Bolton Valley, VT 21MAR2013

An image of ski tracks in powder snow on the Showtime trail at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont
Still reaping the benefits of this week’s nor’easter at Bolton Valley

Today felt like a blast from the past… well at least the somewhat recent past of the 2012-2013 ski season.  With a silent Timberline Quad, luxurious untracked powder on the slopes, and fat skis on the feet, it was just like being back in December.  That second half of December was one of the best stretches for ski conditions this season, and it was the early date combined with some mechanical issues on the Timberline Quad that left the Timberline area the realm of those earning their powder turns.  Now we’re on the other end of season, and as it begins to wind down we find that the Timberline Quad isn’t running every day.  So it’s back to earning Timberline turns, but with a more established base of snow, and a lot more sunshine.

At some point earlier this week I realized that the Timberline Quad wasn’t running, so with some extra time this morning, I made my way up to Timberline in search of powder.  Our storm earlier in the week produced a nice resurfacing dump with about a foot of synoptic density snow, and it’s been followed up over the past couple of days by some dry fluff to really top that off for some primo powder skiing conditions.  Skies were clear this morning, with temperatures in the mid teens as I pulled into the Timberline lot, and the sun was just trying to break the ridge that marks the top of the resort to the east.  There were a couple cars in the parking lot and I could see tracks on the trails indicating that people had certainly been out taking advantage of the snow.  Depth checks at the Timberline Base elevations revealed anywhere from 12 to 15 inches of powder above the subsurface, although I tended to get reading in the 10 to 12-inch range higher up where the wind may have pushed the snow around at some point.  The main skin track today was up Showtime, and it took a somewhat unconventional route right up the gut of the trail because it was made in someone’s descent track.  It was quite a good track though, well packed and devoid of any footprints.  I saw about a dozen tracks from other skiers that had descended in the Showtime area, but untracked lines were still quite plentiful.

All was quiet when I arrived at the Timberline Mid Station, although I eventually saw a couple of snowboarders and skier getting on with their descents.  One of the lift operators showed up and began to prep the mid station area for use, and when I asked him about the upcoming schedule for Timberline, he said that it was opening back up tomorrow.  That is of course a bittersweet occurrence – it means that we can get lots of Timberline runs, but gone are the runs of endless powder day after day.  I figured that at least I’d made it in time to catch “Club Timberline” mode.

I poked around over at Spell Binder, and it looked good, but I ultimately chose Showtime for the descent because that seems to be a bit harder to come by.  Another aspect of the day that reminded me of December was the fact that all the west-facing headwalls appeared to be filled in nicely, without the usual scouring that can accompany a westerly wind – there must have been some easterly component to the wind during our most recent nor’easter.  The Showtime Headwall looked like it had been treated nicely by the storm, so I dropped in with the confidence that I wasn’t going to hit anything below the snow.  I pushed hard into those steep turns on the headwall, and the powder pushed right back, cushioning each movement of my skis with a snowpack of ever increasing density.  The turns were so silky smooth and buoyant that I have to give the conditions at least a 9 out of 10.  It really was utter perfection in terms of snow quality; with the only thing one could ask being perhaps some deeper champagne and a bunch of face shots.  After one quick stop I rattled off turns down the rest of the run, with a cadence that lingered in my head long after I was done.

I really wished that E and the boys could have been there, because the scene reminded me exactly of an outing we had back on December 28th.  The sun was out and the snow was great, and I know that they would have loved it.  I drove away thinking about how I was going to describe the skiing to E.  It turned out that it wasn’t going to be that difficult; because little did I know at time, I was actually going to be right back on those slopes again at the end of the day…

Stowe, VT 19MAR2013

An image of Erica Telemark skiing in powder on the Lower Tyro trail at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont during a nor'easter
The latest nor’easter had delivered about a foot of fresh powder to Stowe by the end of the day today.

This morning I awoke to the first accumulation of snow from our current nor’easter.  My early estimation was that there were 3 to 4 inches of snow on the snowboard, and that was pretty close, with 3.8 inches measured for my 6:00 A.M. CoCoRaHS observations.  Once reports from the Vermont ski areas started coming in, the trend was ~6 inches in the northern resorts, and 8 to 9 inches at the southern resorts.  E and the boys eventually got the word that school was cancelled for the day, which meant it was time to decide where to ski.  E was initially leaning toward Bolton for the shorter drive in the snow, but we found out that Claire, Luke, Jack, and Madeleine were going to be at Stowe, and that shifted the balance.

After the initial overnight snowfall, precipitation slowed down for the first half of the morning, and then resumed with greater intensity around mid morning.  It was starting to coat the roads again as we made our way to Stowe, but the driving conditions were still decent.  Based on the day’s ski plans, we parked over by the Mansfield Base Lodge for the first time this season.  The scene had that retro flair, complete with a train of classic, bluesy rock playing on the audio system.

An image from the base of the Fourrunner Quad Chairlift at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont showing a sign indicating that it was going to be a powder week
It’s Powder Week!

Stowe had indicated about 5 inches of new snow in their morning report, so I decided that we’d focus on some moderate angle terrain for a bit and see where that led us.  We’d had such success with areas like the Chapel Glades and various surrounding trees, that it seemed like a good place to start.  From the summit of the Fourrunner Quad we made our way down some of my favorite mellow routes in the Toll Road and some of the Upper Sunrise Glades.  We explored a new route and found that there has been a LOT of off season work done in those areas.  We followed that up with a trip through the Chapel Glades, where E was having a lot of fun on here Teles.  E’s favorite part of the run was probably when we dropped into Lower Tyro and found very few tracks, just vast areas of fresh powder at a nice pitch for powder skiing.  As an added bonus, the sky was just unloading snow on us at that point with some of the heaviest snowfall of the day.  We followed that up with a run from the Mountain Triple, where we traversed even farther before dropping into the Chapel Glades and found that there had been a lot less traffic.

Dylan was ready for lunch at the bottom of the next run, so we hit the Mansfield Base Lodge, and we were pleasantly surprised by the variety and quality of food that they had available.  Once you get used to the plethora of great options at the Great Room Grill, other dining spots might seem limited, but there was a good selection at the ‘ol Mansfield Base Lodge.  I got the soup of the day, which was corn chowder, in a bread bowl, and E and I were able to share it.  Claire called while we were eating, and by the time we were finishing up, she and her crew had arrived.

An image of Dylan skiing in powder snow above his waist in the Hayride Trees at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont
Deep Dylan

We decided to show everyone what we’d been skiing in the morning, and varied it by pushing even farther into the Upper Sunrise Glades toward a line we’d seen from below.  It was quite steep at the top, which got some of the boys like Ty excited, but meant a bit slower going for Madeleine.  In subsequent runs we hit some of the Hayride Woods that we’d wanted to try and finished off the day visiting Duck Walk and the half pipe.  We actually had to start picking up the pitch of untracked terrain as the day wore on, because the powder was getting deep enough that the gentler terrain wasn’t quite cutting it.  It’s a good sign that the subsurface is getting covered.  It’s been quite fun exploring the far southern side of the resort after so many days earlier this season in the northern areas.

Overall it was a sensational powder day, since temperatures were comfortable and there was little if any wind away from the highest elevations.  There were numerous times today where we enjoyed the silence that comes from heavy snow in the air.  It looks like this snowfall could continue for quite a good period this week, and Stowe actually had a sign at the bottom of the Fourrunner Quad indicating not just a “powder day”, but a “powder week”.  That’s a good way to run a week.  The Mt. Mansfield Stake hit 70 inches today, which is the highest it’s been this season.  It’s still a little bit below average, but the mountain is skiing really well and should be in really great shape if the snow keeps up this week.

Stowe, VT 17MAR2013

An image of Dylan skiing powder in the trees above the Chapel Glades at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont
Dylan enjoys some of the powder today at Stowe

The temperatures are staying cold, the powder is staying dry, and we were off to Stowe this afternoon to check it out.  Stowe reported similar snowfall numbers to Bolton Valley for the past couple of storms, and based on what we experienced yesterday, I knew that there was going to be some great powder skiing out there on parts of the mountain.  The current conditions are just excellent for powder skiing on moderate angle terrain; the warmth from earlier in the week set up a smoothed subsurface to support the new snow that fell later in the week.  As I tossed around ideas of where to bring our BJAMS ski group today, I eventually realized that the Chapel Glades and the other woods surrounding that area were going to be just what we needed.  I haven’t brought any of the kids there that I can remember, nor had I been there much myself in the past few seasons, but it looked like it was time to change that.

Peering out from the car as we arrived at the mountain, it looked cold and windy at the Spruce Peak Base Area, and indeed it was.  It wasn’t January cold, but it was on the cold side for March, with midday temperatures around 20 F and plenty of wind to add some extra bite.  While we waited for the entire group to assemble, we did a quick run off the Alpine Double Chair, and as a prelude to the day, I brought Ty, Dylan, Luke, and Jack into some of the Upper Meadows Trees.  It was a test to see just how good the powder skiing was going to be, and it was a perfect introduction.  The pitch in there is somewhere in the light blue range, which was just right for the 6 to 8 inches of settled powder lying on the ground.  There hadn’t been a single track in there before we entered, but after everyone in the group dove in after us to try their hand at the powder, it looked quite different.  The whoops and shouts as people passed through made it pretty clear that we were going to have a lot of fun finding more of that terrain throughout the day.  That section of trees has a tight exit, and you could certainly tell the more veteran tree skiers from those that were still learning the ropes, but everyone eventually made it out successfully.  Farther below, on the open terrain above Meadows, we found very good chopped up powder with some fresh snow thrown in by the winds, so that was also encouraging with regard to overall conditions.

With Claire, Joe and Ethan, Ken and his family, and some additional family and friends of Ken’s,, our group numbered 16 as we headed over to Mt. Mansfield.  There was no way we were going to hold that large a posse together, but we set our meeting point as the bottom of the Fourrunner Quad and knew that we’d all get there.  The trip down Cliff Trail was OK, even if it felt a bit cramped with such a large group, but conditions really became icy once we got to Nosedive.  I’m not sure if it’s the manmade snow or the traffic levels there, but if we hadn’t already been set on our course toward better snow, that experience would have done it.  The highlight of that run was discovering the Liftline Trees that brought us all the way from Midway down to almost the base.  I can’t believe how open those trees are, or that we haven’t been skiing them all season.  They are going way up on our hit list as an alternative to skiing Lower Liftline.  We hopped on the Fourrunner Quad, and at the summit I showed the group the top of the Bruce Trail since we’re contemplating a sidecountry trip in that area next week if conditions cooperate.  We proceeded toward Ridge View and Sunrise, and I showed the group some of the Sunrise Trees above Toll Road.  The powder was really good in there, especially as we worked our way over toward some of the less tracked areas.  Dylan and I found lines with 8-12” inches of accumulation in there as we worked our way farthest to the skier’s right for a pit stop, and the turns were very impressive.

