Visiting Bolton Valley today for some Telemark skiing in the leftover Thanksgiving powder
We’ve had some good snows over the past several days courtesy of the Thanksgiving Nor’easter that dropped about a foot at the Vermont ski areas, and a smaller upper level system that came through a couple days later and delivered a few more inches to the Northern Vermont resorts. We were traveling a lot visiting family during the timeframe of the storms, but we had a chance to head up to Bolton Valley and check out the snow today. Temperatures began to push above freezing this morning, so I knew that the powder was going to be getting a bit heavier, but it still seemed like it would be worth a quick trip up to the mountain. Ty was anxious to try out his new Telemark setup, so he certainly wanted to go, but knowing that the powder was going to be on the heavy side, E and Dylan decided to hold off for better snow and get some other stuff done instead.
Temperatures were already a couple of degrees above freezing when we arrived up at the Bolton Valley Village and made our way over to the base of Wilderness where we found 6 to 7 inches of snow. There were a couple of nice skin tracks in the Turnpike area, and the ascent went smoothly. Ty really enjoyed the free pivot on his Voile Switchback bindings for the ascent – he’s been waiting for a while to have bindings with that feature. We stopped our ascent on Old Turnpike before the pitch got to steep to support decent skiing with the available snow – there was actually about 10 inches up there, but there’s not much base yet, so steep, rockier pitches would definitely be rough on the ski bases.
As always, there were interesting sights along the tour.
The descent was fun, but a bit slow at times with the snow density increasing. Ty did well working on his Telemark turns, and having handled this dense snow, we both agreed that he’s really going to have a blast on his new gear when we get some higher quality powder. He’s got the Switchbacks mounted on a pair of the 2014 Völkl Gotama Junior skis, and at 118-86-111, these are actually a bit wider than previous versions of the ski that he’s had, which were more in the range of 113-80-105. These later versions may even have a bit more rocker in them, but in any event, they look like they’ll be great skis for powder. We stopped in at the Bolton Valley Deli & Grocery to grab a bit of food before heading back down into the valley, where the temperature had climbed into the upper 30s F. Although not great for the powder, these temperatures have really made clearing the snow from the driveway easy – it’s mostly gone simply from melting by warmth from above and below, so we haven’t had to shovel at all except for the berm left by the plow along the road.
With this new snow on top of the already decent snow I saw on my trip to the mountain Thursday, it sounded like ski conditions were going to be even better than what I’d experienced. E and Dylan and I headed north to BJAMS in Morrisville to help with the moving of some school library books and to pick up Ty from an overnighter at Kenny’s, so we got to see the changes in snowpack throughout the local mountain valleys. These last couple of storms that have targeted Mt. Mansfield have also targeted Stowe Village and points north, so from snow depths of an inch or two in Waterbury, the snowpack more than doubles in the Stowe/Morrisville area. After helping move some bins of books into the school’s new library area, we got Ty suited up, and he joined me and Dylan for a trip to Mt. Mansfield. Unfortunately E’s back has been a bit sore the past few days, so she decided not to stress it with skiing and stayed at school to work. Thus, it was just us boys for today’s ski tour.
Temperatures were a bit below freezing as we approached the Midway Lot at ~1,600′ near the base of the Gondola, and we could see plenty of activity over at the main Mansfield Base Area since it was Stowe’s opening day for lift-served skiing. The snow we found on the ground was definitely deeper than what I’d found at Midway on Thursday – a general 3 to 4 inches had turned into 5 to 6 inches. For today, I outfitted the boys with their alpine powder skis and Alpine Trekkers for skinning. We’ve still got to get skins for Ty’s new Telemark setup, but I’d prefer that they get a chance to ski on their alpines to get their season going anyway. The early season powder can be tricky, and I’d rather they just get the chance to have fun and not take on the added challenge of working on Telemark turns. I went with my fat Tele skis; they had worked quite well on Thursday, and the conditions were even more optimized for them today.
