Jay skiing the deep powder in the Villager Trees at Bolton Valley today - let's just say that the skiing was GOOD!
Dave had heeded my late week alert about the good skiing, so yesterday evening we worked out a Sunday morning Timberline meeting. The clipper system that had started up midday yesterday dropped roughly 4 inches of new snow at the house by 6:00 A.M. this morning, with most of that coming in at 3.7 to 3.8% H2O according to my analyses. What it meant for the local mountains was more fluff on top of fluff, so the powder skiing just continued to get deeper. Dylan had a midday birthday party (shouldn’t there be a Vermont state law mandating only evening birthday parties during ski season?), and E was taking him to that, leaving just Ty and I to join up with Dave. On the upside it meant that Dave and I could really run Ty ragged as we marauded our way through Bolton’s powder stashes… and apparently run him ragged we did.
Bolton had only reported 3 inches of new snow in the morning, but based on what we got at the house, combined with what we found on the hill, I think it was a bit underreported. Conservative snow reports are generally appreciated though. While we waited for Dave to arrive at the mountain, we took a warm up run on Spell Binder, and I found 6 to 8 inches of snow on much of the trail. Ty really ripped it up on there and he was off to a great start. Continue on with all the powdery pictures and text at the full report from Bolton Valley today.
Dave, waist deep in some of the powder today above Adam's Solitude up at Bolton Valley
Ty hits up some of Bolton Valley's powder in the Wizard Way trees today.
Last week’s midweek system had continued the excellent stretch of snow, yielding a great dose of dry Champlain Powder™ up at Bolton for Thursday, and then snowfall from that system continued at a slower pace right into the holiday weekend where a clipper was due to add more fluff. Today, the whole family headed up to the mountain to try and catch up with Stephen his kids for the reopening of Wilderness. Ty was a bit out of sorts at first, so Dylan and I took a mid mountain run on Timberline to get going. The snow quality was excellent on piste, not quite perfect in coverage since there were a couple of spots to watch out for as we skied the skier’s right of the Showtime headwall, but any coverage issues there were pretty minor.
Once everyone was set, we headed over to the main mountain and hooked up with Stephen, Johannes, and Helena. With all the kids, the makeup of the group was constantly in flux, but on my end I had a couple of ripping runs through the Turnpike bobsled tracks with the Ty and Johannes. We hit those banked corners like race cars. On another run I was guiding Ty, Johannes, and Helena through some of the Wizard Way trees, and the end result literally saw Helena swimming the backstroke through the deep powder to get back to the trail. Unfortunately I didn’t get a shot of that, but I did grab one of Ty in there working the powder.
Johannes and Stephen were also out getting pictures, and they put together a substantial slide show along with Johannes’ report from the day at VTSkiReport.com. Amanda was out on the Nordic network for a tour, and it sounds like she had quite an adventure, but I really liked her description “It felt like walking through clouds” with regard to going through the powder. It certainly was that kind of snow. I was happy to have my first Kurt Ries sighting of the season, and learned that he has the same Telemark skis as me! A definite thanks goes out to Icelantic at First Tracks for turning me onto those. I actually saw no less than four pairs of RT 86s at the mountain on Saturday, all mounted Tele, so they seem to be quite popular. To check out the rest of the story, head to the full report from Bolton Valley today.
We caught some great pictures of the surrounding forest as we ascended the Bryant trail on our backcountry outing up at Bolton Valley today.
We’d found that temperatures had cooled down a bit yesterday afternoon at the end of our Bolton outing, and slopes that were not in the sun had begun to tighten up. In general though, temperatures stayed relatively warm, and there was no new snowfall through this morning. We hung out at the house in the A.M., and as skies brightened a bit in the afternoon, Dave and I headed up to Bolton. Since there weren’t going to be any substantial changes in the spring-like snow conditions we’d experienced yesterday, and some of the natural snow trails were going to be closed due to the warmth, we decided to do a tour on the Nordic/backcountry trail network. Dave had never been on Bolton’s backcountry network, so he needed to at least get a taste of the plentiful options for turns.
Up in the village, there was one other car in the corner of the tennis lot providing quickest access to the Broadway area, so I’m guessing they had the same idea as us. In general though, things were quiet aside from a few Nordic skiers moving around the trails. We skinned the skis and headed toward World Cup where we found a group of patrollers checking passes. I can’t recall the last time I had my pass checked on the Nordic network, but I’ve heard the mountain is doing it more frequently this season so that’s nice to see. We chatted with the patrollers for a bit – they were initially wondering if we were planning to stay at the cabin, but we let them know we were just out for a quick tour.
