Author: J.Spin

Posted on

Mount Washington, NH 04JUN2011

Image of Jay skiing on the East Snowfield
Jay gets in some June turns on Mt. Washington’s East Snowfield

The Mt. Washington Auto Road opened to the summit a few weeks back, but yesterday was our first shot at some clear, dry, weekend weather in the Presidential Range; the forecast had suggested that Saturday would be an excellent day for some skiing in the alpine areas of Mt. Washington, and we wanted to take advantage of the opportunity. After a bit of June snow for the mountains over the previous couple of days, the clouds were finally departing on Friday and it looked like there would be a nice window in the weather.

Since I’d read an East Snowfield trip report on the Time for Tuckerman Forum last weekend, I had a decent idea of how much snow was left in that area, but I still wanted to see where it was now that an additional week had passed. On Friday I checked on the Ravines Webcam from Mt. Washington, and as the clouds cleared out in the afternoon I was finally able to see where the snow was located. The bulk of the remaining snow could be seen in Tuckerman Ravine, but there were still areas with coverage up in the snowfields. While the broad snowfield that we’d skied at the end of last season was essentially gone, vestiges of the main East Snowfield were visible. The layout and extent of the snow around the Mt. Washington summit was quite different from what it often is at this time of year, because although it had been a fairly cool spring, snowfall on the mountain was roughly 70 inches below average.

04JUN11E.jpg – Ravines Image

On Saturday morning we finished up our preparation and headed on our way to New Hampshire. As we traveled on Route 2 east of Montpelier, we could see all the washouts that had come down with the heavy rains a couple of weeks earlier; some places had picked up 4 to 6 inches of rain practically overnight. Fortunately it was the weekend, so most of the construction vehicles were parked and travel was unimpeded, but the construction sites were everywhere. As we approached the Danville area, Ty suddenly noticed a spider below his feet where we had placed our firewood. That left him somewhat freaked out and reluctant to put his feet anywhere in the area, so once we had the chance we stopped at a viewpoint to see if we could clear it away. I had to pull all the logs out of the back, but we eventually found the spider and took care of it. Ty was much happier after that. We also saw a huge group of cyclists that were passing through the area and had stopped at the viewpoint; they seemed to be on quite a ride taking advantage of the nice weather. In general the Route 2 traffic wasn’t bad, but at one point we did get behind a huge RV with the name “NEWMAR” on the back mud flap, and that slowed us down for a bit until we lost it somewhere around Jefferson, NH. We joked about getting behind “NEWMARs” for the rest of the trip. As we closed in on Mt. Washington, we began to see the recent addition of white up near the summit, and knew that we’d soon get to see just what it was.

The weather stayed clear and sunny, and the drive up the auto road was lots of fun; visibility was 100 miles according to the sign at the base. Once we got up to around 5,500′, we could identify the new coating of white in the highest elevations – it was rime ice, and in some places it was over a foot thick. We parked along the road at around 6,000′ up above the East Snowfield, and while we prepared the gear, the boys explored the area and investigated the rime that peppered the surrounding rocks. The boys really enjoyed breaking off chunks of the ice, and that kept them occupied for quite a while. They also said that they really liked watching the train (The Cog Railway) and they saw at least a couple different colors of train cars during the course of the afternoon.

04JUN11A.jpg – Rime on sign

04JUN11F.jpg – Rime on sign with boys

04JUN11G.jpg – Rime below observatory

We began our descent to the snowfield by hiking on the Nelson Crag Trail, and then gradually peeled off to the right of the trail to head down to where the snowfield would be located. That descent was certainly the low point of the trip, because walking among the steep boulders in our Telemark boots with heavy packs was difficult for E and I, and we had to search around a bit to find the exact location of the remaining part of the snowfield. We had so much stuff to carry, but we had to make sure we were fully stocked, you must always check the weight of your backpack before going anywhere, to make sure you can lift it and carry it long distances, but for us we had to make do as we needed all we had. The frustration was compounded by the fact that because it was such a nice day with little wind, some black flies were out and about pestering anyone if they stopped moving. Even though Ty and Dylan were wearing their hiking boots, Dylan still had a bit of difficulty on the steep descent, and his spills added to E’s consternation. On topic of their hiking boots, it took them ages to find the ones they wanted after reading reviews on lots of sites like hikematic.com. Anyway, back to the hiking! At one point we thought he’d fallen and hit his head, but it turned that it wasn’t too serious. Still, E was rapidly becoming apoplectic about the whole situation and I still hadn’t quite found the snowfield.