Below Toll Road we all dropped into the Chapel Glades and, they delivered just the kind of skiing that I’d expected.  The main lines were fairly tracked, which is not surprising since they are an official glade on the map, but just a little venturing off to the sides revealed lots of untracked lines with a consistent 6-8” of powder.  The pitches were just perfect for the snow we had.  We regrouped at the Chapel, and as we passed along some of the Toll Road trees, we ogled the acres and acres of untracked snow that sat below us.  We decided that we’d do another lap on the Mountain Triple, and we set our sights on a big run all the way down to the Toll House.  As a bonus, we caught a lap through the half pipe and the terrain features on Standard – although a great part for some of us was the powder off to the sides more than the terrain features. Joe was having a blast with the skiing, and he commented on how he was quickly gaining confidence and an understanding of what was possible among the trees.  It really is an eye opening experience for skiers that get past that tree skiing threshold, because they start to appreciate that they’ve got thousands of acres between the in bounds and sidecountry terrain of Mt. Mansfield and Spruce Peak.  I started pointing out lines to Joe and Claire on our next lift ride, and it seemed like everywhere we looked, large expanses of open tree skiing terrain were just sitting there.  Even though base depths haven’t really gone up too substantially over this past week, it’s as if a switch was flipped and lines hit some sort of threshold.  That warming and base consolidation must have locked up some obstacles the previously might have been lurking in the soft snow.

We’d temporarily lost Ken and his family, but with a bit of cell phone help we managed to get back together for our next run.  We traveled farther along Toll Road before dropping into the Chapel Glades, and I regained a perspective on just how large that complex of glades actually is.  This time, we continued down into the Toll House Woods, and really got a long run through the powder.  It’s over a mile down to the Toll House, and we couldn’t ski the woods the whole way, but I bet we were in there for close to half of it, with the Tollhouse trail also got us some great fresh snow.  When folks asked me why nobody ever skied down there, I said it was because of the long, slow return back to the rest of the resort, but on days like this when the conditions fit the terrain just right, it’s certainly worth it.

After our long trip on the Toll House Lift, we collectively decided to call it a day, but a few of us hit one more glade in the Lullaby Lane Trees, and that was a fun discovery.  This was definitely one of those days where you really start to gain an appreciation for the vastness and seemingly limitless ski options available at Stowe.  Despite years of skiing there, I just keep finding entirely new areas to ski.

E and the boys and I went to the Whip for dinner on the way home, and met up with Claire and Luke in the dining room.  The Whip is one of our favorite places because they’re open all day, and you can get great food there while other places are in between lunch and dinner.  So if you have an early ski day at Stowe and finish in the mid afternoon, you can stop in at The Whip and get a great meal.  It’s going to be interesting to see how things work out next weekend in terms of conditions, because we could be in for quite a snowy week if the forecast is correct.

 

Bolton Valley, VT 16MAR2013

A black and white image of Ty Telemark skiing in powder on the Wilderness Lift Line trail at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont
Back to reality today with some good powder at Bolton Valley

Since we had some warm weather at the beginning of the week that brought all elevations above freezing, and a return to more wintry temperatures by midweek, I wasn’t even sure that we were going to ski today.  The snow surfaces were simply going to be hard, the only way around that would be fresh snow, and there were no notable storms in the forecast.  Because the weather pattern has been relatively prosaic over the past month or so, there hasn’t really been much of need for refresher storms, but they were definitely needed this week.  The only winter weather events in the forecast were a couple of small, upper level low pressure systems that were expected to pass through the area.  Each one looked like it would be a 1-3” type of event, which would hardly be enough to get past “dust on crust” conditions.  The Green Mountains came through though, working their magic to pull out up to 10” of snow from the first event, and another 6” from the second in the north central areas.  Even areas father north that didn’t jackpot with those two storms were well on their way to some nice conditions.

“I did numerous depth checks
on the powder up there in the
3,000’ range, and was getting
readings from 6 to 9 inches in
areas that didn’t have drifting.”

With the storms delivering, it was time to make a plan for some Saturday turns at Bolton Valley.  I expected that the 7” they’re reported in the past couple of days was a bit conservative, but with the new snow being split between Thursday and Friday, the best turns were going to be found on terrain that hadn’t been touched at all.  I decided that some moderate angle terrain on the backcountry network would be the way to go, and it seemed that one of the glades we’ve been skiing the past couple of weeks would fit the bill nicely.  With some sidecountry laps off the Wilderness Lift, we could get good access there.  That plan actually went by the wayside when I saw that the Wilderness Lift wasn’t running, but of course that opened up a whole new realm of untracked terrain in the Wilderness area itself, and we could certainly make use of that.

“The three of us packed
our bags with skins and
snacks, and headed up to
the mountain in the late
morning.”

E was dead set that she wanted to do a bunch of cleaning in the house today, so I couldn’t convince her to head out for turns, but she did insist that I get the boys out of the way.  No problem.  The three of us packed our bags with skins and snacks, and headed up to the mountain in the late morning.  Temperatures had been hanging in the low 20s F all morning in the valleys, and even colder in the higher elevations, so we knew that powder would be staying light and dry.  The on and off sun that we’d had in the lower elevations much of the morning was quickly replaced by light snowfall as we hit the 1,000’ elevation mark on the Bolton Valley Access Road – the mountains just didn’t seem to want to let go of that moisture.  The resort looked like it was doing a brisk business, with the fourth tier of parking in the Village lots just about full.  I chatted with the parking attendants about potential spots higher up from people that had already left, and ended up getting a good parking location right along the south edge of the lot.

There was lots of activity at the main base area as we boarded the Vista Quad, because the Mountain Dew Vertical Challenge was taking place.  It would have been fun to hang out and join some of the festivities, but there was powder to be skied.  Our first test of the day’s conditions was Alta Vista, and indeed one could see that surfaces were much firmer than last weekend.  The grooming had definitely tilled the new snow into the base, but traffic had also made its mark on the terrain.  I’d hit some areas of excellent packed powder where my skis could bite soft and deep, but plenty of others where it was quite firm, and at 115 underfoot, the fat skis certainly weren’t the tool for the job there.  The skier’s left offered up its usual supply of powder, but it wasn’t quite the effortless, soft flow that it sometimes is; the powder hadn’t quite hit that threshold depth to really let you crank hard in there while totally avoiding the old base snow.

At the base of Upper Crossover, we began strapping on the skins to head upward.  Josh, who had found time for a break from his day’s duties, was out taking a run and spotted us in preparation for the ascent.  We chatted for a bit about the festivities going on with the Mountain Dew Vertical Challenge, and he brought up the fact that part of the event was a race.  I think they boys might have fun with that, so we’ll have to keep our eyes peeled if they do it again next season.  We bid Josh adieu as he continued with his run, and we finished preparing for our ascent.  I finished with Dylan’s skins first, and let him go to get a head start, then followed up with Ty and let him go.  They’re definitely becoming faster ascenders, but I knew I’d be able to catch them pretty quickly.  We found that there was a skin track in place, but it looked like only one other person had used it at that point, and that bode well for encountering lots of untracked terrain.  The weather was just perfect – wintry and moderately cold, with no wind.  I did numerous depth checks on the powder up there in the 3,000’ range, and was getting readings from 6 to 9 inches in areas that didn’t have drifting.  That’s after some settling over the past couple of days, but the 7 inches reported for the past two events certainly seems to be in the ballpark.  The crux of the ascent was actually right at the top of Bolton Outlaw.  New snow hadn’t settled in well there, and previous scouring left a lot of ice.  We really had to work our edges and do some side stepping and pole work to pass through that area.  Dylan muscled his way through a challenging slick spot that Ty and I staunchly avoided, and it was quite impressive to see him stick it out.  The boys recharged with some GU at the Wilderness Summit, and then we headed in the direction of Peggy Dow’s.

The descent featured some great snow, with generally that 6+ inches of untracked powder unless the wind had played around with it.  The best part of the descent was that the boys had plenty of time to work on their Telemark turns in powder, which is something they only get to do so often because they’re typically using their alpine equipment.  Today, with the quality of the snow and the very even subsurface, they were really making strides on those turns.  Time and time again I’d hear them hooting about how they’d just made “their best powder Telemark turn ever”.  Naturally the powder skiing wasn’t 100% bottomless everywhere, but you could definitely get a good percentage of bottomless turns on most pitches.  Since we’d all pulled out the fat skis to help in that regard, we were enjoying the fact that they were clearly doing their part to keep us off the subsurface.  Lower Turnpike was mostly groomed and had seen a little traffic coming over from Vista, but the edges held a lot of untracked snow, and powder turns were plentiful for essentially the entire descent.  It wasn’t going to be too hard to get the boys to do another lap if it seemed like that was the way to go.

Ty was raring to go again, but Dylan was calling for lunch after that lap, and the choice was made to head up to Fireside Flatbread.  The upstairs of the base lodge was full of people taking part in the various festivities of the day, so we sat at the bar and had our slices while we soaked up the scene.  My pizza was a fun combination of vodka sauce, broccoli, sun dried tomatoes, and red onions, and Ty and I joked about how my slice was almost half of a large pizza.  That was Ty’s estimate, and I’d say it was more like 1/3 of a pizza, but it was a monster.  We enjoyed watching the pizza guys doing their quick and masterful assemblies of various pies.  I overheard them talking with one of the managers about the potential Fireside Flatbread schedule midweek next week, discussing the options for what they’d do it if dumps.  There’s the potential for a significant synoptic storm in the Tuesday timeframe, and that’s something we really haven’t seen much of in Northern Vermont so far this season.  We’ll be watching the forecast with anticipation just like them.

A black and white image of Ty and Dylan at the Fireside Flatbread restaurant at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
Pizza boys

After lunch we hit the lower half of Wilderness and worked our way over to Snow Hole.  The boys had already asked about it on their first run, and it seemed like a great idea.  The snow was quite good in there, with just a couple of other tracks.  The light snowfall that had been with us during the morning had tapered off after a couple of hours, but clouds were generally around and the snow was still staying wintry all the way down to the Village.  We also did a run on Snowflake to work in some of the powder on Snowflake Bentley, and it really was still sitting there along the edges even as we were moving past mid afternoon.  The boys worked in some additional excellent Telemark turns on those pitches.  Conditions really only get marked down today because of the subsurface that is firmer than usual due to the warmth, and some spots being closed because coverage was a bit thin, but if this next storm is substantial enough, those issues could be remedied quite well.

