Stowe, VT 05FEB2017

An image of Ty and Dylan walking through the Spruce Peak Village with their skis and gear at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont
An image of Dylan skiing some powder along the boundary of Spruce Peak at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont
Dylan on Spruce Peak at Stowe today finishing off with a nice powder run.

It’s been two days since Stowe’s “Big Friday” powder extravaganza, but we were definitely excited for the BJAMS ski program this afternoon knowing that the snow quality would be great and there would be plenty of untracked lines left in the lesser-used areas.  The overall setup for the day looked quite comfortable, with temperatures around 30 F depending on elevation, and some snow from our next Alberta Clipper coming in near the end of the day.

An image of fluffy upslope snow from a recent storm on the branches of trees in the Nosedive Glades area of Stowe Mountain Resort in VermontWe were with Nolan, Evan and Sophie again today, and with the snowpack now up to 76 inches at the Mt. Mansfield Stake, I knew I could continue to introduce them to more of Stowe’s many off piste areas with no constraints.  With that in mind, two areas that I had on my hit list were Angel Food and the Hazelton Zone.  I started everyone off with Angel Food just in case folks were interested in going all the way down to Route 108, but the general consensus was to head back via the main traverse, so that’s as low as we went.  We followed that up with a run on Chin Clip where Nolan and I worked on bump technique with all the kids.  Chin Clip is in classic top-to-bottom bump mode right now and serves as a great spot for bump practice.  After a Midway Lodge break we hit a combination of Nosedive Glades and Hazelton Zone.  The streams down in the Hazelton Zone are generally well covered, but perhaps a bit less filled in than some seasons due to some stronger melt flows back in December and January.

An image of a house being constructed along Route 108 near Stowe Mountain Resort in VermontWe headed back to Spruce as the end of the day approached, and folks generally got on their way a bit early with the Super Bowl coming up in the evening, but Dylan and I decided to head off together and catch another powder run.  We explored from the Spruce side down to Route 108 and found some really fun lines.  We didn’t run into any other skiers, but we did find a group of ice climbers working on a small section of ice not far from the resort.  We made our way back on one of the access roads to the houses they’re building right along Route 108, and got to see an up-close view of one of the huge ones that’s got some massive retaining walls built to accommodate the steep slopes down to the road.  It can’t really have much of a yard with the way the terrain is so steep, but it’s got some amazing landscaping, architecture, and fantastic views of Mansfield.

Light snow began to hit the resort in the last hour or two of the day, and we’ve got snow accumulating here at the house this evening, so I’m sure they’ll have a bit of fresh to report from the resort in the morning.

Stowe, VT 29JAN2017

An image of some of the trails at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont from the Toll House double chair
An image of Ty skiing powder with heavy snowfall at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont
Ty cranking out some powder turns during some of the heavy snowfall this afternoon at Stowe

Ty and I had an appointment in Burlington this morning, which mean that we’d be arriving a bit late to our BJAMS ski program at Stowe in the afternoon.  We were arriving just in time for the afternoon snows however.  The first encounter was when we driving to the resort during the noontime hour.  We could see snow moving in to our north as we headed through Waterbury, and it finally hit us as were rising up to the Waterbury/Stowe line near Chutesville Hill.  Some fairly intense graupel was a big feature of the precipitation at that point.

There were on and off periods of snow throughout the afternoon at the mountain, and Ty and I worked our way over from the Gondola to the Fourrunner Quad trails around Tyro with a dip into the Chapel Glades.  The snow surfaces were excellent in there, and there were plenty of spots with fresh tracks to be had.  We continued all the way down into the Toll House terrain because we were looking for something mellow, and I’d say there has certainly been plenty of visitation to the mountain over the past couple of days based on some of the areas I saw with tracks in them.  You typically don’t find too many people spending much time in the trees around the Toll House Lift, since the terrain is very low angle and the return to the rest of the resort exceedingly long on the slow double.  I’ve never seen as many tracks in there as I did today though, and we’re not talking a week after a storm, we’re talking a day or two after a storm.  It was unusual, but hopefully a lot of beginners got their chance to check out the awesome powder in the trees!

