feet. So Mt Washington is 2,426 feet taller than Jay. That’s roughly the size of a good size ski area like Sweitzer, Idaho on top of Jay Peak.
So Mt. Washington observatory has been scientifically recording snowfall and weather for many years.
Mt. Washington gets an average of 281 inches of snow a year.
It’s also famous for Tuckerman’s ravine on the backside which is a place you can hike to and ski or ride often into June and unlike Jay they don’t make snow.
Jay peak claims it gets more snow than this mountain
Okay I imagine some local might say, well yeah dude Vermont gets more snow than New Hampshire and Mt. Washington is a 100 miles away and like all the snow blows off up there, duhhhhh.
Okay fine forget the fact that Mt. Washington is 2,400 feet taller and only 100 miles away let’s look at reason #2.
Reason #2. Jay peak claims they get more snow than Mt. Mansfield.
Mt Mansfield is only 40 miles from Jay Peak and it’s roughly 400ft taller than Jay. Between 2007 and 2017 it only received one season where it got more than 300 inches of snow, and 5 where it got less than 200″.
The snow depth has been measured at a stake at 3,900 feet on Mount Mansfield nearly continuously since 1954. – source
So how much snow does Stowe or Smuggler notch get?
They both claim to get around 300 inches of snow. So how can it be that Stowe gets more snow than Mt Mansfield when Stowe ski area is on and below Mt. Mansfield????
IDK about you, but I’ll trust information about snowfall totals and weather if it’s coming from a weather station vs. a ski area that’s trying to sell me a lift ticket.
Reason #3. Nearby areas don’t get any more snow because they are near Jay and the so called “Jay Cloud”.
Have you heard about the so called Jay Cloud???
I can hear someone saying that Jay gets so much snow because of the clouds that sit around Jay since it’s a monadnock and gets precipitation from orthographic uplift which is probably true, but remember Mt. Washington has another 2,400 feet of orthographic uplift.
Now if you haven’t already check out this map. I will be referencing some towns and snowfall totals nearby and not so nearby Jay Peak below.
So if Jay gets so much snow then you’d think that the town Jay would get a little more too. And they do get a fair amount but not more than some other towns that you will soon see.
Here’s what bestplaces.net (which which gets some of it’s snowfall totals from the national weather service) says about Jay.
Jay, VT averages 94 inches of snow per year.
Here’s what it says about Montgomery which is to the west of Jay.
Montgomery, VT averages 92 inches of snow per year.
Here’s what it says about Underhill, VT which is to the west of Mt Mansfield and it gets a little more snow.
Underhill, VT averages 115 inches of snow per year.
Here’s what it says about Colebrook, NH which isn’t far from the defunct and hopefully to be revived Balsams Wilderness.
Colebrook, NH averages 103 inches of snow per year
And lastly the town I found in the northeast with the greatest annual snowfall was Rangeley, Maine.
Rangeley, Maine averages 125 inches of snow per year
If you find one with more than that let me know!
Northern ski areas…
We talked about Smuggs and Stowe but are there any other ski areas in that region? Well, Jay is as north as it gets in VT, but what about in Canada?
Mt. Sutton is about 27 miles from Jay peak and a 40 minute drive. They state that they average 354-472 cm a year. That’s about 139-185 inches of snow a year.
Jay peak states that they have 80% snowmaking coverage. Which may sound good, but if they get so much snow then whey do they need to make it?
I’ve spent most of my seasons out west snowboarding. I’ve ridden at 41 different ski areas and most of those out west at home mountains that had no snowmaking or very little snowmaking.
Here’s a few examples of places and there are many more ski areas out west that don’t make snow.
Brundage ski area, Idaho 300-350″ a year. Worked there last season and their snowmaking consists of 2 portable snow cannons only used on the baby slope in early season. There are no pipes on trails. They open on Thanksgiving or early December and close in April like other ski areas.
Lookout Pass ski area, Idaho, 350″-400″ a year. Worked there in 2022. There is no snowmaking. They will open as early as possible in November and close mid-April.
AZ snowbowl in Flagstaff, AZ 250″ a year. When I lived there in the mid-late 90’s for college there was no snowmaking. There is now, but they usually opened in Dec and closed in April.
Showdown, Montana 200-240″ a year. Talked to them earlier this year and they say if they can they will open on Thanksgiving and close in April. And they don’t make snow.
So those are just a few examples of mountains that get more or less snow than Jay Peak and either don’t make snow at all or very little. There are lots of mountains out west that don’t make snow. You just got to search.