Stowe, VT 10MAR2013

An image of Joe dropping into the steep headwall of the National Trail at Stowe Mountain Ski Resort in Vermont
Soft snow for the steep terrain today at Stowe

Today’s weather was a lot like yesterday’s – the morning started out quite cold, but bright March sunshine quickly brought temperatures well up into the 40s F even in the mountains.  We were back at Stowe for our BJAMS ski program today, and people seemed really excited to get right out and taste the skiing on soft snow under sunny skies.  With no notable snowstorms affecting Northern Vermont over the past week, base depths have stagnated and the snowpack at the stake remains at 64 inches.  That’s within an inch of where it was a week ago at this time, and while the dearth of storms is keeping the snowpack below average, it’s still deep enough for ample base on just about every slope.

“…although the surface wasn’t
quite corn, it was a beautiful,
soft concoction of softened
snow that just peeled away
as you dropped in…”

Today we joined up with Joe’s group to form a large aggregate of 11 skiers, and our first goal was to get Ken out for a run on Angel Food.  We’re approaching the time of year when people start to switch up their ski clothing to accommodate the warmer temperatures, and there’s always the danger of leaving your season’s pass in an article of clothing that you’re not wearing.  Indeed that’s exactly what happened to Luke today – as he got in line for the Gondola he realized that his pass was in his other jacket.  While he headed back over to Spruce to grab it, the rest of us decided to put Angel Food plans on hold for a run on Gondolier, allowing us to quickly meet him back at the bottom.  I’d say this change in plans was probably for the best, because the early afternoon sun was creating some sticky snow, and it was best to go for areas with skier traffic for a firmer surface.  The snow was beautifully pliable and soft, and certainly not overly slushy on the groomed runs, but you would still encounter some stickiness.  Off piste areas without any traffic indeed had mushy snow, and not knowing the traffic levels out at Angel Food, we decided it was best to hold off until surfaces were either fully converted to corn, or we got back into some winter snow.

With the new assessment of snow conditions, we decided to head over to ski some terrain off the Fourrunner Quad.  Slopes with snowmaking often have that denser snow that provides a bit of resistance to that stickiness, so we headed over on Cliff Trail to check out Nosedive.  Lower Nosedive was OK, but even with its manmade snow it really didn’t offer that much of a difference from what we’d experienced on the natural snow terrain, so while checking out Upper Nosedive was on our list, we were certainly open to other options.  A definite highlight of Nosedive was that due to the soft snow, every little terrain feature and jump is getting that extra bit of sculpting, and the kids were chomping at the bit to hit one of their favorite kickers at the Nosedive/Cliff Trail intersection.  Soft snow for landings meant that going a bit bigger was the call, and even the adults joined in and threw out some air of their own, including a classic spread from Ken.  As we remained on the lookout for other trail options, some quickly presented themselves as we made our next ascent on the Quad and looked down at Liftline and National.  They looked like they were in prime form, the skiers we saw seemed to be having a blast, and we know that this was the perfect kind of snow for skiing them.

An image of Ken in a spread eagle jump on the Nosedive trail at Stowe Mountain Ski Resort in Vermont
Ken shows the kids how it’s done on Nosedive today.

We quickly changed our plans to a descent of National – the top of that National Headwall is very steep, and this was the perfect time for the students to practice those steep turns without any ice.  We found the headwall in nearly perfect form – although the surface wasn’t quite corn, it was a beautiful, soft concoction of softened snow that just peeled away as you dropped in, and the high elevation and steep aspect meant that the sun wasn’t provoking any sticky melting in the snow.  A lot of positive vibes came out of the descent of the headwall, as some initial trepidation dissolved when people realized that dropping into something so steep was well within their means, and that it wasn’t only manageable but downright fun.  Luke T was extremely impressed with how well he skied his entry, and he looked great as he cut well controlled turns down the steep face.  Joe was immediately calling for another go at the headwall because he’d had so much fun.  Below the headwall sat the never ending land of steep bump lines, and I think everyone got a workout and then some as we worked out way down Liftline.  While Ken worked with Joanna on some of the finer points of tackling that sort of terrain, the rest of the gang gathered farther down the trail… and naturally a snowball fight broke out.

Ty wanted to ski the same run again, just so that we could have another snowball fight, but the general consensus was that the headwall was just so much fun that we had to do it again.  On the second lap I shot some pictures of people dropping into the headwall, and managed some decent ones even though I only had E’s Canon PowerShot ELPH 510 HS point and shoot on me.  It’s got a decent high speed burst mode capturing 3 megapixel images at ~8 FPS, but it locks the focus on the first image and you can’t really zoom while shooting, so there are certainly some limitations relative to using a DSLR.  But, it gets some good pictures in a pinch.  To mix things up we continued on down to Lower National instead of Liftline, and I’d say everyone’s legs were getting pretty cooked by the end of that one.

We finished off the day with some Lord Trees and a run on Hackett’s Highway, which the boys have really been enjoying lately.  Coverage is still great there, which speaks well about the natural snow depths, even on the lower half of the mountain.  The cliff bands have got some patchy spots with poor coverage, although that is somewhat typical even when the snow depths are above average.  Clouds came in as the afternoon wore on, and those surfaces that had gotten a bit sticky actually sped up without the direct sun.  It looks like we’ve got a couple more warn days coming up to start the week, but then we’ve got some midweek snow and winter temperatures for the foreseeable future.  Hopefully we can get sufficient new snow this week to cover up the snow surfaces, because the return to winter temperatures will probably set them up firmly and they’ll be scratchy without some powder.

Bolton Valley and Backcountry, VT 09MAR2013

An image of Ty Telemark skiing in powder of the back side of  Bolton Valley Resort
Heading up in elevation today to find that powder

Josh has been waiting for a while to get that perfectly clear day to finish up some media work at Bolton Valley, and today it finally came.  With the anticipated forecast, he set up for a 7:30 A.M. meeting today in his office, with the plan to catch an early ride on the Vista with the ski patrol.  Along with Josh and our family today, we had Leslie from ski school with her girls Alice and Laura, Vince on video, Shem on stills, and Brad from sales as another skier.  After catching that early Vista ride, the guys shot stills and video on Alta Vista, Sherman’s Pass, Sleepy Hollow, and then Fanny Hill.  They were using the early morning light well, and it seemed like they got some nice material  From there we caught another early ride, this time on the Wilderness Chair, much to the chagrin of people who kept coming by the chair thinking it had already opened.  A bunch of material was shot on Peggy Dow’s with some views of the Vista trails in the background.  All the kids were really patient with the work, which even required hiking back up some of the trails to shoot scenes again and ensure that they would be plenty of good material.  We all gathered in the base lodge for some lunch to finish off the session.

“For the best powder, you
had to stay above, or at
least close to, the 3,000’
level and stick to aspects
with a fair bit of northerly
component.”

E and Dylan had to leave after lunch because of a birthday party that Dylan was attending, but Ty and I hung around with the intention of getting in a backcountry tour.  With the way the temperatures were rising, I would have liked to do that tour in the morning to ensure the best powder, but the temperatures weren’t too bad up at elevation.  After switching out of our alpine gear and into our Telemark gear, we caught a ride on the Wilderness Chair, and headed off the backside just like I’d done on my tour last Saturday.  I had initially contemplated skinning up to the top of Ricker Mountain and starting the tour from there, but I decided to make it a bit easier on Ty since he’d already hiked a lot during the media session.

The backcountry snow conditions were certainly variable today, with the snow on south-facing or open terrain taking on a more spring like consistency, but higher elevation, protected aspects held winter snow.  For the best powder, you had to stay above, or at least close to, the 3,000’ level and stick to aspects with a fair bit of northerly component.    There was some mighty fine snow out there though.  The dry powder skied the easiest of course, but even the stuff that was getting a bit sun baked was skiing reasonably well.  Based on my observations from last Saturday, we traversed a bit more to the north before making our descent.  We caught some nice new lines, and even managed to get right back to the spot where I’d stopped my descent last time.  It had settled somewhat, but my skin track from last weekend was still there, so we made use of that until we merged into the upper areas where another main skin track took over.

To get to our front side descent, I changed up our route a bit, using Paradise Pass in the southerly direction to hook up with Heavenly Highway.  We then used Moose Glen to get us into position for the descent.  I think this option might be easier than what I did last time.  We took a break before we started out final descent, making use of the hot soup and cocoa that I was carrying.  They weren’t quite as necessary in terms of the cold relative to a tour in colder weather, but they hit the spot after using all that energy to tour around.  For our front side descent we used the route that drops us down to Snow Hole, and even when the snow had warmed, it was actually quite easy to ski.  Ty had a blast, and our route back to the base area was quite smooth – since I’d explored it already, I know just where to go for the best lines.  One of the best parts of the day was that Ty had a great attitude throughout – he was really positive about the whole experience and seemed to be having a blast.

A Google Earth map with GPS tracking data from a front and backcountry ski tour at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont on March 9th, 2013
Google Earth map with GPS tracking data from today’s tour – Click for full size image

It certainly did get above freezing up there at some point today though, as the high temperature at 2,100’ today was 44.2F, but there were very nice turns to be had up high.  The weather is expected to be warm and sunny again tomorrow, but hopefully we’ll be back into some snow during the midweek period to keep building the base.

Stowe, VT 03MAR2013

An image of Ken on skis dropping into the Gondolier Woods at Stowe Mountain Ski Resort in Vermont
Conditions are outstanding right now at Stowe – Ken demonstrates as he drops into the Gondolier Woods.

We’ve been under the continued influence of an upper level low pressure system off to our northeast for the past couple of days, and it’s brought persistent light snows to the mountains and even the valleys in Northern Vermont.  As of this morning we’d picked up a couple of inches of snow here at the house, and the mountains had received up to 7 inches of powder.  The snowfall was fairly robust up around 3,000’ yesterday when I was out in the Bolton Valley backcountry, and although it had tapered off somewhat today, we knew that conditions were going to be good with the consistently wintry temperature regime we’ve had.  Today was BJAMS ski program day at Stowe, and based on the latest report from Powderfreak yesterday, we knew the skiing was going to be excellent.

“It’s almost hard to get
a handle on just how good
much of the mountain is
skiing right now – each new
line we try seems to deliver.”

Claire recently returned from her trip to Africa, so we headed off to Stowe a bit early to make some initial “face time” ski runs that E and Claire could use to catch up on program coordination.  We did a couple of laps off Sunny Spruce with the boys, and the conditions were fantastic as expected.  The groomed surfaces were all packed powder, and the edges of the trails and the off piste areas were providing ample powder.  I did encounter a bit of firmer snow beneath the powder on the open slopes above Meadows.  Signs of that melt layer from last week’s bits of low-elevation warmth are certainly getting buried with the continued rounds of light snow, but low elevation and south facing areas still have some of that underneath.