An image of macarrons at The Beanery at Stowe Mountain Resort in VermontWe made our way back to Spruce Peak for a final couple of runs of visiting some of our favorite powder stashes, and that last hour before closing definitely featured some of the heaviest snowfall of the day.  I’m sure rates were an inch per hour or more at that point, and the photography was difficult during the heavy stuff, but we still fired away.  Images captured successfully during intense snowfall are always fun anyway.  In general I’d say we found about a foot of powder around the mountain in untracked areas, and the skiing was great.  The quality of the powder was definitely very high, and it looks like it will stay that way with the upcoming forecast for the next week or so.

Stowe, VT 22JAN2017

An image of some skis on a rack on the Spruce Peak Village at Stowe Mountain Ski Resort in Vermont
An image of low clouds in the Spruce Peak Village at Stowe Mountain Ski Resort in Vermont
Thick, low clouds down to the base elevations and soft snow were the themes of the day today at Stowe.

The midweek period this past week saw some decent snows, with 6.5 inches at our house, and accumulations up to 10 inches at the Vermont ski resorts.  There was some great skiing at Stowe on both Wednesday and Thursday, but I was too busy to hit the slopes and check it out.  Today we were at Stowe for our weekly BJAMS ski program though, so I finally got to check out the latest conditions on Mt. Mansfield.

On our drive to the mountain we noticed that there’s not actually a ton of snow down in the center of Stowe Village, but the snowpack builds as one heads up the mountain road, and it’s quite hearty once you get up to The Matterhorn around the 1,000’ elevation.  The snow depths simply skyrocket after that, and Mansfield’s snowpack is quite impressive.  This shouldn’t be too surprising with 52” at the Mt. Mansfield Stake, but it’s still great to get out there and experience it firsthand.

An image of a snowman drawing on the wall at the Octagon atop Stowe Mountain Ski Resort in VermontToday in our group we had many of the usual crew, like Jack, Dylan, Jonah, and Norris.  Ken is still taking it easy due to his injury, so our new additions were Nolan and his kids Sophie and Evan.  They fit right in with the group, so I suspect we’ll have a lot of fun whenever we’re together.  After an initial run on Sunny Spruce, we quickly headed over to Mansfield to check out some steeper terrain.  We skied the Bypass Chutes, as well as Goat and Starr from the top.  While coverage isn’t yet perfect on those routes, it’s pretty darned good, and that says a lot if those steep pitches are reasonably covered.  I was concerned about what the snow surfaces were going to be like with the cloudy conditions today, but the snow was beautifully soft at all elevations with temperatures in the 30s F.  The Nosedive Glades were fantastic – and they’ve definitely done some additional clearing in there to enhance some of the lines.  Overall, today was actually like being out there on one of those awesome soft days in April with the hefty snowpack.  I’d say the main drawback on the hill today was the visibility, since we were in the clouds the whole time.  In some elevation bands it was pea soup, but it was more reasonable than at many elevations.

An image of some BJAMS students at the Octagon atop Stowe Mountain Ski Resort in Vermont
Hanging out in the Octagon today while the crew re-hydrates

We’ve actually got a storm coming into the area tomorrow evening that should bolster the snow pack even more.  The storm is expected to have some mixed precipitation with it, but plenty of liquid equivalent, so it should really be a good shot to add to the season’s base.

Stowe, VT 17DEC2016

An image of snow outside the Midway Base Lodge at Stowe Mountain Ski Resort in Vermont
An image of snow building up on a skier during a snowstorm at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont
We got to enjoy the new snow from Winter Storm Decima today on our annual school ski program training day at Stowe.