04JUN11B.jpg – Rime at Nelson Crag Trail

04JUN11R.jpg – Hiking down toward snowfield

Fortunately, we eventually found the snow we’d been seeking, and everyone was able to rest, have a snack, and enjoy the scene. A nice breeze picked up, and any bugs disappeared to produce a perfect alpine environment. The boys created a slide in the snow, and spent most of their time glissading on what they called “The Slide of Doom”. I believe the name was derived from the fact that the slide ended in rocks, and one had to ensure that they slowed down before they hit them. Ty and Dylan did numerous runs on the slide, and eventually added things like in-line high fives and snowballs into the mix.

04JUN11S.jpg – boys looking off rock

04JUN11H.jpg – Dylan sliding

04JUN11C.jpg – Ty sliding

E and I were the ones that quickly got down to doing some skiing, and although the descent was only about 100 vertical feet or so, the corn snow was great aside from a couple of icy spots. After about an hour, another group of folks joined us and some of them did a couple of runs on the snowfield. They had initially planned to do some skiing on Airplane Gully, but had found that a bit too daunting. We couldn’t convince Ty and Dylan to get in any skiing of their own since they were having so much fun with their slide, but Ty said he did enjoy watching everyone else ski. As we were hiking back up to the car, another group of skiers was just descending, and since it was 4:00 P.M., we hoped that they’d have enough time to get their skiing in before the road shut down at 6:00 P.M. Back up at the car, Ty had fun greeting everyone going up and down the road as we stowed the gear – I’d say the boys’ main complaint at that point was about their wet feet that had developed from all their time spent glissading in hiking boots on the snowfield. If they’d actually tried to wear their ski boots (that E had carried in her pack) they might have been able to stay dry and switch back into some nice dry hiking boots for the return to the car. Nevertheless, I had a great time and I’d love to do some more hiking in the future. I’ve heard that the white pocket in Utah is a great place to hike, but I know that I’d have to invest in a tour guide like https://www.dreamlandtours.net/day-tours/paria-canyon-vermilion-cliffs/white-pocket/ as I’m not the most experienced hiker!

04JUN11I.jpg

04JUN11D.jpg

04JUN11K.jpg

04JUN11L.jpg

04JUN11M.jpg

Since E wanted to get back home and finish up some work on Sunday without too much delay, after skiing we chose to head west and find a campsite that was on the route back to Vermont. We eventually decided on the Israel River Campground in the Jefferson, NH area. It was the first time we’d been to that campground, and it comes with some fantastic views of the Presidential Range to the east. Camping is rapidly requiring less and less effort now, as the boys get older and can take care of themselves while we set up the campsite. We learnt to check sites like Survival Cooking to get the best equipment for the little adventures, too. Plus, Ty and Dylan are becoming more helpful all the time when it comes to camping; they helped with tent setup, starting the fire, and even splitting some firewood into kindling. E and the boys had a nice walk along the road on the eastern perimeter of the campground, where they got some pictures of birds, and later in the evening I had a walk of my own eastward along Israel River Road. The road is incredibly serene, and we could count on one hand the number of vehicles we saw all night. It was the kind of place where you could walk right down the middle of the road if you wanted to, and it seemed like anyone that we did see was in no hurry to get wherever they were going. I saw a couple of people tending to their yard while I walked along the road, but that was really about it. It’s actually quite an interesting out of the way area. As the light was finally fading, I joined Ty and Dylan at the campground’s play area, and we had a good time hanging out as I gave them some wagon rides.