We followed a similar ascent route to the one I’d taken on Thursday – up Chin Clip Runout, onto Switchback and Gondolier, with some Perry Merrill thrown in as well. We finally stopped at around 3,500′ on Switchback because it didn’t look like there was much above that in the way of great snow. But, the boys had made the entire ascent, perhaps incentivized a bit by the fact that I told them they’d earn some sushi from Sushi Yoshi if they could manage it. That prize is sort of a win-win for everyone in the family, and they’re definitely at the stage that they can easily make that ascent now, but having that incentive there sure does keep everyone’s spirits high! While the snow surface contained a lot of wind slab where we stopped, just below that, the snow was deep and soft. The depth of the powder had increased by about an inch for every 500′ of vertical during most of our ascent, getting up to around the 8 to 9 inch range by 3,000′ or so, but above that it really jumped up. In areas out of the wind on the upper part of Switchback, we were finding 14 to 15 inches of settled snow, with pockets over two feet in depth. We knew that was the kind of snow where we’d really be able to lay into those powder turns and not worry about touching down on anything.
After a break at the top of our ascent, in which the boys took part in their nearly requisite play in the snow (this time in some deep stuff off in some nearby trees), we started down. That deep snow we’d seen up there on Switchback offered up some great powder turns as expected, and below that we just worked our way down the mountain choosing the best covered and least tracked routes we could find. We hit some nice powder on the skier’s left of Gondolier, and found a lot of good turns even lower down on Switchback. Coverage was indeed improved over what I’d seen Thursday, and the powder was staying fairly fluffy even though it was a day old. On the lift-served side of things, Stowe was offering 20 trails today, and it sounds like conditions were pretty decent due to the recent cold and snow. We’ve had some nice November conditions so far, and it looks like there may be some continued storminess this month – hopefully the snowpack can continue to grow.
Today’s tour gave us the first chance to out the Canon EOS 7D Mark II DSLR camera that we’d brought along. The 7D Mark II is Canon’s new APS-C sports shooter, and it’s weather sealed extremely well, has a 65-point autofocus system that is among the best in the world, and is built like a tank… just the way you’d want a camera to be made for dealing with the elements. It’s got twice the frame rate, two and a half times the number of pixels, and usable ISO values roughly ten times higher than what my Canon EOS 30D has, which is not surprising considering it’s about five generations newer and a step up in Canon’s performance lineup. It really is built for just the type of shooting we do, and it certainly seemed to live up to its reputation today. Late afternoon light on a cloudy Vermont day in November will give the light sensitivity of any camera a challenge, but I was still able to shoot the boys at 1/1,600 of a second due to the high useable range of the ISO. And, the ability of that focusing system in the low light conditions was very impressive. I also got to test out the video with a short clip of the boys playing in the snow, and my Canon EOS 30D doesn’t even have the option of video. We’ll hopefully have many more chance to put the camera to use this season as we learn all of its nuances and find the settings that fit our needs.
Getting out this morning to experience some of the powder at Stowe
Areas downwind of the Great Lakes such as Buffalo have been making headlines due to feet upon feet of lake-effect snow falling in rather short order, and in Northern Vermont we’ve picked up an inch or two of snow here and there thanks to being downwind of Lake Ontario. On Tuesday evening though, we got into the action a bit more as things aligned correctly to drop roughly a foot of snow on Mt. Mansfield. We only picked up about an inch and a half of snow at our house in Waterbury, in association with that event, so I didn’t even suspect that Mansfield had been lit up with that kind of snowfall. However, mountain valleys farther to the east of the Green Mountain spine picked up a few inches, and that was a bit of a tip off that something was up. When Powderfreak started sending in powdery pictures to the American Weather Forum noting the substantial accumulations at Stowe, it was becoming clear that there was some nice powder skiing out there.