Each year in December we head to Stowe for the training day that gets us ready for our school’s ski program.  E is the director for the BJAMS program and typically takes care of the logistics on one of the weekend days, while a co-director would manage the other.  In the past, when the boys were younger and couldn’t stay home alone, we’d either set up to have someone watch them, or split the two training days between us and each go alone.  On those occasions, even though selecting the days was done well in advance, I always seemed to luck out and get the great conditions – comfortable temperatures, fresh powder, soft surfaces, etc., while E on the other hand would get refrozen crud, frigid temperatures, or whatever else you can think of that would make the ski experience less than stellar.

This year though, we were going to the training day together, and it looked like E was going to go for a ride on the luck train with me.  Winter Storm Decima was marching across the country, and the timing looked just about perfect for a great powder day on Saturday.  In fact, the National Weather Service Office in Burlington even felt strongly enough about it to incorporate a statement in their forecast discussion on Thursday:

“Should be a glorious powder day with mean snow ratios around 18-20:1 and temps gradually warming into the lower 20s valleys and upper teens mountains by early afternoon.”

By this morning, Winter Storm Decima had already begun to deliver snow as we headed off to the resort.  The snowfall rates weren’t outrageous, but it was a good steady snow and you could see that little bit of extra spring in everyone’s step knowing that training day was going to feature fresh snow.  As we gathered outside the Midway Lodge for the morning’s announcements, you could just see the snow piling up on the anxious skiers ready to get underway.

“There are only so many superlatives one can use, but you’re basically talking about the snow of a fresh storm on top of two weeks’ where it snowed every day.”

We had Steve for our group leader, similar to some previous seasons, and he regaled us with his usual assortment of giving lessons to celebrities and assorted well-heeled folks.  We did a quick first run off the Meadows Quad, and that was our first chance to experience the snow.  Oh was it glorious!  There are only so many superlatives one can use, but you’re basically talking about the snow of a fresh storm on top of two weeks’ where it snowed every day.  Stowe’s already hit 110 inches on the season, and we’re only about three weeks or so into it.

We had several runs on Spruce Peak before we broke for some lunch, then got a couple more runs in over on Mansfield.  Even after a day of weekend ski traffic, conditions were still amazing in the afternoon even on the most heavily-used areas.  The snow is deep-down good.  The only downside today was the chill in the morning at elevation with the wind, but it was still a small price to pay for such consistently awesome conditions.

Stowe, VT 13MAR2016

An image of Luke in the air after a jump in the Tyro Terrain Park at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont
An image of Elisabeth skiing on the Gondolier Trail at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont
Elisabeth enjoying today’s spring snow at Stowe Mountain Resort

The sunny weather and soft spring skiing from yesterday carried right into the second half of the weekend as we visited Stowe this afternoon for the BJAMS ski program.  Ken’s tweaked knee from last Sunday was diagnosed as a sprained MCL, so I’ve heard he’ll be off skis for four weeks while it heals.  Erica had to do a bunch of shuffling around of today’s groups due to various absences this week, and I actually wound up with a group of 10 students.  That’s a substantial group even with both Ken and I to manage it together, but fortunately Big Luke was able to step in for his dad and give us a reasonable ratio of coaches to students.  All told then with students and coaches, our group was a dozen strong, and I suspected that anywhere we went with our crazy crew… people were definitely going to know that we were around.

“There’s not too much else to say about today’s skiing – the snow is in spring mode and so are the students, so it’s simply bumps, and jumps… and more jumps.”

There was no question about the softness of the snow today at any elevation, and with my group ready promptly and raring to go at startup time, we headed right over to the Gondi for a sampling of its terrain.  I could see that there were plenty of bumps on Gondolier, so we tackled that first with a quick photo session in one of the first bump lines.  From there were moved over to the Fourrunner Quad and it was lap after lap with spring snow and visits to the terrain parks due to very high demand within the group.  By around 3:00 P.M. it was time to head back to Spruce for the s’mores session, and everyone finished the day off with what appears to be becoming the customary “post s’mores free skiing session” off the Sunny Spruce Quad.  I think almost all the skiers in the group, even Big Luke, dropped their poles for their final runs.  And with our snowboarders Cole and Ryan as part of the crew, I may have been the only person left with poles at the end of the day.  Those huge snow whales on West Slope are still going strong, and as you can imagine it was quite a raucous time out there on that terrain with the afternoon sun and continued soft snow.