We headed up the Bryant trail and it was a really pleasant ascent. Temperatures were in the 40s F so we stopped frequently for photography to capture the sights. At one photography stop, a couple of patrollers stopped by and we talked for a while. We chatted about skis, cameras, and some of the new glades, and then they headed on their way up to take care of a tree that had fallen onto one of the trails. Coverage on Bryant and in the surrounding backcountry was excellent, with generally a couple feet of settled snow. We did see a couple of small openings in streams along the side of the trail, but they were more an opportunity for photos than anything. Any stream crossings on Bryant were in fine shape and there was no open water across the trail. To check out the rest of the text, images, and GPS track, continue on to the full Bolton Valley Nordic/Backcountry report from today.
Jay enjoys some deep snow in Bolton Valley's glades today.
After Tuesday’s great outing with the boys, the whole family headed out for more turns today. The skies had been somewhat gray on yesterday, but the sun was back today and consistent with the forecast trends, the temperatures were climbing to the low 30s F.
There hadn’t been any new snow, so we didn’t find ourselves out to the slopes until midday, but the Timberline area still seemed to be following the trends I’ve seen over the week and most visitors were presumably over at the main mountain. We kicked things off on Spell Binder, and the most obvious change in on piste conditions from Tuesday was that the powder and chowder had been replaced by packed powder. I found that there was still powder to be had if I went very tight to the edge of the trail, but it had to be helmet-scraping tight.
We then headed off to the trees for a bit to get in some powder skiing – E had gone with alpine skis for the day so that we could explore some steeper lines and see how they were faring. Our first test was the steep terrain dropping into the KP glades, which revealed that tight evergreens at around the 2,000’ elevation had still not seen enough snow to support much traffic or aggressive skiing. The evergreens had not allowed enough snow to fall to the forest floor, but the mixed evergreen/hardwood glades below were in prime form and yielding great untracked turns. To check out the rest of the details and see all the pictures from today, head to the full December 30th, 2010 trip report from Bolton Valley.
Ty tackling some steep terrain in the Wood's Hole Glades
After finding excellent snow conditions at Timberline near the end of the Nor’easter yesterday afternoon, it looked like lift-served skiing was going to be fantastic on today. E was a little under the weather and wanted to get some things done around the house, so it was going to be a ski day for the boys.
We got up to Timberline around 10:15 A.M., and conditions were looking good. The temperature was 20 F, skies were clear, and the wind had abated. The Bolton Valley website had indicated a planned Timberline opening of sometime in the 9:00 A.M. – 10:00 A.M. range, and I’m not sure what time they’d finally started loading, but there was hardly anyone there when we arrived. After experiencing lift queues at Vista on Thursday and Friday, it was very nice to have Timberline open again.
We kicked things off with a run down Spell Binder to get the boys warmed up, and Ty was really enamored with the snow and pitch on the headwall. He’s definitely been waiting for the season to get going so additional steeper terrain could open, and he was really hootin’ and hollerin’ on that run and exclaiming how “awesome” it was. It wasn’t untracked, but as usual the skier’s right held lots of chowder, with plenty of deep loose snow and a really nice subsurface. Both boys had fun making their sloughs, or “avalanches” as they call them, slide down the slope. Below the headwall, there was still ample fresh snow along the skier’s right to provide lots of powder turns. I generally found 12-18 inches of powder along there depending on how far I got towards the trees, and although it wasn’t Champlain Powder™, it was at least medium weight fluff protected from the wind and it skied really well. While I worked the powder, the boys were generally in and out of there often playing in the chowder and taking lots of jumps off the remnants of the water bars. To see all the pictures and read the rest of the story, click through to the report from Bolton Valley today.
Temperatures in the low double digits F and plenty of wind outside didn’t have me jumping out the door to hit the hill, but with the way it continued to snow at the house, I figured it had to be doing even better in the higher elevations. Bolton was reporting that everything but their surface lift was on wind hold, but I decided to head up to Timberline to make some turns. I’d missed the chance to check it out on Sunday when it was planned to open, so this would be a good chance to see how it was skiing.
I arrived up the Timberline base (1,500’) to a temperature of 9 F, and decent winds in probably the 20 to 30 MPH range. There were a couple of other cars in the upper lot that belonged to folks doing the same thing I was, but the whole scene was one of a desolate winter storm. Another fellow had headed up just a few minutes before me, so I followed his skin track… or at least I think I did because even in that short time it was starting to disappear in places due to the wind and falling snow. I ascended the usual Twice as Nice route, and was surprised at how nice the snow was. I was wondering if everything was going to be scoured down to something hard, but that wasn’t the case – there’s a really good base of natural snow, and an even in spots where the new snow had been blown away, the underlying surface was either packed powder or some sort of Styrofoam material. In actuality though, it was only isolated spots that were even down to that surface, most of the new powder was still there. Since the wind was from the north instead of the west, that was probably a better setup for the generally west-facing Timberline terrain. I checked the depth on my ascent and generally found between 3 and 7 inches of new snow, so the mountain had definitely picked up more snow since their morning report.