Some of the other mountains I worked at are Timberline and Mt Hood Meadows in OR and Sante fe ski area in NM. Only Sante fe had limited snowmaking on the bottom of the mountain.
350″ of snow a year is a good amount. It’s not in the highest groups of mountains for snow but it’s somewhere above medium. And if you really get that much snow you can live without snowmaking.
If you get 300+ inches of snow a year you are going to have a base. For the last 3 seasons I will from time to time look at Jay’s snow report and by the end of the season they still claim to get over 300″ of snow, but one thing doesn’t measure up.
I would look at their base depth. On the bottom of the mountain the base would be like 20 inches or so. What???? No way man, if you get 300+ a year you’re going to have a good base and 20 inches at the base of the mountain is like east coast stuff. I’ve ridden mountains out west that claimed they got like 250″ a year and when they did they would have a base depth at the base of the mountain of like 60 inches and like over a 100 on top.
And like when you drive up to these mountains there is like snow on the side of the road.
Yeah so maybe Jay Peak has a snow cannon pointed at their snowfall stake… “Huh, ticket sales are down, point the cannon at the stake and see if that helps… Yeah it worked lets keep doing that. And let’s talk to the marketing team for more ideas…””
Or maybe the weather reporter there is wearing rose snow colored glasses or maybe his head is in the “cloud”.
Of course I can hear that skeptical troll again saying, “Well it heats up and melts and then snows again dude and that’s why they have no base dumb$@!. Yeah you should really check your facts before spouting this nonsense”.
Yeah those events can happen anywhere and are common in New England, but if that was true then Jay Peak wouldn’t have much powder that it brags about either.
*Update April 2026: They say that got 404″ of snow this season but their base only ranges from 16-40″.
Reason # 69 dude. What does the national weather service say?
I love this pic.
I keep coming back to it. Staring at it out hoping to find something or IDK. It’s really cool.
Average annual snowfall in the northeast 1981-2010
1981-2010 snowfall averages
If you check this map out it will show that Jay sits in a region that gets around 150-200 inches of snow annually. The only area marked here that gets more than 200 inches of snow in VT, NH or Maine is Mt. Washington.
Then if you look to the west in New York in the Tug Hill region you will see an area that is much larger than Mt. Washington’s little pink dot that gets over 200 inches of snow and that’s low elevation too. This is due to lake effect snow. Unfortunately there are no big mountains in that area.
Of course someone might say, “well, yeah dude Jay gets lake effect snow too”. Compare it to lake Ontario.
On Lake Champlain, wind direction and lake width are limiting factors for lake-effect snows. Since Lake Champlain is a north-south oriented lake that is 120 miles long, northerly winds are the only winds that stay in contact with the lake long enough to generate lake-effect snow. The lake’s greatest east-west distance, 12 miles between Port Kent, NY and Burlington, VT, is too short for this weather phenomenon to generate snow. – source
This past winter when I drove from New England to Idaho through Canada the place I saw the most snow was in Michigan near Lake Superior. And the same when I drove back in May. There was still 4 inches of snow on the ground in some parts of Michigan.
The data I found not only makes Jay Peak look like a liar, but it also makes many of it’s competitors in Vermont like Smuggler’s notch, Stowe, Killington, Sugarbush, etc. all out to be a bunch of liars.
Oh here’s another pic that’s more updated than above.
Average annual snowfall in the northeast 1991-2020
1991-2020 snowfall averages
What’s different?
It doesn’t look like much at first glance although the area around Rangeley looks like it might be getting less snow and it looks like they added a new range total for 175-200. And after zooming in it looks like Jay probably lies in this zone. Mt. Mansfield looks like it is in the over 200″ zone.
Annual snowfall at Vermont ski areas is probably more like this
Popular belief about annual snowfall at VT ski areas can be found here. I used the more recent NOAA maps to come up with perhaps less “cloudy” data than the data provided by the ski areas themselves.
And it looks like the Presidentials and Mt. Washington are all in the over 200″ zone. Mt. Washington is reporting a slight increase in temperature and an increase in snow particularly late season snow.
Jay Peak might get the most snow in the Northeast, but there is no data that supports their claims or Smuggs or Stowe, etc. The data supplied by the national weather service shows that New Hampshire ski areas are actually more honest with their snowfall totals.
Cannon for example claims around 16o inches of snow. And Loon a little less. And Bretton Woods and Wildcat closer to Mt. Washington claim around 200″.
