Bolton Valley, VT 28APR2013

An image looking down the Spillway trail at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont on a sunny spring afternoon
Enjoying the descent of Spillway today in the afternoon sunshine

We’ve had some decent temperatures to get the corn snow cycle going over the past week, and this weekend has been much better than last weekend in terms of warming up the snow on the slopes.  Yesterday was pretty nice in terms of weather, but today was even warmer, and the sky was crystal clear.  In terms of the mountain snowpack, Stowe is looking great down to pretty low elevations based on Powderfreak’s latest pictures, but I know the snow at Bolton Valley isn’t going to last as long due to its western exposure and late-day heating.  With that in mind, I decided to make it a Bolton tour today, and since I haven’t been up since my April 14th tour at Timberline, it was a good time to check on the snow situation at the local hill.

“I actually found some of
the smoothest snow, or
more accurately softest
snow, on Beech Seal…”

I headed up in the late afternoon, with valley temperatures around 70 F.  There’s no visible snow along the Bolton Valley Access Road until one reaches the 1,500’ elevation, where there’s a big patch at the base of the Timberline area.  There’s really not much snow visible on the Timberline trails below the 2,250’ elevation though, and I suspect most of what is there is leftover manmade snow.  After passing Timberline, I next saw natural snow appearing a bit below the 2,000’ elevation as I approached the Village.  Temperatures were in the low 60s F up at the main base area, and on the slopes in that area there’s snow right down to the main base lodge, but it’s not continuous on all trails.  I had to walk a couple hundred feet in the flats above the lodge before I could put on my skins and ascend Beech Seal.  From there on up though, the snow is basically continuous on Beech Seal, Sprig O’ Pine, Sherman’s Pass, and Spillway right to the Vista Summit.  I took the Sherman’s Pass ascent, and there is some pretty dirty snow in protected areas that haven’t seen much sun.  That sun was glorious today though, and I definitely brought along the sunscreen because we’re talking about an August-like sun angle now.  On the upper half of the mountain, there’s actually a good mix of manmade and natural snow options, although the trails that received manmade snow are the ones that will really give you those continuous runs with good snow coverage.  I stopped my ascent at the Vista Summit right beyond the top of Spillway Lane, ripped off my skins, and got into descent mode.  There was just the slightest breeze, but the wind turbine was making good use of it and spinning along.

There are some sun cups starting to form that make the snow surface uneven in spots, but Spillway has smooth options just about everywhere so you can get in some really nice turns.  Spillway’s steep pitch felt good as usual, and the snow is indeed nice after this week’s corn cycling.  I actually found some of the smoothest snow, or more accurately softest snow, on Beech Seal; perhaps the lower elevation let it warm a bit more than what’s up on Spillway.  In any event, the softening was far superior to what we experienced last weekend on either Saturday or Sunday – those temperatures were just a bit to cool to get things to where I found them today at Bolton.  At the bottom of my run, I took off my skis and threw them back on my pack to walk through the couple big broken patches of snow in the flats above the lodge, but you can essentially ski all of the ~1,000’ of vertical on the main mountain for now.  There’s no snow or even cool temperatures in the forecast this week; it looks fairly mild and sunny, so I’m not sure what the situation will be on the mountain next weekend.  There will still be snow for skiing, but I don’t think it will be continuous with the melting that could take place in the sunny, warm afternoons we look to have on tap in the coming days.

Stowe, VT 21APR2013

An image of Jay in a Telemark turn in spring snow on the Gondolier trail at Stowe Mountain Ski Resort in Vermont
Dylan doing some work behind the camera today capturing Dad in a turn.

It was a Telemark day for the family yesterday at Stowe, but today was an alpine day for the boys, in line with plans to hit some steep and challenging terrain.  We were hoping to introduce Dylan and E to some of the Bypass Chutes that Ty and I had skied last Saturday, with additional plans to head over to the Gondola area of Mt. Mansfield and potentially up to some of the steep alpine terrain of The Chin.  The weather was looking pretty good, with clear blue skies and fairly seasonable temperatures.  E had tweaked her back a bit the other day, so she ultimately decided that the best course of action would be to rest it, and I took the boys off to the mountain in the mid afternoon.  On our drive, the one thing I quickly noticed was that today’s temperatures were actually a bit colder than yesterday’s – whereas it was roughly 50 F in the lower mountain valleys yesterday, today I was seeing numbers more in the mid 40s F.  The car thermometer was reading just 39 F when we arrived at the base of Mansfield, and that got me a little concerned about the snow surfaces, since yesterday’s slightly warmer temperatures were already somewhat marginal with the softening.  Today had 100% sunshine though, so I was hoping that could make a difference.