An image of Ken doing a tip stand on his skis outside the Spruce Camp Lodge at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont
Ken keeps the boys on their toes as we get ready for the day’s ski session.

When it was time for our session, we gathered up our main group, which consisted of me, Ty, Dylan, Luke, and Ken.  We chatted with Joe and his group about joining up for some runs – we heard about how much fun they’d had in the Chin Clip Streambed, and figured that they would love Angel Food.  We were anxious to get Ken a run out there, so it was high on our hit list for the day.  Our first run up on the docket though, was Spruce Line; that was Ty’s request, and we figured that we should get it in before we headed over to Mansfield.  We teamed up with Joe and his group right away, since they wanted to ski that area as well.  We were even able to take Horse Barn Chute on our way over; since coverage is really good right now, and that area has filled in well.  From the top of Sensation we dropped into Green Acres, and Luke was very excited to be making turns down that first steep face that has intimidated him in the past.  The snow in the trees there was outstanding, with a few inches of untouched powder on the main lines, and bottomless powder off to the sides.  It seems like there’s been very little traffic in there as of late.  In order to attempt the lower areas of Spruce Line, we connected back to Main Street, but we found the entrances to those lower areas closed (possibly because of the race taking place on Main Street) and took it as our cue to head over to Mansfield.

“Joe was amazed at how
deep and plentiful the snow
was out there – he said it
reminded him of Lake Tahoe…”

We decided to get right on with our plan to ski Angel Food, since it wasn’t the sort of endeavor I wanted to tackle late in the day with a group of eleven, most of whom had never been out there.  As it turned out, we were going to appreciate that cushion of time.  Our first snafu took place just as we were finishing the traverse out to the top of Angel Food. Joanna dropped a bit too low on the traverse, and wound up being committed to a lower line.  Ken decided that he’d better accompany her to make sure everything went smoothly – it’s roughly a mile of distance that needs to be covered to get out of there, and the route is through forested terrain of varying densities that is typically filled with deep powder.  It’s important to have a sense for where you are going, so Ken’s choice was apt.  And then there were nine.  The general descent of Angel Food went fairly smoothly for the rest of the group, and Joe and everyone else experiencing the area for the first time were simply having a blast.  Joe was amazed at how deep and plentiful the snow was out there – he said it reminded him of Lake Tahoe, and I let him know that it’s one of the reasons people are so enamored with the skiing on that part of the mountain.  That area beneath The Chin gets perhaps the most snow at the resort, on a mountain already known for getting a lot of snow.  Indeed the conditions out there have just been getting better and better as the snow’s been piling up over the past month, and it was packed powder all around on the main line with virtually limitless options for powder off to the sides.  Our next snafu began when we just missed the main traverse back to the gondola base.  I quickly got the word out that we should start traversing hard on our own, but Ethan missed that announcement and was already a few dozen yards below us.  I started a fresh traverse through the powder, with the other folks following me, and we instructed Ethan to start his own traverse below.  I cut a pretty hard traverse that was doing a good job of getting us back on track, but Ethan’s traverse was not quite as strict, and before long he was a hundred yards below us.  There was no way he was going to get back up to us in a reasonable amount of time.  I decided that we needed to keep the entire group together, and if it meant taking one of the lines all the way down to the notch and lengthening our run, then that’s what we’d do.  It’s one of the reasons we made sure we had the extra time.  The bonus result of the situation of course was that we got to ski a fairly steep, very lightly tracked line.  It’s one of the multitude of fantastic lines that one might ogle when they’re out there, wondering where they go… and we got to find out.  As it turns out, it still has a traverse that gets one back onto the main line, and we had Ethan to thank for the discovery.  I’m sure it’s got a nice name given by someone that worked hard to create such an excellent piece of ski terrain, but “Ethan’s Chute” is going to be our name for now.  Honestly, today’s explorations only reinforced the fact that it could take years to really piece together the hundreds of acres of glades, chutes, and everything else that is out there.  Thanks to today’s explorations though, we were able to add another small piece to the puzzle.

Ken and Joanna had made good time on their descent, which was somewhere inside of ours and more proximal to the resort, and Ken said that although there was still some undergrowth on their route like we’d experienced a few weeks back in the Bench Woods, they encountered just ridiculous amounts of untracked powder.  Sam had battled just a little too much powder and a few too many trees on our Angel Food descent, so Joe brought him back over to Spruce for a break, and Joanna and Julia had some runs they wanted to do on their own, so we were down to a group of seven.  After the long Angel Food adventure we decided to slow it down a bit by taking a standard run on Waterfall and Gondolier, and then giving the boys a break in the Midway LodgeWaterfall had absolutely excellent snow after just a couple of windswept moguls at the top – it was soft packed powder with a few inches of new powder sifted in on top.  It’s almost hard to get a handle on just how good much of the mountain is skiing right now – each new line we try seems to deliver.  We generally stuck to Gondolier for most of that descent, but some of us couldn’t help but get sucked into the Gondolier Woods for at least part of the run.  That terrain was already in good shape a month ago, so it’s not hard to figure out how good it’s getting now.

As we sat in the Midway Lodge, taking our break by the fireplace (which I think is becoming a favorite spot for Ken as well as me) we threw around ideas for our end game.  We’d have time for just a run or two, and we ultimately decided to traverse over to the Fourrunner Quad and catch either Lookout or Hackett’s Highway.  Lookout was closed from the top, so we wound our way down to Hackett’s, again visiting some of those Lord Trees that we’d explored last time.  Ty had quite an exit there, dropping a six foot cliff back onto the trail area, and nearly landing on a rock, but he pulled it out.  Hackett’s was in nice shape, and we coupled it with some Hackett’s Highway Trees as we made our way to Crossover and back to the Spruce Peak Base Area.

On the way home, E and the boys and I stopped off for some dinner at Piecasso, and while we were there discussing the day’s exploits on the slopes, a gentleman sitting at the table next to us with his family, overhead us and asked about conditions.  He said that they had just arrived in town, and that they were concerned about the amount of snow that they were seeing, wondering if there was going to be enough on the slopes.  I was surprised, because Stowe actually has decent coverage in town – I’m sure it’s below normal for this time of year at a bit less than a foot (March 3rd is actually the peak for snowpack at our house, and that’s typically around two feet), but everything is well covered and white thanks to the recent light snows.  Depending on where he came from though, he may have seen some rather meager looking snowpack in places.  I assured him that the mountain was very well covered, and that there was over five feet of natural snowpack at the Mt. Mansfield Stake.  I’m not sure where that family was from, perhaps Quebec based on the accents, but they should have a classic, fantastic Stowe experience this week.  We’ve got a couple more days of this light snow, then some clear days are expected at the end of the week, and there’s the potential for a larger snowstorm next weekend.  I’m looking forward to making turns next weekend already.

Bolton Valley and Backcountry, VT 02MAR2013

An image of a ski track in powder in the terrain off the back side of Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont
Enjoying some of the substantial powder of the back side of Bolton Valley

Since the storm that came through in the midweek period, we’ve moved under the influence of an upper level low pressure system that is off to our northeast.  It’s keeping snow showers in the area, but as of this morning the Northern Vermont ski Resorts had only picked up 1 to 3 inches of snow.  Without much in the way of new powder, it was a little hard to get the boys motivated to head up to the mountain today, but E thought that they might be excited by some swimming at the Bolton Valley Sports Center.  Indeed that was enough to get them excited, so while E and the boys spent time at the pool, I planned to get in a quick sidecountry and backcountry ski tour.  My plan was to head off the back side of the Wilderness Summit to explore a line that I’d seen before, and then connect back onto the trails of the Bolton Valley Backcountry Network and return to the village via a front side run.  Dylan had to get to a birthday party at 3:30 P.M., so I had to fit my tour into a two to three hour window.

An image of the ski patrol headquarters at Bolton Valley Resort in VermontE and the boys dropped me off at the base of the Wilderness Lift as they headed down to the pool, and light snow was already breaking out after a morning lull.  Temperatures were comfortable in the low 20s F, and winds were fairly minimal.  Rime still coated the trees all over the mountain, and clouds shrouded the upper elevations, leaving the overall views very white.  As I approached the Wilderness Summit, the chairs ahead of me began to disappear into the clouds, but visibility at the summit itself would up not being all that bad.

I followed the main route off the back of the Wilderness Chair that I’d taken before, and found a skin track ascending as I began my descent.  I initially followed the main drainage right below Ricker Mountain, but continued to head off to the north because I kept finding the terrain much more open.  The skiing was quite good, even if the powder was a rather dense, Pacific Northwest style snow, but it covered everything below the snow with such effectiveness that it really proved its worth.  There were numerous and continuous open areas, allowing for some big turns.  I’d pulled my fat skis out after a couple weeks on skinnier gear, and they were absolutely the call today.  The dense snow was accommodated well with girth and rocker, and there were minimal worries about catching a ski under the snow.  I continued to descend, heading generally northward when the appropriate opportunities arose, until I’d hit the 2,500’ elevation mark after descending close to 700’.  The snow was getting a bit of crust on it down at that elevation, and the terrain was flattening out, so it was the perfect place to stop.  I found myself in an area that I knew fairly well from previous tours, and with a little GPS guidance I was able to plot a course up toward Paradise Pass.

As I’d done on the descent, I continued to check the depth of the snow as I skinned up.  I generally measured depths between 20 and 30 inches before reaching a real solid subsurface, and although I was only skiing on the top several inches due to its density, it was still quite impressive.  All that wind that I mentioned in my Bolton report from February 18th had to put the snow somewhere, and plenty of it got thrown to the leeward slopes.  Combined with all the recent snowfall from various storms, it’s mighty deep out there.  The Mt. Mansfield Stake is at 63” as of yesterday evening, which is actually about a half foot below average, but at this time of year even being a bit below average means a pretty deep snowpack.  The intensity of the snowfall had picked up quite a bit since my tour began, I just about had to wear my goggles even while ascending because of the snow intensity at times.

I got myself up to Paradise Pass, and had to pull out my map a few times and I wound my way over to the section of Heavenly Highway where I planned to make my front side descent.  After a couple direction changes, I met my goal, and hit a glade I’d found that brought me right down to Snow Hole.  I couldn’t believe that the front side snow in the high elevations was even slightly better than I’d found on the back side.  I think that a little more of the recent snow had fallen there, creating a thicker coating atop the denser snow.  Whatever the case, it was sweet and allowed me to rip my way down through the terrain. Once down to Snow Hole I called E to check on their status – they were done swimming and were having lunch at the Village Deli.  With that info I was able to head toward the base of the Wilderness Lift, and then onward to the deli for some lunch of my own.  I was pretty bushed from keeping such a high pace on the tour to ensure that I got back to the village in time, and boy did I devour that sandwich.