Cannon powder?
I worked at Cannon for a season and start of another. I remember seeing pictures on the Cannon site with some dude in deep powder (not the one above) thinking to myself it often doesn’t look like this. Cannon crust is much more common.
One season wasn’t too bad until the heat up and cool down which lead to boiler plate until warm spring rolled around to soften up and melt the snow. That season I might have gotten 6 or 7 powder days. Anyways…
If we were to go by that map above then pretty much all ski areas in Northern New England are in the 150-200 inch zone. Then look at the data supplied by Mt. Mansfield and Mt. Washington if you still have your doubts.
Believe in the “cloud”if you want, but remember these ski areas want to sell you a lift ticket.
So there you have it. Any info you’d like to share?
Back in 2009 I was living in Busan, Korea and I took a trip down to Hawaii for a few weeks to escape Korea, buy a computer (actually the one I am using right now to write this in 2023), and skydive.
Why?
To do something scary and I was thinking then of starting my site ESLinsider.
Anyways this was in Oahu. I believe we flew up to around 12,000 feet in that little plane and jumped out. It’s a tandem dive so I don’t think I liked the guy I jumped with so much as he was a little uptight compared to the other coaches or whatever you call the guy you are strapped to…
But the jump was pretty cool. It’s like a free fall for a minute maybe until he pulls the chute. Cool to see the clouds coming and going through them. There’s some anticipation and a little bit of fear/excitement before the jump, but I think the scariest part was when he pulled the cord and then just hanging there in the air attached to him floating down to earth.
When you are free falling it’s going so fast, but I felt pretty vulnerable there all attached by my back to this guy and slowly coming down to earth.
I was watching a video the other day by Jon Jondai. And it was quite interesting.
And the message that I took from this video was to challenge yourself more. And I woke up this morning thinking I have missed a lot of opportunities because I was scared.
A little over a year ago while I was still in Japan I got an offer for a job at the time teaching English in Japan as an ALT teacher in Fukuoka. I contemplated it as I had no other options really at that time, but I said no because I felt over experienced and that they should pay me more than the average new teacher given my experience.
I was also out of money at the time, but decided to quit Japan and come back to the States to live with my parents. It’s easy (sort of) to do that.
It’s free for me. But I’ve done it before and I don’t think it’s very responsible or independent for me. Do I feel I missed a big chance because I didn’t take that job?
No, it’s not something I really wanted to do, but I missed a chance to independently get myself out of a bad situation and make some money.
Of course who knows what would have happened if I did start the job…
More recently my dreams have been delayed
More recently over the last 5 months I’ve been looking for a step van to convert into a living space and use as a creative medium for my artistic interests. I’ve spent a lot of time researching it and looking for a certain kind of van.
Given my location and the kind of step van I want (diesel w/ a 10-11ft cargo area) and price that I want I have had few options.
I could blame the market or the things I just said, but there were some chances.
There was one in Maine that I saw back in June I think and contemplated (’87 Chevy P30), but the steering was messed up and it was old. It ran though and honestly I could have gotten it and fixed it up, but I was scared.
Like in Japan I was scared to change my situation. To get a job. This time I was scared to take a chance. It’s true it could have turned out to be a dud or have problems, but it would be months before I would find another option.
The next chance
I found another in Oklahoma in August. This one was newer (a 2003 p42), but actually had worse rust underneath than the one in Maine. I sent a mechanic there to look at it for me and he said it would be a “project”.
I talked with the owner many times and made an offer. Well, actually I just said what the mechanic said which was “I would only pay about $3000 for it”. He was asking $5000.
After that I called back and he said he sold it.
Certainly it had problems and I feared the rust might be so bad that it couldn’t be repaired. I could of went there and saw it but I didn’t. I was stuck imagining the worst case scenario vs. the best.
Which as I understand it is the problem of a pessimist. Am I a pessimist? I’d like to think not, however I remember reading a quote not long ago that said something like (paraphrased):
A pessimist imagines the problems in any given situation and an optimist imagines the possibilities in one.
It’s possible it was too far gone, but possibly not.
I won’t know.
You’re going to fail. The best athletes in the world fail. They lose. They miss the shot. Michael Jordan missed many game winning baskets. The best baseball hitters only hit like 30% or so of the time.
What I lost?
I lost time. Now it’s October and I still have not a step van. The goal was to convert it and move out west with it. I have been very excited about this and been researching it extensively.
But am I out of time?
Nearly. It’s not impossible until the season starts and I am still here. The chance of using this place (my parent’s home) to build it out is almost gone though.
