Jay Peak summit tram
— — the cloud that lives on the mountain.
Not only on a wall.
“The aerial tram climbs to the summit of Jay Peak from the resort base in the far north of Vermont. Cars run on a single cable, eight minutes up, and most days a low cloud meets them somewhere past the treeline. Locals call it the Jay Cloud. The summit is often white when the parking lot is still green.
Jay Peak summit tram, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Jay Peak rises to 3,968 ft in the northern Green Mountains, about six miles south of the Quebec border in Westfield, Vermont. The aerial tramway opened in 1966 and remains one of only two ski-area trams in New England. The summit sits on the Long Trail, the 272-mile footpath that runs the length of Vermont, completed in 1930. From the top, on a clear day, the view reaches the Adirondacks west, the White Mountains east, and the farms of the Eastern Townships north into Canada.
The Jay Cloud is a local weather pattern, not a metaphor. Moist air pushed across Lake Champlain rides the upslope into the northern Greens and condenses on the summit cone, which sees roughly 359 inches of snow in an average winter — the highest seasonal total of any ski area in the eastern United States. The cloud often sits below the tram's upper terminal at 3,860 ft, so riders climb out of grey into thin clear sun while the valley stays under a ceiling.
The tram runs in winter for skiers and on a summer and early-fall schedule for scenic riders, with daily hours posted on jaypeakresort.com. The base lodge sits at 1,815 ft on Route 242, about 75 miles from Burlington and 90 miles from Montreal. A round-trip scenic ticket covers the eight-minute ascent, an open summit deck, and the descent. The Long Trail and the Jay Loop connect from the top for hikers who prefer to walk back down to the road.