A Google Earth map with GPS tracking data from a front and backcountry ski tour at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont on March 2nd, 2013
Google Earth map with GPS tracking data from today’s tour – Click for full size image

Later in the evening we went for a snowshoe tour around the neighborhood and across the Winooski, and the snowfall picked up, providing an excellent wintry scene.  We’ve already had more snow tonight than last night, and all these small rounds of snow are going to really help in keeping the slopes fresh.

2011-2012 Ski Season Summary

With everyone having their own unique perspective on skiing, some of which you can discover at supreme ski morzine skiing school. They tend to love skiing since they teach people how to do it! But combined with the multitude of weather-related factors involved in winter recreation in general, there’s usually ample room for debate about where a ski season sits relative to average. However, when it comes to the 2011-2012 ski season in Northern Vermont (and perhaps to an even greater extent in other parts of the Northeastern U.S.) most any metric would set it firmly in the lower half of seasons. Some key contributing factors to the outcome of the season were temperatures, which were above average for every month from October through May (specific monthly temperature departures are available in the monthly detail section), overall precipitation, which was well below average during that period, and as expected with that combination, snowfall that was well below average. However, the numbers don’t always tell the whole story, and indeed that was the case in Northern Vermont this past season. If numbers aren’t everything, perhaps timing is everything, and the snow machine of the Northern Greens exhibited some impeccable timing for some of the busiest ski periods when it came down to it. There was also a consistency and intensity in backside snows that seemed to heal just about every mixed precipitation event. So while I don’t think that the winter of 2011-2012 can be considered anything but below average around here, the bigger story might just be how “surprisingly good” it was. That story unfolds in the details below, and may inspire people to look at other skiing options. Some may consider the vail village ski rentals in such a situation, especially after reading about this different location.

Snowfall: A very reliable and trustworthy indicator of just how poor the winter’s snowfall was for the general Northern Vermont area, is the data from the area’s first-order weather station at the National Weather Service Office in Burlington. Out of 127 years worth of data going back to the winter of 1884-1885, the 37.7″ of total snowfall in Burlington during 2011-2012 was the third lowest in their records (only 1912-1913 with 31.3″ and 1904-1905 with 32.0″ were lower). Interestingly this third lowest recorded snowfall obtained in 2011-2012 came right on the heels of Burlington’s third highest recorded snowfall of 128.4″ in 2010-2011. Relative to average snowfall, which for the 1884-2011 period of record in Burlington is 73.3″, 2011-2012 came in at just 51.4%. Burlington is the local first-order weather station for the area, but despite its proximity to the spine of the Northern Greens, the Champlain Valley’s snowfall doesn’t necessarily correlate with what goes on in the mountains. Looking next at Winooski Valley snowfall data obtained from our house, which sits right along the spine and is a decent representation of what happens in the mountain valleys of the Greens, we find that snowfall was well below average during all the key winter months, and our season total was 115.3″. Not surprisingly, this is the lowest snowfall total obtained in the six years that we have collected rigorous data at our location, and it’s almost two standard deviations below the mean (172.1 ± 31.5″) obtained from 2006-2011. However, at 67.0% of the average snowfall, it’s not quite as low as what Burlington experienced. Like the local mountains themselves, some spots in the mountain valleys have what Powderfreak refers to as a snowfall “insurance policy”, which comes in the form of upslope snow. Burlington and the Champlain Valley can get in on a bit of mesoscale weather action in the form of lake-effect snow from Lake Champlain, but it’s not a major contributor to snowfall due to the size and orientation of the lake. To the east of the Champlain Valley however, the upslope snow, sometimes referred to as Champlain Powder™, is what sets the snowfall in the Greens apart from areas that rely solely on synoptic precipitation. Interestingly, as we head up in elevation above our house in the valley, we find Bolton Valley reporting a very similar deviation from average snowfall compared to Burlington this season. Bolton recorded 159″ of snow this past season, which based on Bolton’s reported seasonal snowfall mean of 312″, comes in at just 51.0% of average. That amount of snow is extremely low for this area, and is more akin to what one might find in a typical season at Lake Louise Ski Area in Alberta vs. the spine of Vermont’s Northern Greens. The updated table with Bolton Valley’s snowfall from the past several seasons is added below, which illustrates the strong snowfall deviation from average seen in 2011-2012:

A table displaying the season snowfall totals at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont from the 2006-2007 season through the 2011-2012 season, as well as the average reported by the resort and the average during that period
Snowfall at Bolton Valley Resort during the 2011-2012 ski season (shown in blue) was extremely low, just half the average amount.

Although still well below average all around, there certainly was a trend toward slightly better snowfall as one continued to head north in the state, with the northward trend of 63.4% at Stowe, 66.6% at Smuggler’s Notch, and 71.5% at Jay Peak relative to average. A contributor to the low snowfall at the resorts was the fact that there was really only one big, multi-foot storm cycle during the heart of the season. That storm came at the end of February and dropped 40″ at Jay Peak, just on the heels of a couple smaller systems for a total in excess of 50″ of snow in just a few days. The resulting skiing was fantastic due the density gradient that was set up by the way it fell – 1 to 2 feet of dense snow came first, and it was topped off with another couple feet of champagne that finished at around 2% H2O. The snowpack at the Mt. Mansfield Stake jumped from 49″ to 81″ during that period, and the icing on the cake was that the storm cleared right out to produce bluebird skies on Feb 26th. Unfortunately, one great storm doesn’t make a season. Based on estimations from my weather data, on average we should only expect one or two of those 40″+ storms per season, but they would typically be backed up by several 20″+ storms, and the deficiency of those is part of what left the overall snowfall lacking.

Tree Skiing: In the past I’ve used empirical data from trip reports to establish a mean date for the start of tree skiing in Northern/North-Central Vermont, and as I outlined in last year’s ski season summary, that analysis revealed a date of December 10th ± 13 days, with an average depth at the stake of 28.1 ± 6.5 inches. However, after a comment from Powderfreak back on December 12th, in which he indicated that he’d observed tree skiing on appropriate terrain at Stowe to start roughly when the snow depth at the Mt. Mansfield Stake hit 24 inches, I decided to run an analysis using snowpack data from the stake. Instead of just the 15 to 20 seasons worth of ski trip reports that are available since the arrival of the internet era, there are almost 60 seasons worth of data available from the Mt. Mansfield Stake. Analysis of the stake data using the first date of attaining 24″ of snow depth or higher as the start of tree skiing, actually produced a very similar result (December 12th ± 19 days, with an average depth at the stake of 25.8 ± 2.7 inches) to what was obtained from the empirical data. With the date being so close to what I determined from the empirical data, I’m pretty confident that the date of attaining 24″ in the stake data will serve just as well in determining the average start of tree skiing, and the relative start date for individual seasons. With the median and mode for that analysis coming in quite close to the mean, the distribution seems normal, so the standard deviation in the data should have some predictive value. This “24-inch rule” isn’t meant to replace the traditional “40-inch rule“, but it’s there to compliment it as a more practical measure of when people actually start venturing into the trees in this area (the fact that it is corroborated by many years of empirical data can testify to that). The point at which the stake hits 24 inches is a decent mark for when appropriately maintained trees are going to start offering up good turns for those with the right skills and knowledge, whereas once the stake hits 40 inches, skiers can pretty much venture into most off-piste areas with a good degree of confidence. Between those two points is going to be a continuum of increasing access to off piste terrain. Moving from the 24″ depth to the 40” depth will typically take place during the month of December, with the snowpack at the Mt. Mansfield Stake reaching the 40″ mark at the beginning of January on average.

So where did the 2011-2012 season stack up in terms of the start of tree skiing in Northern Vermont? Not surprisingly, when assessed by the new method of reaching 24″ at the Mt. Mansfield Stake, it’s down near the bottom of the pack. Below, I’ve added a scatter plot that I generated using the Mt. Mansfield snowpack data; the X-axis is a timeline spanning from October to January, and the blue stars represent the dates when 24 inches of snow depth was attained at the stake for the various years from 1954-2012. The red data point is for the 2011-2012 season (date of attaining 24″ = January 3rd, 2012), so the season is indeed more than one standard deviation on the late side (the large vertical line in the plot is the mean, and the small vertical lines are ± 1 standard deviation), although it actually isn’t as late a start as some seasons:

A scatter plot showing the date of attaining a 24-inch snowpack at the Mt. Mansfield stake in Vermont for the years 1954-2012
A scatter plot showing the date of attaining a 24-inch snowpack at the Mt. Mansfield Stake. Each star represents a year from 1954-2012, and this year’s date of attaining a 24-inch snowpack at the Mt. Mansfield Stake (January 3rd; indicated by the red star) is on the later side.

For those that want the actual raw data from the above plot to see where specific seasons stacked up in terms of reaching that 24-inch mark at the stake, the numbers are available in my initial post with the plot in the New England Regional Forum at American Weather.

How did the 24-inch snowpack depth analysis compare to what we actually found on the ground this season? Since skiing natural snow terrain on piste began first, I’ll mention that momentarily before discussing the trees. I saw the first signs of people skiing natural snow trails this season on December 27th at Bolton, and coverage certainly looked sufficient on at least moderate terrain. The tracks I saw at that point already looked old, and I suspect that on piste natural snow coverage was actually sufficient the day before (December 26th), thanks to the Christmas Day storm. Bolton picked up close to a foot of snow from that storm, and at the end of the day on the 26th, the snow depth at the Mt. Mansfield Stake came in at 14″. The first day that we actually ventured into the trees at Bolton Valley was December 29th, and as I stated in my report from that day, we only ventured in for one run because the base was just a little too thin to really ski with confidence in there and enjoy it. And, when the snowpack was measured at the Mt. Mansfield Stake later that afternoon, the depth was 21 inches, just a bit shy of that 24-inch mark. By the next day, we were skiing natural snow trails with more than enough coverage, but it wasn’t until January 7th at Bolton that I commented about some of the trees finally being ready after the boys and I skied Wilderness Woods. The measurement from the stake came in at 24 inches that afternoon, and we were clearly reaching another threshold of sorts, so attaining that 24-inch depth at the stake was indeed a decent measure for the start of tree skiing this season in our experience. Powderfreak and I have discussed how that 24-inch number is going to be quite rough, since a 24-inch depth attained mostly with fluff will represent something substantially different that a 24-inch depth attained with cement, but it looks like it’s going to be a reasonable approximation of when people start to take their initial forays into the trees and find the conditions good enough to stay there.