Ty out there ripping up some of the powder on Bald Hill today
Saturday was another potentially good day for some backcountry skiing in Northern/Central Vermont, since snowfall had again been rather minimal in the area during the preceding week. At the house in Waterbury, we’d picked up just 1.4 inches of snow in the Sunday/Monday range from a storm that favored parts of Maine and Southern New Hampshire with up to a foot, and then 1.6 inches of snow in the Tuesday/Wednesday timeframe from an upper level low coming out of the Great Lakes. As for the mountains, I saw accumulations topping out in the 4 to 5 inch range for the Bolton through Sugarbush stretch, with amounts tapering off to the north. The forecast on Saturday called for a cold start in the 0 F range, but brilliant sunshine and eventual temperatures in the 20s F. Weather wise, it was an excellent time to get outside.
“The combination of settling and the thin breakable crust in some spots made things tricky at times, but it was all soft and fun.”
With the snowfall thoughts in mind, the plan was to do some skiing off the west side of the Camel’s Hump/Mt. Ethan Allen area. Unfortunately, on Friday we found out that Tom had tweaked his knee and ankle at soccer, so the ski group for the day was going to be just James, Ty, and myself. We met up with James in Huntington Center a bit after 9:00 A.M., and decided on an initial plan of heading up the Forest City Trail to do some skiing on the lower flanks of Mt. Ethan Allen (3,674’), the next prominent peak south of Camel’s Hump. We headed up Camel’s Hump Road, finding that the access to the Forest City trailhead was going to be difficult because the road there wasn’t plowed in the winter. There was a little room along the snowbank to potentially park a couple of cars, but a more important factor in our case was the added distance to get to the trailhead. Ty’s backcountry range is not that great yet, so we weren’t looking for a big approach. There was the option to connect over to the Forest City Trail from the Burrows Trailhead area, but we decided to just do something simple off the Burrows Trail. James had commented to me earlier that there was going to be a temperature inversion in effect, and that was indeed what we saw on our ascent of Camel’s Hump Road. From down in Huntington Center (690’) where the temperature was somewhere in the middle single digits, the temperature was up around 10-11 F at the trailhead parking area (~1,900’). The lot was about half full, and while we geared up, we could see that several parties of people were heading out for hikes on snowshoes.
Some of the powder stacked along the Burrows Trail
Starting up on the Burrows Trail, I checked the snowpack and found a couple inches of fluff on top of a generally thin crust, atop a lot more settled powder. A few of the lower elevation stream crossings on the trail were open with small gaps, and that represented a bit of a challenge for Ty, but he managed well. We didn’t have any lofty goals in mind other than getting in a little skiing, since our ultimate destination would likely be affected by Ty’s mood and stamina. Our pace was pretty slow with Ty taking his time, but it was an easy go, and everyone’s skins were working well on the packed trail. There were lots of dogs, lots of people on snowshoes (including a bigger group that seemed to be from the UVM Outing Club), and we also saw a party of about four skiers that passed us on their way up the trail. One of the more interesting sights was a woman coming down trail at breakneck speed on a sled that looked like a booster seat. We made sure to move out of her way, but she seemed to be very conscious of the uphill traffic and stopped easily. James inquired about how her sled worked, and she demonstrated that for braking, you just lean back. I know that people like to use those Mad River Rocket-style sleds on the trail and elsewhere, but this was the first time I’d seen what this woman had.
Ty and James ascend Bald Hill.
Up to about the 2,300’ elevation mark the surrounding vegetation was on the brushy side, but above that point it began to thin out and the potential for skiable lines looked a little better. Off to our right, we could see some open, moderate angle slopes across the big gully that had begun to parallel the trail, and off to the left we could see the more obvious lines that steepened on the way up to Bald Hill (3,041’). Ty had some good bursts of skinning speed when we kept him motivated, but as inquiries about how far we were going and when we would get to ski became more frequent, we decided it was time to think about our descent route. Heading off to the left for the lower slopes of Bald Hill was going to make things easiest for getting back to the trailhead for Ty, so a bit above 2,500’ when we hit one of the skin tracks breaking off the Burrows Trail and going in that direction, we took it. The change of scene was enough to keep Ty motivated for a little bit longer, since we were able to tell him that we’d be able to descend soon.