An image of skiers tailgating in a packed Mansfield parking lot at Stowe Mountain Ski Resort in Vermont
The sea of vehicles and tailgating people in the Mansfield parking lot today

As soon as we arrived in the Mansfield Parking Lot, it was obvious that the number of people at the resort was nothing like what we’d encountered yesterday afternoonYesterday we just pulled up and grabbed a parking spot in the first row, directly in front of the Mansfield Base Lodge, but today I didn’t see a single open spot in the entirety of the east side of the lot.  I eventually decided that it would just be easier to park over in the Midway Lot at the Gondola, since we’d be finishing our day there.  Even over there though, there was a healthy amount of vehicles, so the resort was definitely drawing a crowd for its last official day.  As we made our way over to the base of the Fourrunner Quad, we witnessed the incredible sea of vehicles and skiers that filled the Mansfield Parking Lot.  The sights and sounds were simply everywhere, there was one source of music that was so loud that it sounded like a live band was playing.  I even heard someone mention something to that effect a bit later, but didn’t know if it was true.  Anyway, that’s what happens when you combine that last day of Stowe lift service with weather like we had today.

An image of the Gondola area at Stowe Vermont below Mt. Mansfield from the Midway parking lot
Arriving to a beautiful day on Mansfield

“It was still reasonably
good corn snow, and
fortunately it improved
with ever turn we took
as
 we dropped in elevation.”

Up at the summit of the Fourrunner Quad it was certainly a bit chilly, and I suspect that the temperature was right around the freezing mark.  I thought about doing a run on some of the quad terrain before making our way over to the Gondola, but decided that it was best to get going early so we’d have maximal time for whatever touring we wanted to do.  The snow seemed at least somewhat softened in the sun from what we could see below us on our trip up the quad, but as soon as we dropped onto Nosedive, we found out that anything out of the sun was going to be a total nightmare in terms of surface consistency.  We saw that the upper entrance to Bypass was roped, presumably because of the firm snow surface.  The trip down those next couple of pitches of Nosedive was quite hairy, and I wouldn’t have recommended it for anyone like us that doesn’t keep their edges sharp.  We picked our way down with some survival skiing to find that even the next entrance to the Nosedive Glades was roped off.  Access over to Rimrock was only available once the pitch flattened out a bit, and we got our butts off Nosedive as soon as possible.

An image of Dylan hiking on the snow on the Perry Merrill trail at Stowe Mountain Ski Resort in Vermont
Dylan sees the light at the end of the tunnel as he finishes off the ascent on Perry Merrill.

Based on the snow surfaces, I didn’t think there was much sense in heading above tree line, but the ascent over to the top of the Gondola still looked viable, so we set our sights on that.  To make it easy on the boys, especially since they’ve been under the weather a bit this past week, I took care of carrying their skis for them.  I skinned with my skis, and attached theirs to my pack.  We actually encountered a number of people heading over to the Gondola via Rim Rock, they were keeping that aggressive traverse that would let them reach High Road and maximize their vertical.  We were heading higher than that though, since we continued up Cliff Trail once we got to that High Road intersection.  After a break at that intersection, we continued on up with the Cliff Trail ascent, and even though it’s just an intermediate pitch, it looked daunting to the boys compared to what we’d just traversed.  It really went quickly though, it felt like we began to see the top of Cliff Trail just after ascending the first steep pitch, and even with the boys somewhat beleaguered pace due to recent fought illness, it couldn’t have taken much more than 10 minutes.  We could still see some sunlit terrain above us at that point, so after a quick break, we continued on a bit more and finally stopped our ascent up near the flats leading to the Cliff House.  In terms of both sunshine and slope, there wasn’t much point in going beyond the first big pitch of Perry Merrill.  We could hear, and in some cases see, people picking their way down through the Rock Garden and other, even steeper lines off the Mansfield ridgeline, and it sounded horrible up there.  That terrain is shaded, high in elevation, and steep.  It looked like it was worse than what we’d found on Nosedive, and that experience was already going down as serving up the most hellacious ski conditions we’d encountered all season.  At least the snow was being well-preserved for future use, but it had me longing for the fresh snow that Ty and I got to play in last weekend.