An image of Ty skiing the Gondolier trail at Stowe Mountain Resort in VermontI finished up a bit early and was able to hike up for a bunch of extra photos on West Slope, and man what a treat it was to be able to photograph with so… much… light!  I had the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM out for the first time in a while, and was able to run at a shutter speed of 1/8000 sec and still stay down around ISO 100.  The bright March sun on glaring snow was almost too much, and I nearly had to stop down a bit to avoid overexposing the images.  For now though, it worked out at F/2.8 once I got all my settings tweaked, so hopefully folks will enjoy the sampling of action shots I’ve put with the report.  One of my favorite images from the day was definitely Big Luke in the Tyro Terrain Park – he actually requested the shot, so I had plenty of time to set it up just the way I wanted.  He aired it out and I think he’ll be pleased with the result.

An image of Dylan, Ryan, and Cole on the Mountain Triple Chair Lift at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont
Chairlift Games!

There’s not too much else to say about today’s skiing – the snow is in spring mode and so are the students, so it’s simply bumps, and jumps… and more jumps.  We’ll see what next weekend brings, but the weather models are certainly showing murmurings of a potential winter storm about a week out.  We’ll have to see if we can finally get one of these to take a decent track or whether we’ll get another one of the many raw deals we’ve had this season, but I suspect the winter weather enthusiasts are going to have an interesting week of model watching to see what this potential storm does.

Stowe, VT 06MAR2016

An image of the Spruce Peak Village at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont
An image of Ken skiing the Green Acres area at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont
Ken dropping into a line in Green Acres, where we found some of the best snow today at Stowe.

Based on my tour of the Bolton Valley backcountry yesterday, I didn’t anticipate skiing much powder today with our BJAMS ski group today at Stowe, and therefore I packed narrower skis for me and the boys. I’d say it was the right call, because we spent most of our time on piste, and aside from our initial runs on the softened slopes of lower Spruce Peak, the snow we found was roughly 20% decent and 80% crap.

Fortunately for us, we did start out on the lower slopes of Spruce Peak for the beginning of this afternoon’s session, and off the Sunny Spruce Quad the snow had softened in the sun from top to bottom. The boys had taken some earlier runs, and announced that we should head for Freddie’s Chute. I couldn’t believe that they were serious, because Freddie’s has all natural snow, faces south, and is loaded with ledges and rocks that quickly catch the sun and burn out the snow. Low and behold though, the coverage was there, so even though we haven’t had any really great winter storm cycles in the past few weeks (or at all this season for that matter) the storms of mixed precipitation that we have had are substantiating the snowpack in the mountains to some degree.

After some good turns on the lower slopes of Spruce Peak, we decided to do a few runs off the Sensation Quad. I hadn’t taken the group there at all this season, so it seemed like a good day to do it with no plans for our typical Mansfield powder explorations. I was actually surprised to see all of Spruce Line open for business aside from the initial headwall, and that’s amazing because patrol never seems to open that even when we have a ton of snow. We decided to make our way there by dropping into Green Acres, and that was where we undeniably found some of the best snow of the day. The high elevation and evergreen protection kept the snow soft and powdery in there, and it was deep enough that it was one of the few times today that I wished I’d brought wider skis. Spruce Line had some good shots, but the snow was generally dense or wind-packed, so while good, there wasn’t any of the powdery snow that we’d found in Green Acres. We did some additional runs off Sensation, hitting Sterling, Upper Smugglers, and Main Street Headwall, but they were all generally a mess of ice and firm snow with decent surfaces few and far between. Ken’s description of the worst areas was “plate ice”, which is that glare ice that’s got no redeeming qualities aside from the novelty of seeing the treads of the groomers carved into it. It’s just hideous stuff that really nobody in their right mind should have to ski.