I didn’t have time to check out the snow yesterday, so this morning I headed out for an early ski tour on Mansfield, and found 3 to 4 inches of snow at the Midway Lot near the base of the Gondola. I followed a well established skin track that headed up Chin Clip Runout, and then diverged to follow Switchback for the next part of the ascent. When I reached Gondolier I decided to just finish out the ascent to the base of the big Gondola waterfall on the skin track I saw there. I didn’t have time to travel any higher, but up at that ~3,200′ elevation there was roughly 6 to 7 inches of powder, which sat atop a few inches of dense base snow.
Enjoying the powdery view today at Stowe up around the 3,000′ elevation mark
The snow depths I observed for the powder above the base today were as follows with respect to elevation:
I dropped in for the descent on Perry Merrill, and there were just a couple of additional tracks there, so plenty of fresh powder was available. I’d pulled out the fat skis, and they were the perfect tool for the occasion – they kept me floating and gave me some really great stability. I did have to watch out for a few rocks here and there, and at times I switched to alpine turns when it seemed like the base was a bit thinner or the rocks a bit bigger. I found that alpine stance kept me floating a bit higher, and today I really noticed how the AMPerages actually seemed to make it easier to ski alpine style in Telemark bindings. It’s not always easy to ski alpine with a loose heel, but I was very surprised at how stable it felt in today’s conditions. I think the stability and rocker of the fat skis were really playing their part. I eventually made my way back over toward Switchback and connected to Chin Clip Runout to finish off my run, and the grassy slopes down there were perfect for where the powder and base was a bit shallower. It was still fantastic skiing though, and some of my favorite turns of the outing were down there below the 2,100′ elevation. That terrain is so grassy with few rocks that it was easier to just let it ride without worrying about rocks. Rock skis would give you a bit more ease of line selection out there and more peace of mind, but you can certainly get by and have some fantastic turns with regular skis as well.
Out for some early season turns at Stowe on the slopes of Mt. Mansfield
With the recent snow I headed up to Stowe this morning to check out the conditions and make some turns. The weather had cleared out since yesterday’s storminess, but it was still fairly cool, and much of the snow that had accumulated in the valleys was hanging around. There were skiffs of it on the shady rooftops in Stowe Village, but it wasn’t until up around the 1,000′ elevation that it really began to appear in traces on the ground.
Up at the resort there was an inch or two at the base of Mansfield, and there were a few dozen cars in the Mansfield Parking Lot from other folks who were out for some activity on the snow. The snow guns were blazing on the usual North Slope route, so when I saw a skin track heading up a much quieter Hayride, I decided to give it a shot. Right from the base there was plenty of snow for skinning, and as the depth increased with elevation, it held up fine even on Hayride’s steeper pitches. Whoever set that skin track was right on the money; they kept the pitch fairly consistent and made appropriate switchbacks instead of trying to scramble their way up those steep shots. There were even some nice alternative tracks to fit your preference – some a bit steeper and some a bit shallower.
At the top of Hayride I finally ran into the snow guns on Upper Lord, so I cut across to the top terminal of the Lookout Chair (3,325′) to get out of the noisy fray of spray. Looking upward toward Ridge View and Upper Lord, I could see that they were both being blasted by the guns, so I decided that it wasn’t worth pushing on through that and called it an ascent. Temperatures were somewhere in the mid to upper 20s F at that elevation, and I spent a few minutes during the ascent changeover poking around, getting some wintry photos, and checking out the snow quality. My depth checks along the my ascent were made challenging by the lack of base and plenty of fluffy grass beneath the new snow, but my best estimates for natural snow would be the following with respect to elevation:
There was some drifting, and I found depths of up to 15″ at some of the water bars.
I began my descent on some of the lesser used trails up there around the top of the Lookout Chair that weren’t getting hit by the guns, and managed some early season powder turns. In a few spots some of the overspray of snow from the main trails messed with the consistency of the powder, but in general there was plenty of space for good turns in natural snow. Once back onto the snowmaking terrain I found that the untracked snow from the guns was unfortunately a sticky mess, but decent turns could be had where other skiers had done a bit of their own grooming and churning up of the snow. It was a bit tough to resist the usual urge to go for the least tracked snow, but the turns were often quite good in those places with skier traffic. The very worst turns were on the periphery of the snowmaking where soft natural snow was covered with a layer of dense, artificial snow. That was almost like putting a manmade crust over the snow, and it was definitely Tele hell. I learned quickly to not even go near that stuff.