“…we found out that
anything out of the
sun was going to be
a total nightmare
in terms of surface
consistency.”

The boys finished with a final snack and some roughhousing in the snow off to the side of the trail as we enjoyed some sun, and then we were off for some turns.  We stuck to as much sunny terrain as we could, descending on Perry Merrill and then to Gondolier on the skier’s left.  The snow was only marginally softened, so it was OK, but like yesterday, not really as great as the sunshine might suggest.  It was still reasonably good corn snow, and fortunately it improved with ever turn we took as we dropped in elevation.  All I can say is that the upside of the minimal softening is that even down in those lower elevations below the alpine, the preservation of the snowpack was looking quite good.  I was happy for E though, as she’d made the right call in staying home and resting her back.  Although she missed a fun bit of hiking and touring, which gave us a nice workout, she certainly hadn’t missed out on any extraordinary (or even ordinary for that matter) spring skiing.

An image of Dylan with Ty mostly hidden behind as they begin a ski descent of the Perry Merrill trail at Stowe Mountain Ski Resort in Vermont
Dylan leading the charge down the top of Perry Merrill with Ty right behind him on his heels

For the final half of the descent on Gondolier, we used my camera (Canon EOS 30D) and E’s camera (Canon PowerShot ELPH 510 HS) between the three of us and played “Shootout”.  It’s a contest in which everyone skis in front of the cameras, but also gets behind the cameras to serve as photographers.  The goal is to see who can get the shot of the day in both the photographer and skier roles.  E’s point and shoot camera does have a decent high speed shooting mode that runs at 7.8 FPS in low (~3 megapixels) resolution, and it does a decent job of capturing images, even if you can’t really view your subject the way you can with a DSLR.  The big downside of her camera is that the focus, exposure, and other parameters are set on the first shot and remain fixed – also, you have to stop shooting to adjust the zoom.  For sports photography, this represents a serious disadvantage compared to the DSLR that is rapidly adjusting all these for every high speed shot, and even though it’s only shooting at 5 FPS, it’s going at full resolution and is attempting to optimize the picture every time.  Also, you can zoom on the fly and keep filling the frame with the skier if you want.  E pointed out that I had a huge advantage using the DSLR (since it’s big, the boys don’t typically use it), so it was a bit uneven in that regard, but we’ll see how things come out in the end.

Bolton Valley, VT 14APR2013

An iamge of the Timberline Lodge sign at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
Snow falling at Timberline today

We had a family gathering through early afternoon today, but in the mid to late afternoon, I headed up to Bolton Valley for a tour.  Up to that point we’d had on and off bouts of precipitation in the valley, often showers mixed with sleet, but no notable accumulation other than transient stuff.  Temperatures were in the mid 40s F in the 300’-500’ elevation range along the bottom of the Winooski Valley as I headed westward toward Bolton; we’d had breaks of sun among the clouds and precipitation, and I was preparing for some fairly soft and slushy spring turns up on the hill.  Since I never pulled them out yesterday at Stowe, I’d even brought my fat skis to evaluate how they’d perform in the soft stuff.  A lot of people seem to like the way they smooth out the mushy stuff, but I’m still curious about how well that works.

An image of the entrance to the Ponds event area at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont showing a lit street lamp in the afternoon in April due to cloudiness and snowfall
A dark, November feel today

Precipitation was pretty sparse as I headed up the Bolton Valley Access Road, and while there’s patchy snow all the way up out of the valley, consistent natural snowpack really didn’t appear until roughly the 1,500’ elevation at the Timberline Base.  Temperatures had dropped into the upper 30s F by that elevation, and light snow was falling.  It was mid to late afternoon, but it was actually pretty dark with the clouds around, and more of them appeared to be building in from the west.  Based on the available light, it actually felt like a typical November outing in the mountains.

“The snow was
good on the
whole descent…”

On the slopes, the snow wasn’t really the mushy spring snow that the valley temperatures had given me the impression I’d find; I think the temperatures and/or available sunlight really weren’t high enough to support that.  Instead what I found was the couple inches of wet snow/sleet that we’ve picked up from these latest storms, sitting atop the base.  The subsurface was still fairly soft and spring-like, presumably due to the recent rounds of wet precipitation percolating some moisture down in there.  The intensity of the snowfall was fairly light on the ascent, although I could see squalls around off to the west.  There was one off to the south, and another more ominous-looking one off to the north, they were both starting to devour the views of the Adirondacks and it looked like the spine of the Greens was in their path.