Clouds were moving in at times, and with afternoon temperatures cooling down, snow that had softened in the sun was starting to firm up, so we headed back down to the lower slopes to finish off the day. We did a few more laps off the Sunny Spruce Quad, and even down there the snow wasn’t as soft as it was earlier, so it was changing from corn to frozen granular and becoming much less inspiring. We found that a number of us have similar boot sized and we started to switch around skis – I got to try Jack’s 163 cm Nordica Bad Mind skis (120-84-109), and that was a lot of fun because unlike my Salomon Scream 10 Pilot Hots, they’ve got some edge. I stayed on them for the rest of the day, and I thank Jack for the demo. Not only did his skis have edges, but they’ve only got a half season on them, so they’ve still got plenty of pop in them unlike my Salomons that are over a decade old.

An image of a Maple Latte from The Beanery at Stowe Mountain Resort in VermontAs the boys finished off the last few runs on their own, Ken and I took a run through the Ridge Glades and down in the glades below along the right of East Run. Some of that terrain off to the side of East Run is really steep, probably 35 degrees, and in horrible shape. Ken came into one of those steep lines very aggressively and had a pretty big tumble where his equipment went everywhere. He was generally OK, although he did say he tweaked his knee a bit and something popped, so he’s going to have to assess how things go over the next few days to see if it’s anything serious. That area of trees definitely fit in with the general 20% decent/80% crap, where there was probably 20% decent snow on the whole slope, and the rest was a combination of ice, roots, stumps, dirt, and whatever else isn’t snow – it’s just hideous. We do appear to have some snow coming into the area tomorrow, so hopefully that will add a bit more to the snowpack in areas that need it.

Stowe, VT 28FEB2016

An image of Ken skiing the Kitchen Wall area at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont
An image of Dylan skiing the Kitchen Wall area of Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont
Dylan drops into one of the Kitchen Wall snowfields today to enjoy some of the snow delivered to Mt. Mansfield from the past couple storms.

On our ski outing yesterday we got a taste of the current backcountry conditions at Bolton Valley, and today we got to see how the lift-served terrain at Stowe has been fairing since the snows from Winter Storm Petros. With additional snows falling overnight from another moderate system skirting the northern border of Vermont, conditions were improving dramatically the farther north one went. We had students in our group from Wolcott and Hyde Park that had picked up 4 inches of snow at their houses, and Jay Peak saw another 7 to 10 inches overnight.

An image of Ty skiing the Kitchen Wall area of Stowe Mountain Resort in VermontKen and I had a fairly large group with 7 students today, and based on the way the snow had played out yesterday at Bolton, we immediately took everyone to the top of the Gondola and into the lower reaches of the Kitchen Wall terrain to get a feel for how the powder was skiing. The snow was excellent, with a good 6 to 8 inches of midwinter powder for everyone to enjoy. The students commented on numerous occasions how good the snow was. The best powder lasted down to about the 3,000’ mark before it began to get thinner and a bit wetter. At that point we’d stick to the trails, where conditions varied from midwinter snow to spring like, to ice, depending on elevation and aspect.

An image of Jonah skiing the Kitchen Wall area of Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont
Jonah attacking a line on the Kitchen Wall

The kids had liked the first run so much that on our next one we took the high Kitchen Wall traverse and dropped into the untracked powder in one of the snowfields. There was a good 8-12” of snow up there, so bottomless turns were the norm. Even down below in the evergreens we found plenty of untracked lines and the kids’ overall energy was very positive. One line that we found ended up taking us basically through a cave, and you had to do some major body contortions to pull that line off smoothly.

Ken was thinking of paying a visit to Ravine, and I told him that we’d likely be able to ski the top ¼ at least based on what we found last week. We were all amazed to find the top entrance absolutely untracked at 3:00 P.M. on a Sunday afternoon, so some of the boys dropped in, and we eventually found out why it was being left alone. There was nice powder on top, but presumably some of the rain from Winter Storm Petros had wrecked the subsurface. It was a moonscape under there, so after skiing the available powder for a few hundred yards, we switched out to Gondolier for the rest of the run.

Unfortunately for Ken, he really brought the wrong pair of skis today. He was at Sugarbush yesterday where he found bulletproof conditions and struggled on skis with no edges. Anticipating the same thing today, he brought his freshly-sharpened, skinny, 195 cm old-school cruising skis. He couldn’t believe that we were skiing almost a foot of powder up high, and his long, skinny skis were essentially the exact opposite of what he would have liked to have in tight, powder-filled trees. We joked about how we used to ski everything on such skis, no matter how tight, but the new shorter, fatter, rockered, twin-tipped boards are so superior, and one can forget how much work it takes to push around those long sticks.

An image of the West Slope trail at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont with large snowmaking whales
Huge snow whales made for fun times on West Slope today

We finished off the day over at Spruce Peak, where areas in the sun were already turning to spring corn snow. The resort had made some huge snow whales on West Slope, and everyone was lapping those, which held soft snow and some great contours and drops. It’s definitely starting to feel like spring with the lasting sunlight we’ve got, but apparently we’ve still got some winter storm to come – the forecast suggests we’ve got three potential storms this week, so it should be interesting to see where things stand next weekend. Right now the Mt. Mansfield Stake is at 34”, so if things break right perhaps we’ll hit that magic 40” mark that means that most of the off piste terrain is reasonably well covered.

Stowe, VT 21FEB2016

An image of Wiley spraying powder snow while he skis in the Cliff Trail trees at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont
An image of Dylan skiing in the Cliff Trail Trees at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont
Stowe’s reporting up to 9 inches from our latest storm, and the BJAMS boys were out in force today doing their best to get into that fresh powder.

The Alberta Clipper system in our area had already dropped 4 to 6 inches of snow yesterday, and as of this morning the totals were passing a foot up at Jay Peak, and Stowe wasn’t too far behind. Heading northward was definitely the way to go today. It was generally just cloudy at our house, but right as we were passing north out of Waterbury into Stowe, the precipitation started to come down more vigorously, and the precipitation was snow, or a mix of rain/snow even down in the valley. That’s a good sign for even better things going on up high, and indeed precipitation changed over to all snow just as we hit The Matterhorn at around 1,000’.

Anticipating a day with fairly standard February light, I had my all around Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM on my 7D II, and although the snowfall was generally tapering off, I saw the clouds sitting on Mansfield up high and quickly switched out to my F/1.2 Storm Day Lens before I went out to meet my group. Based on everything I was hearing from Powderfreak, the powder was really sweet up in those clouds, and that was where we’d want to be getting today’s photos.

An image of Mt. Mansfied with clouds on the upper mountain at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont
With this view I knew we’d be shooting up in the clouds today, so I opted for the F/1.2 lens to get the most light under those conditions.

After a couple of sessions away, I was back with my regular group of BJAMS students today, which featured Luc, Ty, Wiley, Jonah, and Dylan. Our decision on where to go was easy based on my most recent beta, so we immediately high-tailed it over to the Gondi and headed up into the clouds. Our initial foray onto Gondolier revealed some very sweet snow – worlds better than what we’d encountered on the very same route just two weeks ago. I let the boys warm up on Gondolier for that first run before we thought about heading off piste, but boy was it tempting; short forays into the snow along the sides of the trail revealed a healthy 8-10” of medium-weight powder that skied like a dream – especially in this nightmare of a ski season. By the last third of the vertical, we found that the on piste snow got a bit firmer, and the powder got a bit thinner, but we’d already seen what we needed to see up top – it was definitely time to hit the trees.

“…short forays into the snow along the sides of the trail revealed a healthy 8-10” of medium-weight powder that skied like a dream – especially in this nightmare of a ski season.”