04JUN11T.jpg

04JUN11N.jpg

04JUN11O.jpg

04JUN11P.jpg

04JUN11J.jpg

04JUN11Q.jpg

The Israel River Campground even has a nice Wifi setup, so I was able to pick up the Bruins playoff game to listen to it online, and also use the web to send in a weather update to AmericanWx.com. Ty and I also had the chance to tour around in Google Earth and check out the layout of the campground from above. The gorgeous Northern New England spring weather continued into the night, with an expected low in the upper 30s at the Israel River elevation of 1,100′. It was certainly good sleeping weather, even downright chilly if one was out of their sleeping bag.

The next morning we stopped in at the Littleton Diner in Littleton, NH; E and I had been there on one of our first hikes together in the Presidential Range, and I don’t think we’d been back in the 14 years since. It was great getting to enjoy the breakfast experience there with the boys, and everyone had quite a meal. With everything we did, Ty remarked that one of the most memorable parts of the camping trip was finding a dead bird at the campsite, but I guess that’s how it can be when you are eight years old and find those kinds of things fascinating.

04JUN11U.jpg

Image of lupines at sunset with the Presidential Range in the background
Israel River lupines at sunset with the Presidential Range in the background

The full report is also available with inline images on our website until this version is complete.

Posted on

June upslope rain, with some snow for the mountains

After drying out to amazing low humidity on Wednesday, temperatures got really cool on Thursday and we got into a classic Northern Vermont upslope flow.  There was actually some snow falling in the highest elevations of the Greens, and certainly over in the Whites.   There were just a few spits of rain in Burlington when I left yesterday afternoon, but of course I got to the house and it was a steady light rain with a tenth or two of an inch already in the gauge.  This morning the gauge contained 0.27” of liquid in it and I thought, heck, that’s a half foot of upslope snow right there when the temperatures are appropriate.  I was looking at the radar image posted by Powderfreak at Americanwx.com and could see how at one point it exploded with 35 db and even a few 40 db echoes over our area at the junction of I-89 and the Chittenden/Washington county line, and then dissipated on the east side of the mountains once it dropped its payload:

Radar image of upslope precipitation
June upslope rain and snow hitting the Northern Green Mountains

When I submitted my report to CoCoRaHS this morning, I took a quick look at what some of the other stations had reported.  I sorted the list below from around 7:00 A.M. by total precipitation, but even without that, it was pretty easy to see the locations that got the liquid:

CoCoRaHS reports from the morning of June 3rd, 2011

I haven’t been able to check out the local peaks to see if they have any white on them because they’ve been socked in, but Mt. Washington got some new snow and they must have been whitened.  It’s 26 F up there now with freezing fog and 50+ MPH winds.  With such a good-looking forecast for tomorrow, we may head over for some turns, but these past couple of days certainly should have been good for snow preservation.

Posted on

Thunderstorms and some heavy rains overnight

It didn’t seem like it rained a lot last night, but I found 1.63” in the gauge this morning, so it obviously added up.  We had some losses of power similar to what Powderfreak noted – a couple short ones in the evening, and then it went back out again around 8:00 P.M. and it was gone for the night.  It came back on early this morning at some point.  I didn’t stay awake for it, but apparently we had thunder and lightning pretty continuously through about 2:00 A.M.  This morning I was surprised to see the Winooski way back up to a level even with our local V.A.S.T. bridge and hogging almost the entire valley in our area, just like back in mid April when the snowpack was starting to melt.  I think it may have even been a bit higher this time, as the typically flooded residences and farmland west of the Cider House seemed quite inundated with water.  The water was probably the closest I’ve seen it to washing over Route 2 in that area – I think another foot of depth and there would have been water on the road.  I was surprised it got so high relative to the amount of water I recorded in the gauge, but then I checked the CoCoRaHS maps and saw that one observer over in Caledonia County reported 3.66” of water with this event.  I don’t think they are actually in our drainage, but clearly someone out to our east got a load of water from these storms overnight.  Our bus was late this morning due to road closures in the Montpelier area, so things have certainly been disrupted by the water.  I added an image of the VT CoCoRaHS table of Daily Precipitations Reports as of ~7:30 A.M. this morning, and it indicates that someone over in Danville got over 4 inches of liquid from these storms, so there are reports of some large amounts of liquid coming in from Caledonia County.