Up around the Timberline Mid Station at 2,250’, the surface snow began to have a bit more coalesced consistency relative to what was below.  The temperature was approaching the freezing mark, and it appeared to be due to a combination of elevation and some cooler air coming in with the approaching weather.  I topped out at the Timberline Summit at 2,500’, and the temperature by that point was either below freezing or very close – the trees still held snow from the recent storms.

An image showing ski tracks on the Brandywine Trail at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont
Brandywine Tracks

After starting down Upper Brandywine, I was about to head back toward the Timberline Mid Station, when I saw that there was a lot of good untracked snow farther down on Brandywine, so I followed that less traditional route.  The coverage was actually quite good, and although I don’t follow that route as often, I’m realizing that it’s got more of a northerly aspect than the slopes below the mid station.  I think it’s going to be a good route to use in more marginal situations of coverage or sun exposure.  The snow was good on the whole descent, transitioning from that stronger, peel-away stuff in the higher elevations, to a wetter consistency down low.  I was amazed at how much be  It was very much like what we experienced yesterday at Stowe up to the midday hour before the freezing level rose up above the summit of the Fourrunner Quad.  There are certainly areas starting to develop bare patches at Timberline, but if you wanted you could ski natural snow terrain all the way down to the Timberline Base; that’s pretty decent for west-facing terrain down at those low elevations this time of year.

The precipitation that had been looming off to the west finally pushed its way over the ridge and into the valley as I was switching out of my ski gear at the car.  In typical Bolton Valley style, it came strong, and it was snowfall that meant business.  It wasn’t quite the whiteout that I saw in Powderfreak’s Stowe pictures, I think in part because the flakes weren’t as large (probably about ½” max in diameter), but a decent wall of snow came in and made its presence known.

If that snow had been rain, it would have been pouring, and indeed I was able to watch that transition as I descended back down the access road.  The snow stayed with me down to around the 500’ elevation, and finally mixed out to just a pouring rain.  That rain followed me through the lower elevations of the Winooski Valley, and then by the time I got up a bit higher back at that house along the Waterbury/Bolton line, snow was mixing back in.  Checking the radar a little while later, it showed a nice shot of moisture making its way through the Winooski Valley.

Bolton Valley, VT 02APR2013

An image of ski tracks in powder snow on the Alta Vista trail at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont
Starting off with the powder on Alta Vista today

I hadn’t really been paying attention to the weather forecast over the past couple of days, but I looked out in the back yard this morning to find that no longer was it just the leftover snow standing out – everything was whitened again.  It looked like it was back to spring in Northern New England.  There was over an inch of snow on our back yard snowboard here in Waterbury as of my 6:00 A.M. CoCoRaHS report, and after a short lull in the precipitation, the snowfall came back in with huge flakes.  When I checked the morning snow reports for the local resorts, I found that Bolton Valley hadn’t updated theirs yet, and I wasn’t sure if they were going to since they aren’t firing up the lifts until the weekend.  Just a bit farther north though, Stowe was reporting in, and they were at seven inches of new snow and counting.  If they’d received that much snow, Bolton was likely to be somewhere in that ballpark as well, so I packed up the gear for a stop in at the local hill on my way to Burlington.

“while I finished gearing
up for the ascent, the
snowfall ramped up to
probably 2 to 3 inches
per hour or more…”

Light snowfall in the valley became a decent 1”/hr snowfall up in the Bolton Valley Village at 2,100’.  A couple of minutes after parking and beginning to get my gear together, I re-parked the car with the back facing to the east because everything inside was getting covered with flakes due to the heavy snowfall driven by those westerly winds.  That reorientation was apt, because Mother Nature decided to really crank up the snow spigot at that point; while I finished gearing up for the ascent, the snowfall ramped up to probably 2 to 3 inches per hour or more, with visibility dropping to less than 100 yards.  It seemed like the parking lot picked up another inch in just 10 minutes.

An image of heavy snowfall at the base of Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont during an early April snowstorm
Ahh, just dumping.