We worked the Gondola the whole afternoon, enjoying that great snow up top whenever possible and hitting lines in the Cliff Trail Trees, High Road Trees, Perry Merrill Trees, and Nosedive Glades. We even skied the top third of Ravine before we cut back to the piste to be on the safe side. It’s not an issue of rocks in there so much as we need just a bit more snow to put a deeper later above the ice – it is a streambed after all. We could see some great lines dropping into the top of the Hazelton Zone, and I’m sure they would have delivered for a few hundred vertical, but we knew that the turns would be tough by the bottom.

An image of Ty skiing powder snow in the High Road Trees at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont
Ty finding great snow in the High Road Trees on the upper elevation terrain of Mansfield

On the group dynamic side of things, I have to say I was very impressed with Jonah and Wiley. They were the most eager in the group when it came to hiking around a bit and they were definitely setting a tone for getting to the highest quality snow vs. easier access to the more typical surfaces. They have definitely figure out our group’s mindset and the current makeup of the team is really starting to mesh.

An image of Jonah on the Stowe Ice Slide at Stowe Mountain Ski Resort in Vermont
The boys hit the Stowe Ice Slide after s;mores for a good session of tricks and snowball bombardment.

We finished off the day hitting the s’mores session and watching the ice skaters in the Spruce Peak Village, followed up by a lot of time on the Stowe Ice Slide with slide tricks and simultaneous bombardment by snowballs. All in all this latest little storm resulted in a great step up in conditions at the mountain. We’ve still got a long way to go to get anywhere near a normal base depth, but the snowpack depth at the Mansfield stake hit 30” for the first time this season so some ground is being gained. A couple more storms are in the pipeline this coming week, so we hope they can play out reasonably well the way these last couple did, and keep that snowpack growing.

Stowe, VT 07FEB2016

An image of some BJAMS students having chocolate-covered waffles up at the top of the Gondola at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont
An image of a snowy evergreen by the Cliff House on Mt. Mansfield at the top of Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont
Although it hasn’t been especially wintry by any stretch of the imagination in Northern Vermont this week – the area below The Chin of Mt. Mansfield still seems to produce when it comes to snow.

I typically start off my daily ski trip reports with some discussion of the recent winter storms and how they played out with respect to the local powder and snowpack. This week though, there’s really not much to cover in that regard. Our most recent storm of note was last Saturday, which definitely offered up some powder for my visit to Bolton Valley, and then Sunday featured slightly milder temperatures that produced some nice soft snow on piste at Spruce Peak. Since then though, snowfall has really been flat.

We’ve cooled down somewhat since earlier last week, but that’s not a great recipe for good conditions without some new snow to soften things up. Nonetheless, today was a BJAMS ski program day at Stowe, so we headed off for our usual Sunday afternoon session. Today E decided to promote “service with a smile”, one of the themes from Catholic Schools Week, by assembling the student groups according to grade level instead of ability. The goal was to let the more advanced students in each group help the others work on their skiing. I was with Dave today coaching the fifth graders, which included Dylan, Molly, Calvin, and Ryan. I went with my Telemark skis since I figured I’d be able to handle everything at Molly’s pace, and it was my only outing for the weekend so I wanted to maximize my workout.

An image of the ice rink in the Spruce Peak Village at Stowe Mountain Ski Resort in Vermont
Checking out some of the facilities surrounding the new ice rink in the Spruce Peak Village while the kids take an early run before our ski program

There’s really not much one can do to sugarcoat a description of the general on-piste conditions though; although not quite at the level of “we just had a massive rainstorm and moonscape-generating flash freeze”, 80-90% of the trails were still heinously icy. I’d say some of the worst culprits we visited were Cliff Trail, Upper Nosedive, and Perry Merrill. Cliff Trail was insanely bad, simply due to its narrowness combined with the fact that its snow settles in like a half pipe and there are very few spots along the edges of trail to actually ski – in most spots trying to ski the edge means attempting to ride a huge double fall line.