The snow stayed wintry all the way back to the base, although the temperatures were just starting to crack the freezing mark when I got down there. The snow along the Mountain Road was still hanging on though as I got back down around that 1,000′ mark. I did stop in to check on the construction in the Spruce Peak Base Area on my way home, and boy is that another big project. Parking is really going to be at a premium this season, as there’s essentially nothing for day parking over at Spruce with the construction taking place. The month of November looks like it’s going to be reasonably cool, so hopefully we’ll get some additional snow, but at least the snow guns should be able to keep running to put down base.
“We just documented our first frozen precipitation and accumulation of the season down here at 500’ in the valley. It started pouring out a few minutes ago as one of those bursts of precipitation came through in the northwest flow – you can see those yellow 28 db returns that disappear as the pulse of moisture barrels into the mountains:
As a pulse of heavier moisture ran into the mountains today, it dropped snow all the way down to our house in the Winooski Valley
Hearing the racket of the heavy precipitation outside, I decided to check out on the back deck because I know how these things sometimes go – indeed there was frozen precipitation among the rain, in the form of sleet and other dense granules that can typically make it down through the warmer layers of the atmosphere. I don’t even have my snowboard set up yet, but our picnic table out back sufficed to catch the accumulation. Seasonally, the timing of this event was right on track, with the mean for the first trace of snow here at Oct 20th from nine seasons of data. The event has actually brought the median value for that first trace of frozen down from Oct 21st to be right in line with that mean date of the 20th, and the S.D. dropped from seven days to six, so it’s helped to tighten up the data spread. The accumulation might have actually reached the 0.1” threshold for an official accumulation, but I was definitely caught off guard and by the time I grabbed my ruler and made measurements, all the accumulation was below that 0.1” mark so it will have to go down as a trace.”
We’ve been hearing mentions of snow in the recent weather forecasts, mostly about how we’re getting close to those temperatures where the mountains can start to see flakes, and today I saw the first reports of snow up in the higher elevations. One of the engineers manning the broadcast equipment up on Mt. Mansfield snapped a picture of some of the flakes falling to document the first Vermont snow of the season. It’s not too surprising, with Mt. Mansfield close to the freezing mark this morning along the ridge line. A bit higher up, the summit of Mt. Washington in New Hampshire is sub freezing at this point. It’s October now, and although it looks like we’ll have plenty of nice weather coming over the next week, it’s the time of year when the mountains can start getting snow at any time, so we’ll be on the lookout for upcoming snow chances.
I stopped in at Bolton Valley this morning to check out the snow and make some turns, eager to see how the Timberline area was doing. Up to this point I’ve only skied the main mountain, because the snowpack down at the Timberline elevations was just a bit too marginal. The snowstorm we just had over the weekend was fairly significant though, with close to a foot of snow for the ski resorts in Northern Vermont, and with additional small rounds of fluffy snow topping things off this week, I suspected that Timberline would finally be ready for some turns.
Temperatures have warmed up significantly from where they’ve been over the past several days, and this morning’s valley temperatures in the mid 20s F were very nice. The shot of snow that we picked up this morning in association with a passing warm front had essentially dissipated by the time I was driving up to the hill, and I found just cloudy skies as I geared up for my ascent.
“…I set the AMPerages together alpine style, then schussed the next 30-40 feet of the headwall before dropping into Tele turns in the fluff along the skier’s left of the trail.”