We headed up into the glades a little farther, reaching an elevation of about 2,700’ before Ty seemed to be getting just a bit too antsy. There were plenty of good lines available with untracked snow, but we could see that taking them would mean dropping right back down to the Burrows Trail almost immediately. So, we continued to contour westward to get something that might drop a little more directly to the trailhead. We could only traverse so far though, since Ty knew we were close to skiing and his inquiries started up again. When we finally called it on the traverse, James and I skinned up a little farther to catch a nice looking line, while Ty waited just below us.
Jay enjoys some turns in the beautiful powder out there on Bald Hill.
The skiing was good, and definitely worth the hike, but certainly not perfect or quite up to what I’d found off the Monroe Trail the previous weekend. The combination of settling and the thin breakable crust in some spots made things tricky at times, but it was all soft and fun. Ty stuck with just alpine turns, but had a lot of fun catching air and working on his jumping technique. Our extra traversing had bought us a little longer descent, but we still dropped back to the Burrows Trail pretty quickly. Instead of trying to ski on and near the trail, we took a traverse out to the west with the aim of eventually dropping back down to the parking lot to finish our run. I used the GPS for route finding, and as is often the case, James went by his natural sense of direction. The biggest issue with the traverse was that like on the Burrows Trail itself, a few streams were still open from the previous warm weather. They weren’t too hard to cross since there were still snow bridges around, but Ty’s smaller skis definitely set him at a disadvantage for spanning some gaps. We helped him across when needed. Even with the aid of the GPS, I overshot the parking area by about 100 feet or so and had to swing back during my final descent, while James nailed it right on.
The GPS tracking data from today’s ski tour plotted on Google Earth
As E demonstrates, today was one of those day when you could go neck deep… if you’re into that sort of thing.
The numbers are in, and they indicate that Bolton Valley picked up a solid three feet of snow from our latest storm cycle, with the final 12 inches of upslope fluff coming in overnight to set the table for a fantastic Saturday. The day started off a little cloudy and breezy, but by midday we were left with warm sunshine to make for one of the best ski days of the season. We arrived up at the Timberline Quad for the 8:30 A.M. opening, and in classic Bolton Valley style the powder day lineup was comprised of a whopping three chairs worth of people. The first hour or two of the morning were pretty quiet in the Timberline area, at least in terms of numbers of visitors, although generally not in the voices of those of us that were there. By 10:00 or 11:00 A.M. more visitors started to arrive.
“The deep powder also let Ty engage in his own personal huck fest ’09.”
While the trails only contained about a foot of powder in areas that had seen skier traffic over the past couple of days, many off piste locations that hadn’t seen visitors on Thursday or Friday held the entirety of the storm in and undisturbed stack. Before heading up to the mountain this morning we joked about losing Dylan in the deep snow, but fortunately that didn’t happen. The good thing about the snow was that it was quite dry (my analysis on the overnight accumulation at the house was 3.7% H2O); even the boys could get down in it and really have a fun time experiencing the depth. We met up with Dave and his friend Jo at 10:00 A.M., and my colleague Stephen and his son Johannes early in the afternoon, and all eight of us managed to do a couple of great runs on Twice as Nice together.
Dave stopped in today for some of his usual Bolton Valley activities
For Ty it was a day of notable improvements in his skiing. With the fantastic depths of powder in the off piste, he was able to start charging steep slopes more aggressively than I’ve seen up to this point. E and I had indicated to both boys that they would want to ski steeper terrain than usual today because the deep powder would be slowing them down. They weren’t very receptive to this idea at first. However, by the end of the day Ty had really changed his tune and was actually seeking out some of the steepest lines so he could tackle them. Dylan had quickly picked up on the idea as well.
Peering over the steep edge of a drop… decisions, decisions.
The deep powder also let Ty engage in his own personal huck fest ’09. I’d been saving up a nice 5 to 10 foot drop with a sloped landing that Dave and I had discovered in the Villager Trees a couple weeks back, and with feet of new powder it was ready to be plundered again. Ty likes to do jumps on his skis, but this type of a drop was in a league he’d never really tackled before, so I was curious to see his reaction. When we arrived at the top of the drop, he was certainly intimidated by the height and confirmed that he didn’t want to hit it. We didn’t want to force him, but we had Mom drop it and demonstrate how easy it was with such deep powder. After seeing that, he didn’t immediately change his tune, but we could see that the wheels were turning. Later in the day we were in the Wood’s Hole Glades and Ty somehow found himself atop a rather big rock. He dropped a pretty rugged looking line, and with that his confidence was building. I asked him if he’d be interested in joining Dave and I in dropping another small cliff on the next run and he said yes. We gave him first shot at the drop in the freshest powder, while E shot pictures from below. He wasn’t willing to carry a lot speed going into it, but he dropped right off and did an awesome job. At the end of the day when we were in the lodge, he indicated that he wanted to go out for one more run. He insisted that we hit the first drop that we’d shown him earlier in the day, the one that Mom had done. He said he was now ready for it. He had no trepidation this time around, and dropped it as soon as I was in position with the camera and gave him the go ahead. When we got back to the lodge he even told E that he’d done a better job on it than she had.