The resort appeared absolutely deserted as I began my ascent behind the main base lodge.  The wind was howling at times, and it was certainly pushing the snow around and making it difficult to get a read on just how much had fallen.  I took a route up Beech Seal and then Cobrass to the Vista Summit and made the following measurements for new snow over the old spring subsurface:

2,100’:  3-4”
2,500’:  4”
2,600’:  5”
3,100’:  5-6”

An image of fresh snow on evergreen boughs along the side of the Cobrass Trail at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
Views of the fresh powder as I ascend Cobrass

With no midweek grooming taking place, the only issue with regard to measuring the snow depth was that wind, which somehow seemed to find a way to mess with everything on the compass that had any sort of westerly component.  There had definitely been some southwesterly winds, because during my ascent of Cobrass I saw that the powder had been blasted in most areas, and indeed up at the Vista Summit I found the wind turbine facing a somewhat uncommon southwesterly direction.  I was happy to see that it was running though and cranking out some power for the resort.

Seeing that wind, I opted for starting my descent on a more northerly aspect using Alta Vista, and the powder was notably better there with respect to scouring.  The snow was indeed quite dry as my morning snow analysis from down at the house indicated, so even with 115 mm underfoot I was still hitting the subsurface on 50% of my turns.  On the lower mountain I opted for Fanny Hill, since it’s typically well protected from most wind.  A little wind had gotten in there, but nothing like what I’d found in the more exposed areas.  Overall the skiing was certainly decent, with a good dose of surfy turns in the new snow, but not so mind-blowing that I wanted to throw on the skins for another run and delay getting to town.  I’d had a good morning workout in any event, and headed off with a smile.

“…even with 115 mm
underfoot I was still
hitting the subsurface
on 50% of my turns.”

As of this evening it’s clear that Mt. Mansfield really took the brunt of this storm though, with a foot of snow down and some nice views of it thanks to Powderfreak’s usual snow journalism.  His Stowe shots from today are certainly worth a look to see Mt. Mansfield doing its thing.  Stowe, both the mountain and the village, looks like it was definitely the spot for this event based on those images and the reports coming out of the rest of the Vermont ski areasBolton did update their snow report today, and they came in with four inches.  That’s certainly reasonable based on what I found, and either a bit on the conservative side for the summit areas – or they may be reporting just from the Village since the groomers hadn’t been out.  This storm has brought the snowpack at the Mt. Mansfield stake up to a healthy 87 inches, and it looks like there are a couple more cold days on tap in which to enjoy the new powder.

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…

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.

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.

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.

Bolton Valley and Backcountry, VT 18FEB2013

An image of a ski track in powder snow in the drainage heading down to Goose Pond behind Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont
Getting in some nice turns on the way down to Goose Pond today

The weather was quite nice on Saturday, so we had a good family backcountry outing at Bolton Valley, but the weather yesterday was simply nasty.  I contemplated heading up for a quick tour, but when I saw that the Bolton Valley Village temperature was at 3 F around midday, I wasn’t all that inspired.  When I checked again in the afternoon, I saw that it had actually dropped a degree to 2 F.  As if the cold temperatures weren’t enough, there was a hefty wind for good measure, and it was strong enough that the Vista Quad seemed to be closed for much of the day.  With that going on outside, it was extremely nice spending much of the day getting things done inside instead.

“…the powder was very
much like what we found
on Saturday – a general
8 to 12 inches, and there
was no internal melt layer
up at that elevation.”

Today’s temperatures were definitely expected to improve though, so after I took care of some work in the morning, I planned on a short tour up at Bolton Valley in the afternoon when the day’s warmth would be at its peak.  Under a cloudless sky, temperatures were up into the mid 20s F in the valleys, and close to 20 F even up at 2,000’ when I arrived in the Village in the early afternoon.  There was still plenty of wind though, so Mother Nature didn’t seem to want to let that go for some reason.  Fortunately, the winds weren’t strong enough to shut down the Vista Quad (yet), and that let me proceed with my planned tour.