Right off the bat as I began my ascent behind the Timberline Lodge, I started probing the snow to get a sense of the depths and consistency. I found roughly 10 inches of powder in undisturbed areas just above the lodge, and it was indeed nice, but it only had a bit of a density gradient to it. The more surprising thing was that there was little if any base below the powder. There must not have been much snow down at those low elevations before the weekend storm. I followed a nice skin track that took the typical route, wrapping around the lodge and heading up the skier’s right of Twice as Nice. I saw some great-looking powder along the skier’s left of the trail which is more protected from the sun, but there continued to be little if any base along the skin track. That lack of base had me concerned, but once I was above 2,000’ it started to kick in even in the sunnier areas. I was getting snow depth readings of roughly a foot above that level, and there were at least a couple inches of dense base snow. At the mid station I looked toward the upper section of terrain and could tell that with the wind, it wasn’t really going to be worth the additional hike. I traversed across to assess the descent options, and although the tracks on Twice as Nice looked good, Spell Binder looked a bit better.
I switched over for the descent and side-stepped cautiously down the first 20 feet or so of the headwall. I could tell that the snow was thin in that area due to wind scouring, but below that it was much better. I had enough confidence in the coverage to ski the next section of the headwall, but I wanted maximum floatation just to be safe, so I set the AMPerages together alpine style, then schussed the next 30-40 feet of the headwall before dropping into Tele turns in the fluff along the skier’s left of the trail. It felt like the perfect melding of alpine and Telemark technique, and dropping the knee into those lower turns was oh so good. I did a couple of depth checks along the edge during the descent, and generally found at least a foot of snow, with up to 17 inches in one of the deeper spots. The powder there had that fantastic density gradient that delivers great turns. As is often the case, the Timberline area has managed to deliver some of the finest turns of the season so far.
Gorgeous Timberline fluff
Down at the car, I ran into Brian, one of our graduate students, who was also catching a morning ski constitutional before heading to work. He’d taken Twice as Nice, and said that he had to be on his guard at times. He’s bigger than me, and his skis weren’t quite as wide as mine, but based on our conversation I think I’d give Spell Binder the nod on conditions. Temperatures warmed up to around the freezing mark down in the valley, and that felt nice. We’d supposedly got a big storm, or series of storms coming through the area this weekend, and although there’s going to be a lot of mixed precipitation, it could be a good snowpack builder as well. We’ll just have to see how it plays out.
Yesterday E had her training day for our school’s ski program at Stowe, and boy was it cold – it was below zero F for the entire morning. I’d sent E off with plenty of hand and foot warmers, and she made use of them. She actually cracked the lens in her goggles toward the end of the morning, but by then everyone was just about done anyway. I don’t think there were many takers for afternoon turns once the requisite training items were covered in the morning.
Things were a little different for my training day today – temperatures were rising through the teens F, and oh yeah, there was a bit of a snowstorm in the intervening period. This storm was one of those that comes out of the Ohio Valley and redevelops off the New England coast, and it brought up to 19 inches of new snow for the Vermont ski areas. Snowfall totals were a bit lower for the Northern Vermont ski areas, generally approaching a foot, but as my snow analyses had shown, there was plenty of liquid equivalent in the snow; as of this morning, we’d picked up close to ¾ of an inch of liquid in the snow and the density was close to 10% H2O. The snow was of course quite dry with the cold temperatures in the area, but it certainly wasn’t fluff that might be prone to blowing away.
“The snow depth at the Mt. Mansfield Stake isn’t quite to that 24” mark yet, but people are definitely starting to ski those areas of early season trees.”
For today’s training session, Claire assigned me to the level eight group, and when the instructors were dividing up the trainees in that group, they further broke them up by those who had already skied five days or more, and those who hadn’t. Although I’d yet to ride a ski lift this season, I’ve been out several times already, so I joined the former group, with Steve as our instructor.
“During today’s session, Steve brought us into Sunrise Glades, Birch Glades, and Lower Gulch Glades, and they were all in
pretty good shape.”