An image showing four inches of snow near the Cliff House on Mt. Mansfield at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont.Fortunately there were some bright spots out there with decent, and at times even excellent, snow. The lower half of Spruce Peak had some nice spots, presumably due to being low enough in elevation and south facing to get the snow softening a bit. I’d say the very best snow of the day was from 3,000’ on up at the Gondola. Roughly 4 inches of recent snow had accumulated up there, and the powder along the edges of the trails and even the snow that people had pushed there was just so superior to most of what was available on the mountain. I will say that even in the worst of weather patterns, it’s hard to keep those upper elevations below The Chin down when it comes to snow. That area is an absolute snow magnet and skiing there definitely reminds one of what good snow is like. There were also plenty of areas with excellent snow along the edges of trails that had built up over the course of the day. In some cases you could go for dozens and dozens of turns and not even have to think about hitting any ice, but those accumulations along the trail edges can be hit or miss – sometimes they just disappear and you’re left dealing with the regular trail surface

“I’d say the very best snow of the day was from 3,000’ on up at the Gondola. Roughly 4 inches of recent snow had accumulated up there, and the powder along the edges of the trails and even the snow that people had pushed there was just so superior to most of what was available on the mountain.”

In any event, the kids did really well in terms of working on their short radius turns to ride the trail edges and stay in the good snow. Ryan had an especially good section on Lower Nosedive that left me very impressed. One goal was for the students who were more advanced in their skiing to help their peers by simply serving as models for those who were learning. Dylan did a great job in that regard by showing everyone just how tight turns can be when skiing those trail edges.

Fortunately we don’t have to ski next weekend because there’s no ski program due to the holiday, so perhaps Mother Nature will get her act together over the next couple of weeks to bring the conditions up to par for the second half of February. We do have some days of snow coming this week based on the forecast. There aren’t any big storms on the horizon, so we’ll have to see what the mountains do with the more modest events that are currently in the pipeline.

Stowe, VT 31JAN2016

An image of the ski groups at the BJAMS ski program at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont as they begin their afternoon program session
An image of Jay, Jack, Emma, and Dylan on the Meadows Quad Chair at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont
Today was Jack and Emma’s first time riding the Meadows Chair and exploring some of the Meadows terrain during the BJAMS ski program at Stowe.

E was short on instructors for our BJAMS ski program at Stowe today, so I took on a different group than my usual cadre of experts. I was with Jack, Emma, and Nolan, who are beginner skiers making generally wedge turns. Dylan came along to help me, and Nolan’s brother Lucas was also able to assist. Although our three beginning students have ridden the Inspiration Chair already, I started them off by ascending the small slope up to the magic carpet to let the kids work on edging. We proceeded with a couple of magic carpet runs to check speed control and wedge turns. That went swimmingly, so we moved to Inspiration and worked on wedge turns until everyone had successfully complete the short course of gates that was set up there. Then, it was on to the Meadows Chair.

Today’s visit to the Meadows Chair was the first for Jack and Emma, so naturally that was very exciting for them. Nolan was able to stick with his brother Lucas, which meant that Dylan and I were able to work with the others and give them specific attention. We took the easiest route down from the top of the Meadows Chair, which included some of the gentle terrain features (banked slalom, humps, spines) that the resort has set up for beginners. Both of the kids did a great job (Jack loves the banked slalom), and this was aided by the superb snow conditions that were available today – temperatures in the 30s F created snow that was beautifully soft but not mushy. Jack and Emma are both pretty much at the Stem Christi stage now, and I was able to start working with Emma on that during our last run after Jack had to leave. She’s in fact already done those types of turns before and is certainly ready to improve upon them, so I think she’ll only be incorporating more and more parallel components into her skiing as the next few weeks progress.

It looks like the coming week will be generally mild with some mixed precipitation, so I suspect the slopes will generally be soft until temperatures drop to more February-like levels. At that point surfaces will likely tighten up, so hopefully plenty of new snow will be on the way.