For today, my goal was to explore the drainage that dropped off behind the Bolton Valley Wind Turbine and led down to Goose Pond.  From the pond, I planned to hook up with the Woodward Mountain Trail, connect back to the Vista Summit, and make a front side run back to the Village.  The wind was a little brisk as I prepared my gear at the car, so I went with my thicker fleece layer in anticipation of what might be going on up above 3,000’.  The resort was definitely winding down in activity from the holiday weekend, and there were only a few people around as I boarded the Vista Quad.  It was my first time on the Vista Quad this weekend, and the lift ride was certainly enlightening, albeit somewhat discouraging.  The combination of holiday traffic, but probably even more so the strong westerly winds, left the snow surfaces pounded flat, flat, flat.  Everything looked packed out; even the trees along the Vista Quad Lift Line seemed to have lost a good part of their fluffy disposition.  The resort had that look of an “old snow” scene, with the trails stripped of loose snow, the tree branches devoid of fluff, and even slick patches visible here and there.  I was thankful that I was heading to the leeward side of the mountain, but the snow seemed so beaten down it seemed hard to imagine that I’d find fluff even there.  The lift slowed down and even stopped a few times on my trip up, presumably because of the wind, and I was thankful that I was only planning one ride because I wondered how long they’d be able to keep it turning.

Once at the Vista Summit I headed over to the wind turbine, then passed underneath it into one of the openings in the forest.  Above the noise of the wind itself, the turbine was cranking away with its own sound of spinning blades.  It was really moving in winds that had to be 25 to 30 MPH, and I was happy to see it free of rime and actually doing its job.  The noise of the turbine blades in the wind was substantial enough that it actually took a while to fade as I dropped into the drainage and began my descent, but after a few minutes of navigating downward the noise diminished to just the wind itself.  Finding a route through the gully was actually quite easy, as there were obvious open areas that could be connected.  I can’t say that I found one continuous line for skiing, but there were enough open areas to make it enjoyable.  A little trimming to connect those areas would make for an even better descent.  At first I was concerned about the scoured and wind-packed snow that presented itself on the initial drop from the turbine, but that dissipated and only reappeared in a few exposed spots lower down.  Other than that, the powder was very much like what we found on Saturday – a general 8 to 12 inches, and there was no internal melt layer up at that elevation.  The forest I encountered was a mixture of evergreens with a few hardwoods and a touch of brush here and there, and as I approached the pond down at around 2,800’ it became one of those dark spruce groves that permit little understory growth.

An image looking down the Woodward Mountain ski trail in the Bolton Valley backcountry in Vermont
Checking out the Woodward Mountain trail as I continue my ascent

Down in the open area of the pond, I found myself exposed to the wind, and it was really ripping.  What I observed was a rather austere, winter scene, but not quite the peaceful place it might have been without the incessant wind.  I stayed just long enough for a couple of pictures before I retreated into the shelter of the spruce forest.  I put on my skins for the ascent, and found an easy route through the spruce; the trees were tall and the only hindrance was the occasional presence of dead lower limbs that hadn’t yet fallen off.  With the help of my GPS, I hit the Woodward Mountain Trail in about 10 minutes, and my pace accelerated at that point because I found that there was a skin track that others had used for ascent.  There were a few ski tracks on the trail itself as well, but it hadn’t been used too heavily.  It was easy to see that the trail was designed well though, because it was often just on the leeward side of the ridge and held a lot of powder.  The trail is rather wide in spots, up to 50 feet or more, so I’m sure the turns through there are a great way to start off a tour of the entire trail down to Waterbury Reservoir.

Just before finishing my ascent and emerging back out at the Vista Summit, I hit the fire tower and headed up to take in the view.  The wind was intense up top, probably 40-50 MPH, but I was able to get a few photos of the great views in every direction.  I quickly got down, took my skins off my skis for the front side descent, and to my surprise (although I guess with those winds not too surprising) when I emerged at the Vista Summit I saw that the Vista Quad was entirely shut down.  It was almost spooky how deserted the summit looked for that time of day, but I basically had the whole upper mountain to myself at that point.  I headed over toward Cobrass for my descent, and I’m not sure how long the lift had been closed, but the trails had already received a resurfacing due to snow sifting in on the wind.  The surface of Cobrass was actually quite nice; it was very easy to dig with my edges, even on my fat skis, and I enjoyed my solo descent.

I headed into the Villager Trees and up “The Crack” to the top of “The Knob” to get in some additional powder turns on my way back to the Village.  Folks have been busy in that area in the off season, because I could see some new lines in there that looked like fun.  I stuck to a line that I knew, and nobody had been in that area yet so the tracks were fresh.  The powder was generally good, although there were some spots where the wind had gotten to it, and I could really feel the assistance I got from the rocker and width of my AMPerages in handling that crust.  Down in the lower sections of the trees there had been a lot more traffic, and combined with the wind I had to do a little more work to find the best untracked snow.  Those lower sections seemed to fly by though, as I found myself going fast through areas with packed snow and less powder.