With all the new snow, Steve’s plan for the day was to let us ski a lot. Instead of working on drills, he wanted to work on group management (i.e., how do the coaches effectively manage their groups of students on the slopes) in between the skiing. This was actually a nice change of pace, since E and I have had plenty of sessions with drills for both us and the students over the past few training sessions. One new group management technique that I learned today was for brining the kids into new areas of trees. What Steve likes to do is to show the students the entrance to the glade, but instead of entering that first time, he goes around to the exit of the glade via the trails. That way, the students know what is in store, and are ready with a little more directional orientation for when they actually do ski the glade. We talked a lot about strategies to use when bringing the kids into the trees, and it was a good fit for the trainees in our group, because many worked with the advanced students and were indeed doing a lot of off piste skiing. Steve also worked on the partner strategy for ensuring that everyone is accounted for at each stop. We actually had a real-time demonstration of its effectiveness, since my partner John had misheard our lift destination on one run and ended up at the Gondola instead of the Fourrunner Quad. Since we knew he was missing, I was able to run over to the Gondola and retrieve him.
Grabbing the Tele boards for some afternoon turns
In terms of conditions, naturally they were best early on – we had a couple of great runs down Perry Merrill with good packed snow, and chowder and powder off to the edges. It was nice that Steve just let us rip it up. I generally found 12” of powder whenever I looked in undisturbed places, which is presumably the combination of snow from this storm and that frontal passage the other day. The snow depth at the Mt. Mansfield Stake isn’t quite to that 24” mark yet (22” as of this evening’s report), but people are definitely starting to ski those appropriate areas of early season trees. During today’s session, Steve brought us into Sunrise Glades, Birch Glades, and Lower Gulch Glades, and they were all in pretty good shape. If you were going for lines of fresh powder, you wanted to be on your guard a bit since there are still some obstacles about, but in many spots it was hard to tell that it was so early in the season. In areas that had seen skier traffic and had packed snow, you could just ski it and really didn’t have to worry about coverage issues. In any event, it was definitely nice to be back in the trees. Indeed those runs listed are the more moderately pitched, well maintained glades that are amenable to these earlier visits, but they’re very low on the mountain and that says a lot about the current state of the snowpack.
After some lunch and paperwork at the Great Room Grill, Steve said that we were done, but that anyone who wanted to could meet with him at 1:00 P.M. and work on identifying weaknesses in student’s ski technique and how to remedy the situation. Having done a lot of that over the past few sessions, I decided I’d just grab a pair of my Tele skis from the car and take a final run or two before heading home. I was just going to grab my mid fats and head back over toward the Chapel Glades, but then wondered if the Sensation Quad was open – if it wasn’t, it might be a nice place to earn some turns. With that in mind, I grabbed the fat boards off the rack, finding everything covered in a layer of new snow that had fallen during the morning. Once I checked in at the lift status board at the Spruce Peak Base, I saw that indeed the Sensation Quad was running. That meant that the terrain over there on Spruce would likely be pretty packed out, but I decided to just go for it instead of making yet another trip back to the car.
I took a trip up the Sunny Spruce Quad and made my way over toward the base of Sensation. There were actually very few people over in that area, but in terms of traffic, the damage had been done earlier in the day. There were still pockets of powder off to the sides of trials, but with Main Street closed for snowmaking, terrain was limited. Even the hiking terrain above the top of Sensation was tracked up, so people had clearly been doing what they could to get some powder with the limited acreage that’s currently available on Spruce Peak. In spots where the snow surface was down to manmade snow, the fat skis were definitely a poor tool for the job. I ended up just going with alpine turns in the areas where the snow was firm like that, because getting the fat skis on edge in a Telemark stance in those areas felt like trying to get a snowboard on edge on icy terrain. They’re just not meant to do that well. I will say that I notice the deficiencies of fat, rockered skis much less when I ski them alpine, so that may be one reason that so many people are willing to use them as more all around skis (or they just go in with the recent marketing trends and figure that’s the way it is). With my legs cooked from the morning’s runs, I was very ready to call it a day after that trip to the bottom. I really would have liked to venture over to the snowfields above Meadows for some powder, but they had that area roped off because of snowmaking below. It was looking so good in there with the tracks from when it had been skied – hopefully I can get in there on my next Stowe powder day.