Looking at tree/off piste skiing for the season as a whole, there’s no question that it was curtailed relative to normal. The very late date of reaching 24 inches at the stake in the beginning of January (January 3rd) is 1.13 standard deviations beyond the mean according to the Mt. Mansfield snowpack analysis, putting it close to the bottom 10% of seasons. When this is coupled with the large amount of melting in Mid March due to record heat, which closed a lot of terrain, it equates to a tree skiing season that is roughly 2 ½ months long, compared to the more typical length of 4 to 5 months. The off piste season was certainly condensed, and while coverage was there to enable plenty of access in January (Stowe reached 100% open status by January 14th), tree skiing really seemed to take forever to hit its stride; to wit, the snowpack at the stake didn’t hit the 40-inch mark until the end of January.

Snow Quality: In last season’s summary, I checked my trip reports and found those days in which we were skiing powder, typically suggesting a fairly high level of snow quality, and those days in which powder skiing wasn’t available, often indicating some sort of thaw (or in one case this season, insufficient base depths). For the list of outings below, I’ve again placed a P whenever we were skiing powder, and put a red X if we weren’t, to reveal the temporal pattern associated with that categorization. Outings with an X may still be providing decent skiing such as wet snow, corn, etc. (or else we’d probably be doing something other than skiing) but aside from the spring period, there’s going to be a price to pay in terms of snow quality after these episodes when temperatures eventually cool back down. Chronologically, the first X appears for the outing on December 10th at Bolton Valley. The lack of powder skiing on that date wasn’t actually due to temperature fluctuations, but instead due to the fact that there just wasn’t enough natural snow; substantial snowfall was very slow in coming in early December. The natural snow depth up above 2,000′ in the Bolton Valley Village was still only 2-3″ at that point, so short of junkboarding, skiing was really restricted to just the limited terrain that had manmade snow. The next X appears on our Bolton Valley outing on December 31st, and it represented a notable bump in the winter weather. The holiday week wasn’t too cold, but it was certainly snowy like one would expect at Christmas time in Vermont, with three decent snowstorms totaling more than two feet of snow at the northern resorts (refer to the December entry in the detailed monthly section for more information). So there was indeed some great powder skiing during that stretch. The main factor that kept the overall quality of the skiing from being really outstanding was the lack of base. The natural snow terrain that was open was excellent, but there still hadn’t been enough snow to open the steepest terrain without snowmaking. The X in this case comes in at the tail end of the holiday period where there was a thaw. I described the skiing on New Year’s Eve as reminding me of the Pacific Northwest, with low hanging clouds on the mountains, and dense snow underfoot. I’m not sure how long the resulted firm snow conditions lasted, because three small to moderate storms came through the area that week, with the first one dropping a half foot of snow in the mountains. By the following Saturday there was powder skiing again for the weekend. From that point on there were no interruptions in powder skiing though to mid March – at least from our perspective; we don’t ski every day of course, but we did ski every weekend through that period. However, Powderfreak does ski just about every day of the season at Stowe, and he noted that there were only a few select days without powder. I’ll speak more about that at the end of this section. By far the section of the outings list that stands out the most is the second half of March – the dramatic change in conditions is quite obvious, with seven outings in a row marked with an X. Record warm weather came in with a vengeance in mid March, and it was all spring skiing until the weather cooled back down to normal levels and produced snowstorms for the final two thirds of April. We finally finished off our season with a couple of corn snow days in May, a point in the season where that type of snow is the norm.

The 2010-2011 ski season was the first one to which I applied this type of powder skiing analysis, and relative to what I thought it would look like, I was certainly surprised by the consistent availability of powder conditions once I saw the data lined up. But as surprised as I was with that result, the 2011-2012 analysis is even more astounding. Somehow there was good to great skiing every weekend/holiday period throughout most of the core ski season, despite the overwhelmingly warm temperatures and low snowfall. As I mentioned above in the snowfall section, Bolton Valley reported just 159″ of snow for their entire season. That’s ridiculously low – it’s half their usual snowfall, and we typically average more snow than that at our house, almost 3,000′ below the upper elevations of the resort where the snowfall measurements are taken. That amount of snow might suffice for some decent skiing in an environment like the high elevations of the Rockies with very consistent winter temperatures, but this season in Vermont was anything but that. There were temperature issues throughout the season, and January was a perfect example – at the end of the month, local meteorologist Roger Hill pointed out that we’d had seven January thaws. I had many ski weather-related conversations with Powderfreak in the 2011-2012 ski thread at American Weather’s New England Subforum about the surprisingly high quality of the skiing, and there was certainly consistency in conditions, but we also determined that it was an issue of timing. Snowfall was low, and spells of warm temperatures abundant, but storms were just timed well to ensure that most snow quality issues were remedied by the weekend. Although the season was warm on average, we didn’t have many big rain events, and any that we did have seemed to be quickly covered by backside snow. There was indeed something special about the timing though, because somehow we had weekend after weekend of nice skiing with powder on Bolton’s 159″ of snow. The detailed reports below and the monthly ski summaries that follow, provide the specifics of how it all went down, and the frequency and distribution of P in the outings list really speaks to that theme of “surprisingly good”:

P Pico, VT, Sunday 30OCT2011
P Bolton Valley, VT, Wednesday 23NOV2011
X Bolton Valley, VT, Saturday 10DEC2011
P Stowe, VT, Saturday 17DEC2011
P Bolton Valley, VT, Friday 23DEC2011 (A.M. Session)
P Bolton Valley, VT, Friday 23DEC2011 (P.M. Session)
P Bolton Valley, VT, Saturday 24DEC2011
P Bolton Valley, VT, Tuesday 27DEC2011
P Bolton Valley, VT, Wednesday 28DEC2011
P Bolton Valley, VT, Thursday 29DEC2011
P Bolton Valley, VT, Friday 30DEC2011
X Bolton Valley, VT, Saturday 31DEC2011
P Bolton Valley, VT, Saturday 07JAN2012
P Stowe, VT, Sunday 08JAN2012
P Bolton Valley, VT, Thursday 12JAN2012
P Bolton Valley, VT, Saturday 14JAN2012
P Bolton Valley (Timberline), VT, Sunday 15JAN2012
P Stowe, VT, Sunday 16JAN2012
P Bolton Valley Nordic & Backcountry, VT, Saturday 21JAN2012
P Stowe, VT, Sunday 22JAN2012
P Stowe, VT, Sunday 29JAN2012
P Bolton Valley, VT, Saturday 04FEB2012
P Stowe, VT, Sunday 05FEB2012
P Bolton Valley, VT, Saturday 11FEB2012
P Bolton Valley, VT, Saturday 18FEB2012
P Bolton Valley Nordic & Backcountry, VT, Sunday 19FEB2012
P Bolton Valley Nordic/Backcountry & Bolton Mtn, VT, Monday 20FEB2012
P Bolton Valley, VT, Thursday 23FEB2012
P Bolton Valley, VT, Saturday 25FEB2012
P Stowe, VT, Sunday 26FEB2012
P Stowe, VT, Friday 02MAR2012
P Bolton Valley, VT, Saturday 03MAR2012
P Stowe, VT, Sunday 04MAR2012
P Bolton Valley, VT, Wednesday 07MAR2012
P Bolton Valley, VT, Saturday 10MAR2012
P Stowe, VT, Sunday 11MAR2012
X Bolton Valley, VT, Saturday 17MAR2012
X Stowe, VT, Sunday 18MAR2012
X Stowe, VT, Friday 23MAR2012
X Bolton Valley, VT, Saturday 24MAR2012
X Stowe, VT, Sunday 25MAR2012
X Stowe, VT, Saturday 31MAR2012
X Stowe, VT, Sunday 01APR2012
P Stowe, VT, Tuesday 10APR2012
P Jay Peak, VT, Thursday 12APR2012
P Bolton Valley, VT, Saturday 14APR2012
P Stowe, VT, Friday 27APR2012
P Stowe, VT, Saturday 28APR2012
X Jay Peak, VT, Saturday 12MAY2012
X Mount Washington, NH, Sunday 27MAY2012

Monthly Summaries for the 2011-2012 Ski Season:

An image of Erica skiing powder on the Birch Glades Trail at Pico Vermont - October 30, 2011
E enjoys some of the October powder at Pico after back to back storms set up some great ski conditions.

October: Snowfall in the month of October is generally scant down at the elevation of our house (495′), and because we’re on the fringe of the cold season at that point, it’s not a great indicator of snowfall in the local mountains. The six year average I have in the valley is 0.9″ of snow for October, so by that measure, the 1.2″ of snow that we received in October 2011 was very typical. However, for the New England region as a whole, October 2011 would wind up being anything but typical. Back to back snowstorms hit New England at the end of the month, with the first one on October 27th dropping over a foot of snow at Killington to kick things off with gusto. That type of storm is pretty standard for the mountains of Vermont in October, but just a couple days later on the 29th, it was followed up by a second, larger storma record-breaking monster of an October snowstorm for Southern New England. Over 30 inches of snow fell in some locations, and those weren’t necessarily high elevation locales. Massive power outages ensued because leaves were still on the trees in those areas, and people were without power for up to two weeks. Ironically, despite the back-to-back snowstorms in New England, including an historic, 100-year event, Northern Vermont ended up with little if any snow from either of them. The lack of snowfall is seen easily in my 2011-2012 Waterbury/Mt. Mansfield snowpack plot – the only snow depth recorded on Mt. Mansfield for the entire month was 0.5″ on October 30th, and that is essentially invisible with the scale used. I don’t know what Mt. Mansfield averages for snow in October, but I’m sure what they got was well below average. As for the skiing though, what we couldn’t get in the Northern Greens was easily obtained about an hour south in the Central Greens. With the mountains of Central Vermont getting hit by both storms, we headed down to Pico with the boys for an outstanding day of turns in the powder. The back-to-back storms had essentially set up snow on snow, or powder atop a base. That’s a bit of a treat compared to the way October skiing on natural snow often plays out, so it was enjoyed by many. It almost seemed like half the ski population of Stowe had temporarily migrated south to access the great turns at Pico. So while in general, October was pleasant, mild, and nearly snowless in Northern Vermont (Burlington came in 2.0 degrees F above normal at the National Weather Service Office) some great skiing snuck in there a bit to the south.