A Google Earth map showing the GPS track for a ski tour of Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont and the nearby backcountry on February 18th, 2013
GPS track of today’s ski tour mapped onto Google Earth – click for full size image

I finished off my run, stopped in the main base lodge briefly, and then headed to the car.  I was surprised to find that the wind had virtually disappeared down at the Village level, despite the way it was cranking along up high.  The lower mountain lifts were running, but many folks seemed to be winding down their day as it was getting toward that 4:00 P.M hour.  It was in the low to mid 20s F at the base – warmer than it had been when I arrived, and it felt very nice without the wind.  It had definitely been cold up high though – my cheeks could still feel that bite that comes along with cold winter air.  In terms of upcoming weather, we’ve still got a good chance for some upslope snow during the midweek period.  That’s good, because the lift-served slopes could really use a freshening based on what I saw today.

Bolton Valley and Backcountry, VT 16FEB2013

An image of Erica skiing powder in one of the glades in the Nordic and Backcountry network at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont
E enjoying the powder in one of the glades today

Although the recent midweek storm gave a decent shot of snow to the Northern Greens, with Stowe picking up a foot of snow, and Jay Peak picking up a foot and a half, it’s still been fairly dry in general. Because of the rather high Froude Numbers for that storm, the more west-side locations of Smuggler’s Notch and Bolton Valley saw them picking up just a half foot of snow during that event, and that’s what Bolton was reporting for their seven-day total as of today. The dearth of snow and a holiday weekend had me thinking a tour on the Nordic/backcountry network was in order, because there’s some excellent snow out there, but there’s been enough time since if fell for lift-served traffic to pack it down pretty well by this point.

“Depths of powder above whatever
firmer subsurface lay below were in
the 8-12″ range, with a bit of that melt
layer in there in the lower elevations
or on south facing terrain.”

I devised a somewhat ambitious tour for today, at least with respect to what the boys might be willing to accommodate. It would be an opportunity to show E and the boys the two glades that I discovered last month on the 19th and the 27th. The plan was to skin up Bryant to the Bryant Cabin, descend through the first glade, then connect over to the alpine trail network, catch an assist from the Wilderness Lift to the Wilderness Summit, traverse out on Heavenly Highway, ski the second glade, and return to the car via the Nordic/backcountry network. If we couldn’t complete the whole tour we’d have some opportunities to truncate it as needed. The forecast called for some sun and temperatures in the 20s F today, so it looked like we wouldn’t have to worry about anyone getting cold too quickly.

An image of our car parked along the edge of the Broadway trail in Bolton Valley's Nordic skiing area with Erica unloading backcountry ski gear in preparation for a ski tour
Unloading and preparing the gear along Broadway

We arrived up in the Bolton Valley Village in the late morning period, and the main parking lots were getting pretty full, but we were able to get a trailside spot right on World Cup in the lower tennis court lot. There were plenty of people about as we began our ascent, including a number participating in the “Bolton to the Barns” event. We ran into Alex, one of my former students on his descent with the event group, and learned that he is now at Tufts Medical School, although he seemed very happy to be back in Vermont visiting Bolton Valley. Dylan asked for just one break on the ascent, and we pulled over into the sunshine along the top section of World Cup and had a snack.

An image of the World Cup Nordic Trail at the Bolton Valley Cross Country Ski Center in Vermont
Admiring the beautiful conditions in the World Cup Nordic trail as we pause for a snack on our way up to Bryant Cabin

Near the start of our tour when we’d passed by the Courtside 1 Condos on Broadway, we ran into a Nordic skier who was pausing there. She inquired about the substantial width of E’s fat skis, and E indicated that they were for powder skiing. The woman seemed puzzled because as far as she could tell there was no powder around. She wished us luck on finding powder, but you could tell she figured it was a lost cause. It was very interesting to hear her speak that way when just a few feet away from her off the side of the trail, you could see the powder sitting there. People certainly have some unique perspectives on snow conditions. As a Nordic skier, perhaps she’s got a totally different idea of what powder snow actually is, or she may have just been oblivious to what conditions were like off the groomed runs of the Nordic trails. Anyway, in terms of the actual snow conditions, out near the car a bit above the 2,000′ mark there were 2 to 3 inches of fluffy snow above a bit of a melt/sun crust, but I suspected that crust would disappear as we got out of exposed areas and headed up in elevation. Indeed, pretty quickly in shaded areas I found that the powder was deeper and the melt crust underneath was disappearing, and after a few hundred feet of ascent it was essentially gone. Depths of powder above whatever firmer subsurface lay below were in the 8-12″ range, with a bit of that melt layer in there in the lower elevations or on south facing terrain.