Those landings from the drops started to get smoother and smoother today for Ty
Dylan also had quite a day, blasting lots of powder lines with the most consistency that I’ve seen from him all year. He plowed through every mellow or steep nook and cranny that we dragged him into, and his powder skiing is now becoming reliable enough that we don’t have to worry much about bringing him into any of the typical areas that we’d ski as a family. It appears as though a mounting topic with Dylan is the use of ski poles. Ty didn’t start using poles until his 4/5-year old season (last year), but it looks like Dylan is about ready. After I broke a wayward stick off of a tree today in the Wood’s Hole Glades, Dylan proceeded to bring it with him for the rest of the run and use as a pole. Back on the trail, E told Dylan how he should be using the stick in terms of planting, and he easily coordinated the timing of planting and turning. We may have to start phasing in poles for him the way we did with Ty. Dylan also skied what was perhaps his biggest day to date, racking up over 8,000’ of vertical. He was clearly on his last legs when we came down through the Twice as Nice Glades near the end of the day though; he just couldn’t handle the steepest pitches anymore and I had to help him down the final one.
Little Dylan making his own advances in figuring out the powder today
When I finally downloaded the images from my camera this evening, I discovered that I’d taken 479 shots throughout the day, but I managed to whittle it down to 21 that made the final cut. In some cases, the culling process involved skipping over some really nice waist-deep powder shots in favor of some even better chest and neck-deep ones, but sometimes that the way it goes! Images from the day are in the gallery below, and full size versions are also available in our report to SkiVT-L.
Bolton is starting off this storm cycle with about a foot of powder to greet midweek visitors.
By the time I’d left the house (495’) at 7:30 A.M. this morning, we’d picked up 0.6 additional inches of snow since the 6:00 A.M. snowboard clearing, bringing the event total to 4.1 inches. It had been snowing lightly at the house when I left, but when I arrived up at the Bolton Valley Village area (2,100’) it was snowing moderately and still accumulating. The mountain had reported 7 inches of new snow as of their 6:45 A.M. update, but I suspected I’d find a bit more based on the way it was coming down. The lifts weren’t going to start loading until 9:00 A.M., so I kicked off the morning off by skinning for some turns, taking the route straight up Beech Seal. I first checked the consistency of the snow near the base area; I couldn’t quite make a snowball out of it in my hand, so I guess I’d describe it as medium weight powder. Beech Seal had been groomed at some point earlier, but I found about 2 to 4 inches of additional new snow on top of the groomed base.
“…today Spillway offered up some gorgeous steep powder.”
When I reached mid mountain (2,500’) I checked the depth of the powder in an undisturbed location and it came in right at 12 inches. That should represent the combination of powder from last week’s midweek system (~6 inches) as well as whatever had come down up to that point with this new event, so that seemed reasonable. Wind doesn’t appear to have been much a factor with this system, so getting measurements was easy. I was thinking of skinning up in the Cobrass area, but there was enough powder to keep me following one of the snowmobile tracks for my ascent. At about 9:00 A.M. I’d reached the top of Vermont 200 (~3,000’), and when I checked the depth of the new snow there I found that it was at 9 inches.
“It was really nice to see all the visitors getting rewarded with such a splendid day on the slopes.”
I enjoyed first tracks down Vermont 200, and this new round of snow had settled in nicely. The medium-density powder was just what the doctor had ordered in terms of getting the windswept steeps back into shape. I was on my Telemark skis, and found that the consistency of the snow made for really easy turns. After my initial descent I stayed around for some rides on the lift, and unquestionably the trail pick of the day for me was Spillway. Usually I avoid it like the plague between its man-made snow, exposure to the wind, and traffic, but today Spillway offered up some gorgeous steep powder. The fact that it has seen grooming in the past made the subsurface the most consistent and provided lots of nice bottomless turns, and since there didn’t appear to be much wind with this event, there were no issues on that front. I had to hit it twice because it was so good, and I’d say it was better than even Hard Luck or Vermont 200. The Wilderness Lift opened right around 10:00 A.M., and I was fortunate to catch one of the first few chairs. The way the steeper trails had been skiing so nicely, I opted for Bolton Outlaw from the Wilderness Summit, and it was in great shape. After that descent I traversed back toward the main mountain. I followed a random set of tracks off New Sherman’s Pass and found a nice region of glades that I’d never explored before.
Things were looking great on Bolton Outlaw today
The mountain definitely had more than its usual midweek handful of people this morning. A lot of the extra folks I saw were children, and I think some of the schools in the Northeast have vacation right now because I heard what sounded like a Boston-style accent on a couple of occasions. It was really nice to see all the visitors getting rewarded with such a splendid day on the slopes.
The moderate snowfall had gradually tapered off through the morning, and when I left the mountain around 10:40 A.M. there was just light snow and the temperature at my car (~2,100’) was 34 F. The temperature stayed fairly stable through most of the descent down the Bolton Valley Access Road, but at the bottom (340’) it was up to 35 F. The precipitation was light snow as I drove westward through the Winooski Valley to the center of Richmond. The temperature there was up to 36 F however, and I was surprised to see that Richmond appeared to have picked up little if any snow from this event. When I’d reached the I-89 rest area in Williston, the temperature was up to 37 F and the precipitation was over to rain, which was coming down at moderate intensity for a while. In the South Burlington area the temperature was up to 38 F, and when I finally arrived at the UVM campus it had hit 39 F.
Bolton Valley was officially reporting 8 inches from this event as of their 10:05 A.M. update, so I don’t think we’ll have any trouble getting into Scott’s 10-20” inch prediction range with some upslope. It sounds like this is one of the best upslope setups we’ve seen this season, so it should be fun to see how it plays out for the mountains and even the mountain valleys over the next couple of days. It’s expected to start up tonight so I’ll certainly report on whatever makes it down to our elevation in Waterbury. Images from today can be found in the gallery below, and full size versions are also available in the report to SkiVT-L from today.
Well, our 7th valley snowfall of the season delivered nicely, at both the low and high elevations. When I did my first snow measurement this morning at around 9:00 A.M., we already had 2.6 inches of new snow at our place in Waterbury (elevation 495 feet), and the snowfall showed no signs of letting up. We headed up to Bolton Valley for some skiing and they already had 4 inches of fresh powder to start the day. It continued to snow all day up at Bolton and they’re now reporting 7-10 inches of new snow. It was a full on powder day, and the ski patrol was opening natural snow trails all over the place. We only got a chance to ski one of the natural snow trails (the “Glades” trail off the Mid-Mountain Lift) since we were with the boys, but it was more than ready to be opened. There was easily a foot of powder on top of denser base-layer snow below, so you didn’t really have to worry much about rocks. I’m sure most trails could be opened at this point if the mountain wanted to do it. The Northern Vermont resorts seem to be reporting new snowfall totals in the 6 to 12-inch range from this event so far, so I’m sure more natural snow trails will be opening soon. We arrived home to 4 more inches of snow at the house and it was still snowing. I’m estimating the water content of the snow in the 6-8% H2O range here at our place. With this event (6.6 inches so far), we’re up to 21.6 inches of snowfall on the season here. There were also 8 new inches of snow at the Mt. Mansfield Stake, and the snow depth there is now up to 22 inches. Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny, and with all this fresh powder the backcountry/sidecountry is certainly open for business. I’m definitely planning to earn some turns and get some photos.
Trip report
It’s interesting that all the new snow didn’t really come from a very official “storm”, but the local meteorologists gave us a good heads up so we were able to plan our day accordingly. We knew we were heading up to Bolton for some turns, but we wanted to pick the time of day to go with the boys and make the best use of the new snow. Initially, we thought it might be best to let the snow accumulate and head up to the slopes in the afternoon, but when we woke up to almost three inches at the house in the morning, we decided to get skiing as soon as possible.
The drive was a little sketchy with the continued heavy snowfall, and we even had to stop a couple of times on the way up the Bolton Valley Access Road. The first occasion was to let a rafter of wild turkeys cross the road. E counted at least 18 of them, but said some had already disappeared into the trees before she had a chance to count them. The second stop was for a car that was slipping its way up the last steep section of the road. Perhaps they hadn’t put on their snow tires yet, but they eventually gained enough traction and let everyone make it up to the Village. Once again, there was a huge crew of Bolton Valley associates ready to help us with our ski gear in the Village unloading area. We were doing well in our unloading process and didn’t want to take them away from helping other guests, but we thanked them anyway. I’m not sure if this is just something they do over the holidays, or if is standard customer service now, but it’s a nice touch. It’s as if they’ve infused a touch of Deer Valley into Bolton Valley. I had a chance to chat with the Bolton Valley associates and they commented on how great it was to have all this snowfall with virtually no wind. I guess that’s what you can get from a “non storm” type of snowstorm. They were also hyping the fact that Sunday was supposed to be a beautiful sunny day. In the back of my mind, I appreciated the fact that such a day would make for fantastic skiing in all the new powder, and even better photography, but at the moment I was more concerned with the fact that it was dumping in the here and now.
With four new inches of snow in the Village already, we wasted no time suiting up and getting right on the Snowflake Lift. The snow surface was cut up powder in the center of the trails with plenty of untracked along the edges. We skied with Dylan between our legs again, and boy was it a lot tougher in chowder and powder than on a nicely manicured slope. His skis would submarine in the powder and pull him down, so I basically had to hold him high and keep him floating on top of the snow in the more powdery areas. It was even more work than usual, but he seemed to be pretty happy with the whole experience so it was worth it. Dylan was even keeping his mittens on, which was nice to see on such a snowy day. On one of our early runs, Ty and I showed Mom the terrain in the Sprig O’ Pine/Deer Run area where we like to scout for powder, but this terrain was just too mellow for the accumulating snow. The slow progress in this area did give us a chance to get a picture of Dylan standing in the powder and all suited up in a combination of his new gear and some of Ty’s old stuff.
We did a couple of runs in our usual haunts off the Snowflake and Mid-Mountain lifts, and got to show Mom our little powder stash under the Vista Quad. Then, circumstances arose that led us to try something new. While riding the Mid-Mountain lift, I began noticing skiers filtering out of the trails to the skier’s right of the lift (terrain over in the “Glades” area). I initially thought these folks might be poaching, but there were just a few too many of them for that to be the case. The patrol must have actually opened some of these trails. I’ve skied the terrain in that area before, and some of it rather steep and contoured. So, I was really skeptical that it could be opened on the snow we had at this point. In a somewhat half serious way, I pointed the area out to Ty and asked if he wanted to try something new. I thought he would be a bit tentative about trying something new, since he liked his usual trails and jumps so much, but by the time we’d neared the top of the lift he had convinced me that we should head that way. I was still somewhat unsure if we’d be limping our way down a rock filled minefield of early season conditions, but I was willing to give it a go since Ty was so enthusiastic. The terrain was actually open, and the patrol had simply stuck an “Experts Only” sign at the entrance to keep people aware of what the terrain was potentially like. E was a little worried by the sign, but I assured her that the hardest parts of the trail were basically in the range of a single black run with some scattered trees on it, and that Ty could certainly manage. The tougher part would be skiing with Dylan, but I knew I could always carry him in my arms on the couple of steepest pitches.
So, with a level of uncertainty still remaining, the family shuffled past the “Experts Only” sign and ventured into the unknown of the “Glades” trail. What we found was far better than I could have imagined. There was no minefield rocks and roots, just a steep powdery playground full of terrain features. After the first pitch, the extent of the coverage and new snow was obvious. You really had to seek out rocks or other underlying debris if you were actually going to hit something with your skis. You could actually ski the trail without concern, and you didn’t need “rock skis” at all. I was flabbergasted that natural coverage could be this good down at this low an elevation. Obviously the ski patrol knew how good the conditions were. Any concern we had for Ty dissolved away as he charged down through the powder on the first steep pitch. The conditions were just too fluffy to care about anything.
I spied an especially deep untouched line on the skier’s right of the trail, that required ducking under some thin branches, and decided to go for it with Dylan. However, I overestimated the height of the branches and how low I would have to bend. Dylan ended up having to go through the branches with me. I felt really bad about what I’d gotten us into, but once it was too late and I realized where we were heading, I kept him as low as possible without causing us to crash (which would have probably been a worse result because Dylan would have gotten all snowy and mad). In the end, we did wind up tumbling over into the powder, but we were well clear of the branches and Dylan was none the worse for wear. E, who agreed to take a picture of us skiing the line, said that she never thought I would take the line I did. To her, it looked like I used Dylan as a battering ram for the tree branches. That was totally not the case of course. In any event, Dylan is almost two years old now and should probably get used to toppling into the powder like his brother.