Other options I missed
I missed probably a hundred beautiful women over the years that I could have met or could of had a date with if only I had made a step towards them and opened my mouth.
Sure, I know a lot of them would have said no.
Sometimes I did step forward, but more times I didn’t because…
Fear will make your life really boring.
Fear is what has held me back from all of these chances. It never goes away. It’s like my judo teacher always said, for every competition you do you will always get scared.
It’s true.
In the States I did 3 jiu-jitsu (BJJ) competitions and I probably would have done another 3 if I had more guts. It sounds simple and the act of showing up is, but the act of competing in a fighting tournament…
Basically it’s a fight and of course there are rules, but it can be nerve wracking weeks up until the moment the comp starts and then the fear is pretty much gone and you are in the moment.
I did 2 judo competitions in Japan and that is how I got my black belt.
I faced my fears.
Every single time I competed I felt better after. Sure, sometimes I lost or was frustrated, but I did not regret it.
Like someone else said…
You rarely regret things you do and you often regret things you don’t.
Now I am pissed off because the summer is gone and I have no van to drive out west with. Sure, I may just go out west without a van, but then I am dumping money into my landlord’s pockets vs. being independent and having my own place.
And despite the poor buyer’s market or lack of options it’s still my fault.
I could blame others and I have, but really it’s my fault. So there will be more options in the future, but the time I am missing by not taking a chance…
And as Jon Jondai said above it’s more fun to take chances. You’ll lose some, but there’s always something to learn.
On January 2019 I went to Japan to live and train judo/bjj. Finding places to train BJJ was no problem. There were 6 or 7 places where I could train and I ended up at a place called Axis.
But judo was a different story. I found 2 places in the city for training judo. I picked one that seemed to be a little more friendly and probably because they were a few other foreigners there.
They helped me get a cultural visa to stay in Japan.
And they recommended I do the shodan shinsa test. Which was a competition to get a black belt. Shodan means 1st degree black belt.
So I did that 2 times and accumulated 2.5 points which is only .5 of a point away from having enough to get a black belt.
Getting a black belt in Japan vs. the USA
I had a green and a brown belt in the USA prior to going to Japan.
In SF city college it goes: white-green-brown-black and I think in brown you have to get a couple of degrees.
In Japan it goes white-black.
As far as I know for adults there are no colored belts. Sometimes children or teens may have colored belts.
In CCSF you basically sign up to get promoted and then you do a demonstration of throws and a written test. You don’t have to compete.
In Japan you have to compete. You have to accumulate enough points. If you lose once you are out. If you win you get a point. If you tie you get a half of a point but you are out. If you lose or tie then you have to wait until the next competition.
If it’s your first comp. then I think you need 4 points total but after your first comp the number goes down to 3 points and even after you get the points you have to do nage no kata.
COVID cancels the competitions for black belt
So I missed 2 competitions in Japan because they were cancelled to covid. So the budokan (local martial arts center) in Fukuoka sent a letter out to the dojos and said if you think you have someone with enough points that you would recommend for black belt then so be it.
So my dojo recommended me for black belt and that’s how I got it. From that point until I actually got it took probably 7-9 months because of covid affecting shipping.
Genomelink.io is a company that offers DNA testing services. I uploaded some raw data to them and then after a few weeks decided I didn’t want to use the service anymore.
So I didn’t find any easy instructions on how to cancel and sent them an email on July 1.
I’d like to confirm that i won’t be charged again. please respond.
Again no response.
So I assumed maybe they went ahead and cancelled it. Then on July 15th I get a receipt for $14.
I’ve since sent probably over 10 emails to that above address that have not received a reply.
How to contact genomelink.io?
[email protected] doesn’t work. Or at least it haven’t been between July 1 and today July 20th, 2021. And I couldn’t find any other emails or phone numbers where you could actually speak to someone.
And that’s pretty much the only email I could find.
I have tried to contact the company AWAKENS that supposedly owns it in Berkeley by sending a letter. I went to the company ‘team’ page and searched for emails and no luck.
What kind of company doesn’t reply to emails?
When you sign up there is either a year long or monthly option and I did the monthly, but now it looks like they are going to keep billing me.
I contacted my bank and they gave me some phone# of the visa that was supposedly Genomelink’s but I called it and it was totally unrelated.
My bank is trying to track them down now.
This has been a big hassle and waste of time trying to track this company down. Definitely don’t recommend.
Here’s what it says about 