An image of Bryant Cabin in the Bolton Valley backcountry showing the snow depth outside reaching halfway up the windows
Snowy Bryant Cabin

An image of a thermos and cup sitting in powder snow outside the Bryant Lodge on the backcountry trail network at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in VermontWe found the Bryant Cabin in use with the woodstove pushing a fragrant plume of smoke out the chimney. When we talked to one of the guys using the cabin, he said that the resort is no longer renting it or regulating the usage; you can just use it on a first come, first serve basis. I’m guessing that also means that they aren’t supplying wood, which is why we frequently saw him browsing around for dead stuff to throw on the fire. Some people may have loved the idea of this, and have wondered if they should get a prefab log cabin of their own. For us, it was a place to rest for a bit. We sat down and had lunch off to the side of the cabin clearing, and enjoyed hot soup, cocoa, and other items we’d brought. Various groups of skiers made their way past while we were there; it was probably one of the busier days I’ve seen out there on the backcountry network, and it was nice that all the people were out supporting the use of the trail system. Hopefully the initiative to buy the land with the help of Vermont Land Trust will go through and people will be able to continue enjoying it as public land.

An image of Black Diamond AMPerage, Black Diamond Element, and two pairs of Volkl Gotama Junior skis mounted with Telemark bindings and sitting in the snow near the Bryant Cabin on the Bolton Valley Backcountry Network in Vermont
The Tele powder boards hanging out at lunch

“We found the Bryant Cabin
in use with the woodstove
pushing a fragrant plume
of smoke out the chimney.”

Our first descent was in the North Slope and Gardiner’s Lane areas, and the powder was very good in the upper elevations. On our first pitch dropping from North Slope, conditions were just right so that both Ty and Dylan made some nice Telemark turns. Later, Ty dropped a nice Telemark-style jump turn launching off one of the steeper pitches, and he was very proud of that. The boys threw in a good amount of alpine turns, especially when they wanted to go faster, but it was all around great practice for them. Like I’d noticed on our ascent, the last couple hundred vertical of the descent featured some of that melt crust below the powder. We were on a south-facing slope, so that certainly wasn’t surprising. I found my fat AMPerages to be really helpful in that terrain, and E had some nice turns on her Elements, but she’s still finding them hard to get up on edge in packed snow due to their width. We’re wondering if the play in her boots is just too much and it’s ruining the ability to convey the necessary pressure into the ski.

We connected over to the Wilderness Double Chair and took it to the Wilderness Summit as planned, but Ty was pretty insistent on a quick descent without additional skinning. So instead of heading across on Heavenly Highway to drop through the second glade I’d chosen for the day, we opted to descend on Peggy Dow’s to quickly get to Snow Hole. There was decent powder in Snow Hole, although it was certainly more tracked and packed than what we’d seen in the backcountry glades. I got off to the sides of the main route a good deal though and got a number of fresh lines, and at times the boys would follow me. We did make a good connection back onto the Nordic network and caught a few final turns on the Telemark Practice Slope and other lower mountain glade areas before heading back to the car. We’ll be planning another tour at some point to catch that second glade; I still want to show it to E and the boys.

An image of a Google Earth map showing the GPS track of a ski tour on the alpine, Nordic, and backcountry areas at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont on February 16th, 2013
A map of today’s combined alpine, Nordic, and backcountry tour at Bolton Valley – click for full-size image

Our next shot at snow appears to be coming into the area in the Tuesday timeframe. It looks like it’s going to be a pretty standard frontal passage at face value without much fanfare in terms of snowfall, but there is definitely the potential for some upslope snow. The crew at the National Weather Service Office in Burlington has had their eyes on the potential, and Powderfreak has been watching as well. We’re hoping for that snowfall boost from the upslope snow, because there isn’t much forecast in terms of synoptic snowstorms in the immediate future.