Knowing that I was planning to head out for a backcountry day on Sunday, I offered to take Dylan inside for a break so Mom and Ty could hang out together and enjoy the powder. For some reason however, Ty wanted to ski with me instead of Mom, so E conceded and headed in with Dylan for lunch, while I “reluctantly” hung for another run with Ty. Well, Ty must have had fun on our first powdery romp through the Glades trail because all he could talk about was going back to ski the “new one” again. I actually got to have even more fun on our second run through the Glades, because I wasn’t skiing with Dylan and could really shred some powder. I also had free hands to take pictures of Ty as well. Come to think of it, I now realize that E and I did all our powder skiing that day without poles (we typically don’t use our ski poles on days with the boys due to loading them on the lift, carrying them, and whatever else has to be done). I must be getting used to it because I didn’t even think of it until I wrote this. I do like the way that having no poles leaves my hands free for taking pictures; that’s a definite added bonus. Without Dylan, I was also free to explore the terrain a bit more, and I realized that there were no ropes up anywhere in the area. I spied a connection into a more thickly gladed/wooded trail to the skier’s right (this may have been part of the “Upper Glades” trail), and it seemed devoid of any recent tracks. It was very tempting to dive in there and catch a fresh line, but Ty had already started down the run we were on and I didn’t want to lose him. I’m hopeful others got the chance to expand the skiing into that area and ski all the fresh lines. I was still blown away that all that terrain was open with such great coverage.
Ty and I skied more great untracked snow down the skier’s right of Glades, and Ty even took the same line under the branches that I had skied with Dylan. I think Ty wanted to try it because he saw us do it, and he ended up as a heap in the powder, just like us. Actually, Ty followed me through some pretty steep and deep lines. Even though we were only in about a foot of powder, that’s fairly deep for a guy his size and he handled it well. He really ripped it up in some sections and he seems to be getting the powder bug. I guess there are worse diseases or addictions to have. We were both pretty giddy after that run and couldn’t wait to tell Mom about our turns. Ty was getting a little goofy as we glided through the flats back to the lodge, and he wound up laying down on the trail watching the snowflakes fall on his goggles. He asked me to join him and I did just that. It had been a while since I’d simply lain down and watched the snow fall on top of me, and it was as fun as ever. As much as Ty can really be annoying when he dilly dallies and we need to get something done, sometimes he has exactly the right idea. We headed in for lunch and told E all about our run.
After lunch we all headed back out and took a run off the Snowflake Lift. Dylan dropped a glove near the start of the lift, and I hiked up to get it on the next run. I carried my skis up with me so I could ski down, but they had been making snow in the Village/Terrain Park area so my ride was a little crunchy. By the next run, Dylan had fallen asleep just like on Wednesday, so Mom took him into the lodge for a nap. I tried to convince Ty that we should take a run on the Vista Quad to find more powder. I could see that people were skiing down trails like Spillway etc., and figured the patrol had opened a bunch of terrain up there. But, Ty was not enthusiastic about riding the quad, since he remembered there were snow guns up there on his last trip, so we stuck to the Snowflake Lift. Ty continued hitting his favorite jumps on Sprig O’ Pine (although not with as much air as usual because the powder was slowing him down), while I worked the untracked snow on the skier’s left of the trail. After a few more runs, we called it a day and headed into the lodge.
It had continued to snow all day, although the snowfall began to slow down a bit in the afternoon. When I went to get the car, there were probably 2-3 new inches on it. For a “storm” day, it had been pretty nice with temperatures in the 20s F, and little if any wind. Despite the holiday/weekend crowds, there weren’t really any lift lines to wait in and all the extra terrain they had opened meant that you could find plenty of solitude if you wanted it. The Avocet recorded 9 runs for 2,865 feet of vertical, and the Suunto recorded 9 runs for 2,730 feet of vertical, a difference of 4.8%
I thought Ty would pass out in the car on the way home, or certainly need a nap at the house, but once we actually got out of the car, the sight of all the new snow got him way to excited to sleep. I asked him if he wanted to go snowshoeing, and of course he did, so we took a tour around the property and made the afternoon’s measurement on the snowboard. Ty just wouldn’t quit, so after snowshoeing, he helped me shovel some snow from the driveway to make a launching pad and jump for sledding. After sledding for a while, he actually put his alpine skis back on and started doing laps in the yard! The snow was a little deeper than he was used to skiing in the yard, so he would actually use his previous tracks to pick up speed, and then venture off into the fresh snow to make some powder turns. It was sort of nice to see him figure out a technique that I know many of us have used before on low angle terrain with deeper snow. Ty kept going even after he was done skiing, and played around in the snow with Dylan while E and I finished up shoveling the driveway. He’d really had quite a multisport day and I can’t believe how long he kept going. Ahh, the power of fresh snow is pretty awesome. E headed off in the evening to get some work done at school, and I had it real easy since both boys were pooped. I put Dylan to bed around 7:00 P.M., and Ty had already passed out on the floor while trying to watch T.V. It was an easy end to a great family powder day.