The ski tour we took yesterday was certainly considered a success, since both E and Ty were saying positive things today, and Ty was expressing to Dylan that he missed out on some fun. With the prospects for a little more snow today from a passing Alberta Clipper, I figured another visit to the mountain was in order, and I decided to make it at the end of the day once the new snow had started to accumulate and top off the powder. I couldn’t quite convince anyone else to come with me since they were having too much fun sledding or doing other stuff, so it was another solo outing.
I wasn’t exactly sure when the snow was supposed to start, but eventually it looked like I was going to run out of light, so around 3:00 P.M. I finally headed out. Fortunately, flakes had just started falling in the valley, so I knew the snow would already be well underway up on the hill. Up at Bolton Valley, the temperature in the Village at 2,100’ was 30 F and a steady light snow was coming down. The flakes weren’t huge, but it was accumulating on my equipment quickly enough that gear left out took on a coating within a minute or two.
“Fanny Hill ultimately lost out to Work Road because the snow was just too good – 6 to 8 inches of fluff and hardly a track.”
After using Turnpike for the past couple of ascents, and seeing that skier traffic there had been decent, I decided to go for an alternative ascent route up through the Fanny Hill area. It would give me a chance to check out the skiing in that area, and still head over toward the Wilderness Lift Line if I didn’t find anything that seemed to top what we skied yesterday. My first interesting sight was right as I was starting my ascent on Lower Fanny Hill – on one of the small cross trails there was a group of folks hanging out in a protected nook in the trees, just sitting in a circle of chairs and chatting. I suspect they were from the Liftline Condos that were just beyond. There was no wind, so with the light snow falling and temperatures around 30 F, it was indeed a fun time to be outside; it just seemed like a fitting thing to be doing on a dark Sunday afternoon in December.
Upon reaching Fanny Hill, the snow looked good, so I decided to continue my ascent there and explore the surfaces further. In general there were the same several inches of powder above the base snow that we’d encountered on the Wilderness Lift Lineyesterday, and only when I got into the steeper sections of terrain near the top did the pitch seem to be too much for the snowpack. In a nice undisturbed spot along the edge of the trail at 2,600’, I was able to check the full snowpack at that elevation, and that came in at 13”. I’d say that consisted of a 6” base, and the rest was powder on top
I continued up toward Upper Fanny Hill, generally staying away from the Sherman’s Pass area where I could hear the snow guns running. Those higher trails like Coyote, Work Road, Lower Crossover, and Swing, held deeper snow and had seen much less traffic. They were definitely going to be on my descent route. I stopped my ascent around 2,900’ on Upper Fanny Hill just before the steepest pitches, because I could see that they were somewhat windswept and just didn’t have the coverage they needed yet.
I played it by ear on the descent, just watching for those trails with deep snow that had seen minimal traffic. Fanny Hill ultimately lost out to Work Road because the snow was just too good – 6 to 8 inches of fluff and hardly a track. That brought me over to the Wilderness Lift Line, and since we’d skied the skier’s right yesterday, I took the skier’s left today and found the same type of good snow. I’m sure Fanny Hill would have been fine as well, but after committing to Work Road I went where gravity took me. The rest of the descent back to the Village was just like yesterday, good soft snow, so no complaints.
It was getting pretty dark when I was leaving, but the group of folks was still hanging out in their little alcove in the trees – it was a good spot. As I made my way along some of the Liftline Condos, I saw a woman pushing something along through the snow – she made her way through some of the deeper snow around the back of the condos, and then was out of view for a bit before she got onto the street and I could get a picture I didn’t know if it was a stroller, or just some other sort of vehicle for moving things, but whatever the case, the fact that it was on skis was intriguing. Clearly it seemed to be somebody who knows the Bolton Valley environment.
Bolton Valley Village version of getting around
It snowed all the way down to the valley when I was heading back to the house around 5:00 P.M., and the temperatures had fallen below the freezing mark even at the bottom of the access road down at 340’. It looks like the next opportunities for snow are some light stuff in the early week, and then a frontal system later in the week.