An image of old ski tracks on the Sherman's Pass ski trail at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont after a November snowstorm
Some November turns on Sherman’s thanks to our recent snowstorm

November: I’ll put November 2011 into perspective by looking at November 2010, in which the ski conditions were apparently poor enough that we didn’t ski once. Fortunately, that didn’t happen this season – even if just by a day. The near lack of snow in November 2010 could be considered demonstrative of typical November snowfall in the valley though, because up to that point it had truly been feast or famine since we moved to our current Waterbury location in 2006. However, this past November finally bucked that trend by coming in with 11.4″ of snow (128% of average) which is as close to “normal” snowfall as I’ve ever seen for the month based on my data. We had a couple of minor accumulating snowstorms early in the month, and then another mid month, but it was a storm near the end of the month that really produced 95% of our November valley snowfall. That storm dropped almost a foot of snow at the house, and got me to head up to Bolton Valley for some turns. In terms of skiing, options for catching the new snow atop a manmade base were rather limited because most of the local resorts were of course using their manmade snow to serve customers, but I headed up to Bolton Valley to see if the natural snow alone was enough for some turns. Since they don’t open until December, Bolton hadn’t yet made any snow by that point, but it turned out that the storm had dropped over a foot of snow up there, and it was dense enough that one didn’t need much of it to keep them off of whatever lay beneath. I enjoyed some decent turns, even if that outing wound up being the only one for the month. This past November was a decent step up from the previous couple of seasons with little to no snow, but we’ve still yet to have a very snowy November since the 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 seasons; both those seasons delivered roughly 20″ of snow in the valley, and plenty more in the mountains. The general seasonal trend of warm weather continued right through the month as well; although much colder than October on an absolute basis, November was even warmer relative to its long range average, coming in 5.1 degrees above normal at the National Weather Service Office in Burlington.

An image of intricate, feathery patterns of frost on one of the windows of the main base lodge at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
Holiday week frost delicately adorns one of the windows in the Bolton Valley base lodge.

December: The first two thirds of December simply felt like a continuation of November; the pre-holiday period was hampered by above average temperatures, but the more notable issue was the absence of significant storms. The Northern Greens were holding their own thanks to numerous small snowfalls, and these events were definitely enough to get us into some powder skiing, but they weren’t enough to really build a deep base of natural snow. The last third of the month was really the highlight in terms of snowfall. As the all-important holiday week approached, Central Vermont northward finally got into some moderate storms. The localized nature of these storms was good for highway travelers from down south, and one could hardly ask for better timing of fresh snow for the holiday week. Storm 1 hit on Friday the 23rd, dropping roughly half a foot from Killington northward, storm 2 was on the 25th, centered on Stowe where they received over a foot, and storm 3 began on the 27th, with totals again topping out around a foot. The skiing was quite good, indeed excellent by the end of the week as the snow from the storms continued to pile up, but the lack of snowfall earlier in the month meant that the natural base depths weren’t there like they would normally be. Fortunately, some natural snow terrain was open, but certainly not the steepest stuff, and the natural snowpack was still just a bit too lean to spend much time in the trees. In any event, we skied eight times during that holiday stretch, a sign that there was definitely some good skiing. With all the new snow, our local area certainly had it a lot better than many places in the country did during the holiday week, so in that regard we were lucky. I’m sure business was still down at the Vermont ski areas in general, but people may have been hearing about the holiday snow that Northern Vermont was getting, because Powderfreak posted on Christmas Eve how lodging space was still very tight in Stowe. Despite the snow in the northern half of Vermont though, the general talk around the region was how poor and snowless it was in general, so I’m sure many places lost some potential visitors due to that. Even with those moderate storms at the end of the month, when all was said and done, we still ended up quite low on snowfall down at the house; the 24.7″ we received was just 59% of our average for the past six seasons. Temperature consistency/snow surface quality: With the slow start to snowfall, we didn’t even ski during the first weekend of the month, but we did get out for the other four. The second weekend was the one where there was no powder simply because there wasn’t enough snow. Temperatures were certainly above average as a whole (NWS in Burlington was +4.8 F on the month), but December mean temperatures start getting cold enough that even above average departures can still be sub-freezing and produce snow in the mountains . The third weekend of the month had some decent conditions at Stowe, and then the final two weekends sort of lose their definition with the big holiday week, and that period gets lumped together. Conditions for the holiday week were mostly wintry; strictly speaking though, the last weekend of the month did see a thaw, but in the context of the whole holiday week it was rather insignificant.

An image of Greg and some of the boys in our ski group on the Sensation Quad at Stowe Mountain Resort, with tracks visible in the powder on the lift line trail below
Greg and some of the boys riding Sensation today between laps in the powder below

January: We had 13 accumulating snowstorms at the house in January, which is quite decent and actually a bit above average in number, but as mentioned in the Snow Quality section of this season summary, we also had seven January thaws. These thaws didn’t mean torrential rains, but what we saw were many storms with mixed precipitation in the middle, cutting down on snow totals. The Northern Greens continuously made fantastic recoveries in snow conditions due to grabbing that upslope snow on the backside, so snow surfaces were quite nice in general, but in those first couple of weeks after the holiday storms, we got back into what Powderfreak calls “nickel and dime” snows. They kept surfaces fresh, but base depths built very slowly. Finally on the 12th, we got a more significant storm, which dropped two feet at Jay Peak, and roughly a foot and a half down through Sugarbush. That storm was an undeniably propitious event, and Stowe’s terrain was 100% open by January 14th. Again we saw Mother Nature pulling off some of her nice timing with that storm cycle, since it was just in time for the MLK weekend. I remember skiing great packed powder snow on Waterfall at Stowe on the 16th, and commenting to Powderfreak how astonished I was – it seems like that trail is hardly ever open even in a good season, and there we were skiing it with such premium snow in a very low snow season. We were fortunate to get that storm though, because after that it was back to nickel and dime storms with some of those similar mixed precipitation sandwich events with backside snows for the remainder of the month. Overall snowfall at the house was 32.6″, not quite as low as December, but still just 83% of average, so we weren’t making any gains on the low season snowfall. At +5.8 F, the deviation from normal temperatures at the Burlington NWS for January was even a degree higher than it had been for December. Like December though, normal January temperatures are cold enough that substantial snow can fall with positive departures like that. Temperature consistency/snow surface quality: With eight days under our belts from the holiday week, and nothing returning the conditions to midwinter after our Pacific Northwest-style outing on December 31st, we didn’t ski on January 1st, but we did ski on all four of the full weekends during the month. As seen in the outings list above, powder was present throughout our trips to the mountain, which was pretty amazing considering all those thaws/mixed precipitation storms.

An image of Ty skiing in heavy snowfall during a two-foot snowstorm at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
It was storm skiing today at Bolton Valley.

February: There’s no question that February will go down as having the best skiing of the season in Northern Vermont, but the month certainly didn’t start out in a spectacular way. An initial half foot storm at the beginning of the month did a fantastic job of resurfacing the slopes after one of those January “sandwich” storms with mixed precipitation in the middle, and Mt. Mansfield continued to impress. Although still well below average in terms of both snowfall and snowpack, Northern Vermont was clearly doing extremely well in comparison to even Central Vermont by that point. After that initial modest snowfall event, our wishes for a weather pattern change that would get us away from all those mixed events were indeed answered, but perhaps not exactly in the manner we would have liked. Instead of switching over to more typical snowstorms, the precipitation basically shut off. Down at the house, we’d had just over half a foot of snow through the first three weeks of the month. For a month in which we average over 40″ of snow in the valley with a very low standard deviation of about 8 inches, we were staring at the potential for an amazingly low monthly snowfall total. Happily, the last week of the month ensured that February 2012 didn’t live on in infamy. We quickly picked up a couple of appetizer storms on the 21st and the 22nd, which didn’t produce much snow at the house, but delivered close to a foot in the mountains. It was on the 24th though that the big kahuna came through; that storm dropped up to 40″ in the northern mountains, with a total of over 50″ at Jay Peak for the three storms combined. It wasn’t just a fluff storm either; snow from that storm definitely fell “right side up”, and ski conditions were off the charts. So much snow fell so quickly though that the avalanche conditions got a bit tenuous in the backcountry. I saw mention that Jay Peak broke their 24-hour snowfall record during the storm, but since I see that listed as 42″, I don’t think that was actually topped with this storm. In any event, the natural snow depths made huge gains, and as mentioned above; that storm even brought the snowpack at the Mt. Mansfield stake to an above average level. With a final storm total of 22.7″ at the house, it was our largest valley snowfall of the season. That one storm pretty much made the month in terms of our valley snowfall, but we still ended up with just 30.7″, which is 73% of average. The general presence of heat didn’t let up either, and the departure from normal at the NWS in Burlington again went up an entire degree from the previous month to reach +6.8 F. Temperature consistency/snow surface quality: The great timing of storms continued, and even the reduced snowfall in the first ¾ of the month was enough to keep powder around; conditions certainly remained good as we moved through that first part of February. The big storm was wall to wall snow and timing hardly mattered, but it was a weekend event anyway, with storm day skiing on Saturday, and fresh powder and blue skies on Sunday. That weekend took the cake of course, but all four weekends of the month offered some great skiing.

An image of Dylan skiing an expanse of powder on the Spell Binder Trail at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
Dylan roaming the expanse of Spell Binder

March: The first half of March felt like a continuation of that decent stretch at the end of February, even if we didn’t get any additional three to four foot storm cycles. Just a few days after the big February storm ended, another decent cycle came through heading into the 1st of the month, with close to a foot of additional snow at the northern resorts, and a foot and a half at the southern resorts. Amidst other freshening events, a storm on the 4th dropped about a half foot of snow, and then over a foot fell from a storm on the 9th that targeted the north-central resorts. The boost from the big February storm was felt in base depths and surface conditions, and you could feel that the season had really turned into what one would expect for March. Even as unseasonable warmth started to intrude and occasionally turn the powder wet through the first half of the month, there was usually enough time to get in turns for a good part of each day while the powder was still dry, and then more snow would come along to freshen things back up. The weather through that period was certainly on the warm side, but it was during the second half of the month when all hell broke loose with regard to temperatures. That expression is somewhat apt, because for March, it felt like that when five consecutive days of record temperatures with departures of +40 F hit the state from the 18th-22nd. Combined with the more moderate warmth during the rest of the month, the result was an incredible +12.2 F departure from the average March temperature at the NWS in Burlington. With almost no new snow in the valley during that warm second half of the month, March snowfall was a paltry 14.2″ at the house, just 60% of average. Temperature consistency/snow surface quality: The list of ski outings from above shows the trend here quite well, the first two weekends offered powder conditions, and from then on it was spring skiing. However, powder had been available for every weekend or holiday period since the middle of December by the point at which the snow conditions flipped, and that’s a commendable three-month stretch for such a season. Beyond the middle of the month, X was the only way to describe the powder conditions until we finally got to April. There was decent corn snow and great weather during that second half of March, but it was so warm that trail counts dropped rapidly at many resorts; even the huge snowpack gains made by the northern resorts at the end of February were lost as the snow depth at the Mt. Mansfield stake fell well below where it had been before the big climb. Despite the good spring skiing, it seemed like many resorts closed down simply because people had given up on winter by that point. The slow start and rapid end to winter seemed to take the wind out of everyone’s sails and, it had them looking to quickly put the season in the rearview mirror.