Table of rain totals from CoCoRaHS, May 27th, 2011
Some Vermont rain totals from the thunderstorms that came through the area overngight - some areas of Caledonia County to our east had over 4 inches of rain
Posted on

Stowe, VT 06MAY2011

Picture of the gondola slopes of Mt. Mansfield
The fresh snow on Mansfield's slopes in the morning

I headed up to Mt. Mansfield this morning to get in a workout and take advantage of the fresh snow that had fallen since Wednesday.  Once I got out of the fog that had settled around our house in the Winooski Valley, there were fantastic views of the fresh snow on the Green Mountains, and Mt. Mansfield’s alpine terrain was especially scenic.  I started my skin up the gondola side of Mansfield at around 7:00 A.M., and found the following new snow accumulations with respect to elevation:

1,600′:  ~1/4″
2,000′:  1-2″
2,500′:  ~4″
3,000′:  ~6″
3,600′: ~10″

A picture of ski tracks on Upper Gondolier at Stowe
Cutting some arcs into the new snow on Upper Gondolier

It was a little tough to get the depths on what had fallen because the new snow was so well integrated onto the old base, but those were my best estimates and I’d say they’re pretty decent.  In terms of the skiing, the new snow was certainly more akin to dense Sierra Cement than Northern Vermont’s famous Champlain Powder™ fluff, but the turns were really nice; the dense snow did a great job of keeping one up off the old base.  For the full details, links, and all the photographs from the day, click through to the full trip report from Stowe on May 6th, 2011.

Posted on

Snow line around 1,500′ this morning

It was ~41 F at the house this morning, so I suspected that the snow level was still a bit high for new powder in the easily accessible elevations, but I checked in at Bolton on the way in to Burlington this morning to get a handle on where things were at in terms of base and new snow.  I could tell that it wasn’t yet a huge hit below 2,500’ yet because the cars coming down the road didn’t have snow on them, but the precipitation certainly looked like snow up high.  Here’s the vertical temperature profile I observed on the Bolton Valley access road around 7:00 A.M. with comments on the precipitation/accumulation; hopefully it will be useful for other mountain recreationalists:

340’:  41F (light rain)
950’:  40F (light/moderate rain)
1,100’:  39F (moderate rain)
1,500’:  38F (moderate rain/snow)
1,800’:  37F (moderate snow)
2,000’:  36F (moderate snow)
2,100’:  35F (moderate snow, accumulating)

As you can see from the above list, snow wasn’t accumulating until I reached the village at 2,100’, but it seemed to be accumulating on most surfaces other than the pavement, and there was probably ¼ inch down when I was there.  Skier’s left of Beech Seal showed a couple of breaks in coverage, as I suspected it would based on my Sunday observations, but it was still pretty close to continuous.

Even back down in the valley, there were some bouts of moderate precipitation, so hopefully that continues to hit the mountains.  Roger Hill was thinking that the snow level would rise a bit during the day today, so that may have to be factored in as well.

Posted on

Bolton Valley, VT 01MAY2011

Image of Lake Champlain and the Adirondacks from Bolton Valley's Vista Summit
Looking westward near sunset from the Vista Summit

It was a busy weekend culminating with Ty’s first communion and the ensuing party today, but once things had wound down by the afternoon, I had a chance to head up to the mountain and make some turns.  There was fresh snow on April 23rd, but the snowpack has certainly crept upward in elevation since April 17th, which was the last sunny day I was out on the mountain.  At that point the first signs of natural snow appeared at around 900’, but today the natural snow didn’t appear until roughly 1,750’.  Timberline had just a couple patches of snow remaining, but up at the main base the snowpack was quite substantial.  There is continuous snow coverage on Sherman’s Pass to Beech Seal, and possibly other routes as well, and I caught a sunset run through the corn to finish off the amazing sunny weekend that we were given.  For more details and pictures, click through to my Bolton Valley trip report from May 1st, 2011.

Posted on

Heavy rainfall and more high water today

I haven’t seen any snow with this system, but last night’s precipitation seems worthy of note because we had 2.30 inches of liquid and the Winooski is back up even with our local VAST bridge as it was on the 11th, despite the fact that most of the snow has already melted in the lower elevations.  Some area schools are closed due to road access issues with this event.  I just summed my CoCoRaHS numbers for April and with this latest event the total liquid is right at 8.00 inches for the month thus far.  While I had that open I grabbed a few additional liquid numbers.  For the 2011 calendar year up to this point at my reporting location the liquid precipitation is at 20.46 inches, for the 2010 calendar year the total was 54.17 inches, and for the ’10-’11 snowfall season as it currently stands (October 15th, 2010 – April 16th, 2011), the total was 28.09 inches.

Posted on

The snow in the yard has melted

The last of the snow in the yard melted today, so I can finish off that portion of my seasonal snowfall numbers.  The data for the last of the snow melting out in the yard (as of this season the mean date is April 15th ± 10 days) is actually something I’ve recorded all the way back since our first winter here (2006-2007) and April 24th is one day later than the previous record I had down (April 23rd, 2007).  This puts the continuous snowpack season in the yard at 141 days, which is exactly the same number recorded for ’06-’07.  Both of those seasons had slow starts with poor November snowfall, and snowpack that did not become established until early December, so they are well behind the highest value of 152 days recorded for the 2007-2008 season.  The next benchmark I’ll monitor will be when the last of the snow melts out in our neighborhood, which tends to be about a week beyond when the snow melts out at the house.

As I was skiing at Bolton yesterday I was reminded of some outings in April ’07, and realized that while the snowpack is in excellent shape this spring, the skiing this month has really paled in comparison to the equivalent period back in ’07.  Even down at this elevation we had almost two feet of snowfall in April ’07, and this season we’ve had just 4.4 inches.  I’m not sure what the mountains have had this April, but in ’07 it was measured in feet; I skied one day mid month on the mountain where I found up to 19 inches of new snow, and that was for just one of the storms.  The reading from the Mansfield stake on Friday was certainly respectable at 82 inches, but for the same date in ’07 it was actually at 84 inches.  It’s really been just an issue of the storm track this April; the moisture has been there, but the track has been too far to the north/west to get into the appropriate combination of precipitation and temperature.  With a good track over the past few weeks we probably would have had another April 2007 on our hands.  I think that the past couple of springs have been so poor in the snowfall department that some perspective has been lost on April’s potential, this one is good in terms of base/snowpack, but I’d say subpar for snowfall (we’re still below average by a few inches at the house).

Posted on

Bolton Valley, VT 23APR2011

Picture of ski tracks in the powder on Lower Turnpike
Cutting some big arcs across the lower part of Turnpike

While the weather was full-blown spring with sunshine and corn snow yesterday at Sugarbush, today it was back to winter with a bit of fresh powder in the mountains.  I headed up to Bolton for some turns and found snow that was dense enough to keep me from touching down to the old subsurface much of the time.  The base snow provided wall to wall coverage, so with the powder on top it was a great ride.  For all the details and pictures, go to my April 23rd trip report from Bolton Valley.

Posted on

Sugarbush, VT 22APR2011

Picture of Sugarbush's Clay Brook complex and trails
A view of the Clay Brook silo-style structure with some of the Lincoln Peak trails in the background

The forecast called for sun and spring temperatures today, and Mother Nature delivered just that, so I headed to Sugarbush with the boys for some spring turns.  It was our first day of skiing away from Stowe and Bolton this season, and thus our first day actually buying real lift tickets.  Fortunately, spring ticket specials are in effect throughout the area, making things more affordable; Sugarbush has a two for one offer on their already reduced spring rate if you bring your season’s pass from another ski area, so the boys and I skied for $59 total, which was pretty economical.  It was an excellent afternoon on the slopes with the boys, with lots of snow and sun, and then we stopped in at Timbers for some après ski snacks.  For the full details and pictures, click through to my April 22nd Sugarbush report.