An image of two skiers ascending through deep snow via a skin track on the Nosedive trail at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont
A pair of skiers ascending Nosedive this morning amidst the continued snowfall.

April: Temperatures for the month of April still came in above average (+1.2 F) at the National Weather Service in Burlington, but after the unprecedented warmth of March, that felt downright cool by comparison. Indeed April was more typical though, and some good skiing returned, even if the slightly warm temperatures kept the snow especially elevation dependent. With that trend, snowfall down at the house was almost insignificant, just 0.5 inches or 8% of average. That’s the least snowy April we’ve encountered in the six years that I’ve been monitoring snowfall at our location. Storms nailed the mountains with snow though, in the form of a minor event on the 4th of the month, then a big cutoff low dropping 2 to 2 ½ feet on the 9th. That snow was fairly dense and represented an unmitigated resurfacing of the slopes as one headed up in elevation. The skiing was great, at least in a Sierra Cement/Cascade Concrete sort of way where it doesn’t take much to cover whatever is below, but it would have been even better if the March warmth hadn’t deteriorated the snowpack as much as it did. With most ski areas closed after March sapped people’s interest in the season, plenty of great earned turns were made, but at the resorts that had stayed open, there was also some excellent lift-served skiing. April finished off with one final storm at the end of the month, which was nothing like the big one earlier, but it dropped about a half foot in the upper elevations and that was enough for some final powder skiing before we moved on to May. Temperature consistency/snow surface quality: While certainly not up to the level of April 2007, we did get to ski powder on all of our April days except April 1st. Most of what fell during the month for snow was rather dense, but it was still a nice reprieve to have fresh snow after the way March had gone. We only skied three of the five weekends that month, as half of our outings ended up being midweek.

An image of Jay skiing one of the snowfields on the east side of Mt. Washington on Memorial Day weekend 2012
Heading over to another snowfield to our north for some smooth turns on the untouched snow

May: After some tempering of the heat for April, Mother Nature was back at the stove for May, with a +5.3 F departure for the month at the NWS in Burlington. We didn’t have any accumulating snow in the valley, although that’s typically the case down at our elevation. There were actually no significant winter storms to speak of, but we did have one Vermont ski day on the 12th, enjoying the last of the corn snow up at Jay Peak. We took advantage of a Mother’s Day package that offered a chance to sample a lot of the new facilities up at the resort (water park, arcade, restaurants, etc.), and indeed taking in that smorgasbord of activities is an especially nice way to go when skiing is only going to be a minor part of a trip. Our other day in the month was actually out of state in New Hampshire on Memorial Day weekend, taking our traditional camping trip Auto Road ascent with the boys to ski the snowfields. The snowfields were somewhat on the lean side this year, but not bad considering what the region went through meteorologically during the winter season.

At the monthly level, the 2011-2012 ski season was a simply amazing stretch of positive temperature departures followed by even more positive temperature departures, and that trend has continued right into the summer, with June and July coming in at +1.9 F and +2.4 F respectively. August is currently coming in with a positive departure as well, and if it ends up staying that way, it will be the 17th month in a row in the positive departure streak for Burlington. Those departures are going to flip at some point, and it’s going to feel quite chilly by comparison. Despite that trend though, even when combined with below normal precipitation, the quality of the ski surfaces encountered this past season in Northern Vermont was quite good. I’m not sure if I’m willing to say better than average, since I don’t think surfaces were better than average at Bolton Valley, but I am willing to say that in our visits to Stowe this season, the typical on piste surfaces we encountered were actually better than the previous season. One thought is that the lack big storms in general also played out as a lack of notable rainstorms, which while generally infrequent in the heart of winter anyway, are likely more detrimental to the snow surfaces than more modest events with simply some mixed precipitation in the middle. The Northern Greens certainly showed throughout this past season that they have the ability to cover the back side of mixed precipitation events with additional snow quite effectively when there’s at least some moisture in the atmosphere to be wrung out. The fact that business was down somewhat at the resorts, may also have contributed to less skier traffic and slightly elevated on piste snow quality. Whatever the case, for a ski season that felt like an abysmal “perfect storm” of sorts with regard to temperatures and precipitation, 2011-2012 in Northern Vermont can certainly be described as “surprisingly good”.

2011-2012 Winter Weather Summary

Summer is moving along here in Northern Vermont, but at J&E Productions we’ve still been thinking about the winter of 2011-2012, and we’ve finally analyzed our reams of weather data and put together our 2011-2012 Winter Weather Summary. In this post I’ve hit on some of the highlights that came out of the data, and attached our various plots and graphs, but to get to the full data set, you can use the following link:

2011-2012 WINTER WEATHER SUMMARY

The first item that I’ll highlight from the winter of 2011-2012 is the monthly snowfall plot for our location. As meager as the snowfall was this season at our location (just 115.3″ of snow, or 67.0% of our 2006-2011 average), the monthly distribution of snow did retain an aesthetically symmetrical look, peaking in January with February close behind:

A bar graph of the monthly snowfall at our location in Waterbury, Vermont for the 2011-2012 winter season
Snowfall at our house in Waterbury was relatively low during the 2011-2012 winter season, but the monthly distribution was quite symmetrical, peaking in January.

So although 2011-2012 will go down as our least snowy in the six years that we’ve been collecting snowfall here in Waterbury, the 67.0% of our 2006-2011 calculated average is relatively decent compared to the snowfall experienced at some of the first-order New England stations like Burlington (51.4%) or Boston (21.2%). These types of seasons happen, but next season is already closing in fast, and hopefully snowfall totals will be much improved.

The next piece of information is our updated yearly snow/snowfall data table, with the 2011-2012 season now included.

A table showing some key winter weather parameters for the 2006-2007 through 2011-2012 winter seasons at our house in Waterbury, Vermont
When compared to the previous five seasons, the 2011-2012 winter season at our house in Waterbury was the lowest in snowfall, maximum snow depth attained, and snowpack on the ground as assessed by snow depth days. As you can imagine, it gets pretty cold at the house and so it’s always important to make sure that the heating system works. Maintaining it can be easy if you get hold of professionals in your area such as these – thecomfortdoctors.com/heating-and-cooling-services-wilkes-barre-pa/.

The table touches on some of the highlights (or in this case lowlights) from this past winter season (top data row of the table). The 2011-2012 winter season had the somewhat dubious honor of being the “worst” in our data set in three categories: total snowfall, maximum snow depth, and snow depth days (see the red entries in the top row). The snowfall and max snow depth values weren’t all that far from the runner up values, but the big standout was snow depth days, which was well below the next closest season. It’s amazing to see a number so far below the 1,000 day·inches mark, which speaks to the state of the snowpack this season. We still had continuous snowpack at the house for about three months (vs. the typical four months) but the big factor in the low snow depth days was that the snowpack just never got that deep. It sat around at a bit below the one foot mark for most of the season and just didn’t build beyond that except for a couple of periods in February/March:

A plot showing the snowpack depth during the winter of 2011-2012 at our house in Waterbury, Vermont
At our house in Waterbury, the 2011-2012 winter season featured a fairly meager snowpack that sat around the one-foot mark for much of the season, and topped out at just one and a half feet.

With only six seasons worth of data, the low snowfall this season did deal quite a blow to the overall calculated snowfall average, dropping it by almost 10 inches from up above 172 inches per season down to 162.7 inches per season. That’s probably Mother Nature at work getting to her real averages after some banner years. Even though two of the past six seasons have been up around 200 inches of snowfall, presumably that is going to happen only so often. Nonetheless, snow of any size will cause extremely cold temperatures. As a result, make sure your heating is working properly. If not a repair kc team will be able to ensure everything is in working order. However, if you are unable to use these services you must look around for ones that are in your vicinity and can get to you in the proper amount of time. You may want to check here to see who may be available to you. Now back to the science that can help us determine the measurement of snowfall.

As for the rest of the parameters that I track in the table, they were either right around or slightly better than average this season. An interesting note is that the number of snowstorms this season (45) was right around average, so naturally with low snowfall, the amount of snowfall per storm had to take a hit. Indeed, while the average amount of snowfall per storm is typically up around 4 inches, this season it came out at just 2.6 inches, so there were clearly a lot of systems that were weak on snow. This average snowfall per storm was a huge deviation from the mean (almost 2 S.D.), so that must say something about the weather pattern during the past winter, even if I’m not exactly sure what it is at this point.

While the detailed reports of the 45 accumulating snowstorms from the past season are available with more information at the 2011-2012 winter weather summary page, they’ve also been posted here for quick access. If you know of a storm that interests you, you can head right to it. The reports are comprised of text, links, graphs, photos, etc., and much of the text is derived from my posts and dialog from the Americanwx.com New England regional forum. Thanks to the great features available on the forum, you can click on the icon associated with any quoted text in the report, and you’ll be linked right to that post its respective thread. Hopefully this will be useful for folks that are researching/reviewing winter storms. The list of linked winter storms observed at our house is listed below:

01. 10/29/11
02. 11/11/11
03. 11/17/11
04. 11/23/11
05. 12/02/11
06. 12/07/11
07. 12/09/11
08. 12/13/11
09. 12/17/11
10. 12/19/11
11. 12/21/11
12. 12/23/11
13. 12/25/11
14. 12/27/11
15. 12/30/11
16. 01/02/12
17. 01/05/12
18. 01/06/12
19. 01/10/12
20. 01/12/12
21. 01/17/12
22. 01/19/12
23. 01/21/12
24. 01/23/12
25. 01/26/12
26. 01/28/12
27. 01/29/12
28. 01/31/12
29. 02/03/12
30. 02/11/12
31. 02/13/12
32. 02/16/12
33. 02/21/12
34. 02/22/12
35. 02/24/12
36. 02/28/12
37. 02/29/12
38. 03/02/12
39. 03/04/12
40. 03/08/12
41. 03/09/12
42. 03/26/12
43. 03/28/12
44. 04/04/12
45. 04/26/12

Something new that we’ve also added this season is a gallery of our snow measurement devices in action, so other folks that measure snowfall may enjoy those images:

SNOWFALL MEASUREMENT PAGE

The various data charts and graphs from this season’s analysis can also be viewed in the gallery below: