Spring Archives - Page 2 of 19

March 4, 2023March 13, 2023

Bolton Valley, VT 04MAR2023

An image of Dylan catching some air while dropping into the KP Cliffs area of Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont during Winter Storm Quest

An image of Ty jumping in powder snow in the trees during Winter Storm Quest at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Ty blasts his way through some of today’s fresh powder in Bolton’s Timberline area today. Thanks to plenty of liquid equivalent in this recent snow from Winter Storm Quest, you could charge as hard as you wanted on even the steepest terrain and get soft, reliable turns.

I’m not sure exactly when the snow from Winter Storm Quest started up around here, but it was well into the overnight hours, and I’m not even sure if I saw any accumulation before midnight. So, waking up this morning to find over 8 inches on the boards for 6:00 A.M. CoCoRaHS observations meant that the snow must have been coming down in the 1 to 2 inch per hour range. There were plenty of large flakes falling at that point, and this morning’s liquid analysis revealed that the water content in the snow was 8.5%, or a snow to liquid ratio of approximately 11 or 12 to 1.

Ty and I got up to the hill just about the time of the opening of the Timberline Quad, and had a great bunch of runs while we waited for Dylan and Colin to join us. During those morning runs, it was quickly obvious that the new snow that had fallen had laid in a massive resurfacing of the slopes. The snow was actually on the dense side due to fairly small flakes up at Bolton Valley, and I’d say it was running a bit above 10% H₂O up there. The snow was dense enough that you wanted terrain on the steeper side to really have a good flow on the descent, and that was fine, because in terms of sufficient coverage of the base snow and any underlying obstacles, it didn’t matter how steep the terrain was. On piste, off piste, it didn’t matter; just pick the steepest lines you could find, ski as aggressively as you wanted, and you weren’t hitting the subsurface. We tested many of the steepest lines available on Timberline like the Spell Binder headwall and the Tattle Tale Headwall, and they skied beautifully. We hit steep off piste lines that I don’t usually find to be that great because their pitch is often too much for the quality of the snow or achieving bottomless skiing, and it just didn’t matter.

An image of Dylan jumping in powder snow from Winter Storm Quest at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Dylan tweaks some style into one of his jumps in Doug’s Woods during today’s ski outing at Bolton Valley

In terms of surface snow depths, our checks in the 1,500’ to 2,500’ elevation range were about 15 inches if we had to pick a best estimate, but it was really hard to tell exactly how much snow came from just this storm. The new snow was sitting atop snow from other recent storms, and it all just continues to stack and set up excellent surfaces. It snowed all morning, so that kept piling on new snow to the accumulations as well. Total snowpack depth is 40 inches or more above 2,500’, and the snowpack depth at the Mt. Mansfield stake being over 60 inches speaks to that.

An image of Colin spraying powder while skiing in the trees during Winter Storm Quest at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Colin spraying around some of that powder on today’s excellent ski outing

Later in the morning we finally met up with Dylan and Colin, and we just went around hitting some of our favorite steepest off piste lines all over the mountain. Timberline had no lift queue for essentially the whole morning, but after about midday, the temperature at those lowest elevations seemed to creep up toward freezing and the snow became even a bit denser. It was somewhat subtle, but you could tell when you skied a run that the powder in the lowest elevations was a bit thicker than it was above 2,000’. After most of the morning at Timberline, we focused on the main mountain for the early afternoon where everything was above 2,000’, just in case Timberline continued to warm and the powder got wet.

An image of Ty spraying powder while skiing during Winter Storm Quest at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Today’s powder had plenty of substance to it, but as Ty shows, it you could still spray it around with ease.

We joined up with Parker and his dad for a final run on the main mountain before making a big long run all the way down from the Vista Summit to the Timberline Base. Temperatures clearly hadn’t gotten too high to really ruin the powder because it was still fine all the way to the Timberline Base at 1,500’. Ty, Dylan, Parker and I finished off our day around midafternoon with a visit to the Timberline Base Lodge and some great food from El Gato, and we definitely felt like we’d earned a good meal with the energy we’d put into the day’s skiing.

It continued to snow most of the day, and after a bit of a lull around midday, the snowfall picked right back in the afternoon to the level it had been in the morning. So, we knew there was definitely more accumulation on the way. Back down at the house at 500’ that afternoon we could see that temperatures had definitely gone above freezing because some of the new snow had settled, but the mountain elevations seemed to fare quite well with respect to any melting or settling.

May 8, 2022July 22, 2022

Bolton Valley, VT 08MAY2022

An image looking down the Spillway trail on a ski tour in May at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont — The snow on Spillway today as I get in some turns on steep spring corn at Bolton Valley

Today I headed to Bolton for turns, since it might be the last weekend for practical/productive touring there. Based on what I saw on my last Bolton outing a couple weeks ago, I figured the lower mountain would be discontinuous at this point, but the amount of snow on Spillway was obviously going to last a while. I decided to hike today vs. skinning, and I think that was the right call. The bottom half of the mountain has some decent areas of snow, but it’s discontinuous enough with plenty of dry ground for walking, such that hiking is the more practical option. Above Mid Mountain, one could skin up Spillway, but that’s really steep, and they’ve plowed Sherman’s Pass most of the way to the Vista Summit, so I used that for a lot of my ascent today.

An image of a high-elevation view out toward Lake Champlain and the Champlain Valley on a May ski tour at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — A high-elevation view out toward Lake Champlain and the Champlain Valley on today’s tour at Bolton Valley

The snow on Spillway is still continuous, and it was skiing great. There must have been some productive freeze/thaw cycles recently, because it was the best corn snow I’ve skied during this April/May period. Spillway is quite steep, so you get some of those nice fall-way turns, which are so much fun in good snow. At Mid Mountain on my way up I met a couple that was on their way down. They said that “Spillway was about as frosty as it’s been in a while”, and they weren’t kidding.

It’s fun traveling around the area right now and taking in the views as spring begins to make its presence known. You can see that greenery is appearing in the lower mountain valleys, and it’s just starting to make its slow creep up the mountainsides.

May 1, 2022June 15, 2022

Stowe, VT 01MAY2022

An image showing some of the Mount Mansfield ski trails from near the summit of Spruce Peak at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont

An image of the Main Street trail on a May ski outing at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont — A view of some of the spring snow on Main Street today during my ski tour

While Friday turned out to be a bit too cool and breezy to really soften up the slopes around here, and yesterday didn’t seem much better, today saw more warmth and sunshine as the forecast had suggested. Mother Nature really wasn’t messing around, with temperatures moving up into the 60s F, a cloudless sky, and the disappearance of those persistent winds.

An image of the Chin of Mt. Mansfield in Vermont as viewed from the Moscow area — The Mt. Mansfield Chin poking up in the background from the Moscow area

There was no question about whether or not the snow was going to soften up today, so I decided to head to Stowe for some afternoon turns. I hadn’t been to the general Stowe area in a while, but the usual views of Mansfield started to appear as I headed through Waterbury Center, and the alpine terrain was certainly lit up in the May sunshine.

I’d hoped that the south-facing terrain of Spruce Peak still had enough coverage to provide some nice uninterrupted turns, and indeed as I approached the resort I could see that the Main Street area and surrounding trails still had nearly continuous snow down the base of the Sensation Quad.

With the route I took on the lower part of the mountain, I ended up hiking about 1/3 of the ascent, and then skinning the final 2/3. I was initially questioning my decision to bring skins as I navigated the lower slopes, but once I hit the point where I started skinning, it was definitely the right choice in terms of efficiency; the upper slopes of Main Street have so much snow that it would take more effort to find dry areas for easier hiking.

In terms of the skiing, it was far superior to what I had experienced on Friday. The warmth and sun took care of getting the spring snow into something that was definitely worthy of turns. It wasn’t perfect, because there were still some sticky areas from recent snows on terrain that hadn’t seen the sun and/or skier traffic, but those were generally avoidable by skiing the sunnier sides of the trails.

With such a gorgeous day, I was surprised that I didn’t see a single other skier out there during my entire tour on Spruce. I did see two other cars when I first arrived at the MMSC Clubhouse parking lot, but they were just hikers. I saw them finishing up their hikes while I was ascending, and the entire parking lot was empty when I got back to my car. Everyone must have been skiing over at Mansfield!

An image of a single car in the parking lot of the Mount Mansfield Ski Club during a May ski outing at Stowe Mountain Ski Resort in Vermont — The Mount Mansfield Ski Club parking lot where I parked today was just about empty.

April 29, 2022June 3, 2022

Bolton Valley, VT 29APR2022

An image showing a view westward toward The Champlain Valley, Lake Champlain, and the Adirondack Mountains of New York during a spring ski tour at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont

An image of the Sherman's Pass trail area near the end of the ski season at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — A view of Sherman’s Pass out on my ski tour at Bolton Valley today – snow coverage is still decent with a few breaks here and there.

As it’s been for the past few days, it was quite windy today in the Champlain Valley, but with partly cloudy skies providing some sun, and the temperatures getting into the 50s F, it seemed like there might be enough warmth to make the slopes worth a visit. That thought was tempered somewhat as I headed into the mountains on the way home; the skies became notably cloudier, and the temperatures felt several degrees cooler, even at valley level. At that point I was definitely questioning if there was sufficient warmth at elevation for softening the snow, but it still felt like it was worth the quick trip up to Bolton for some turns.

On the way up the Bolton Valley Access Road, first signs of old snow snowpack were at ~1,400’, and first signs of the new snow left from our most recent storm appeared in the 1,800’ – 1,900’ elevation range. I’d contemplated skiing at Timberline if the snowpack was continuous enough, but it’s too broken up down at those elevations to be worth it.

As expected up at the main mountain, there’s still plenty of snow for top-to-bottom turns on the main routes like Beech Seal and Spillway. Sherman’s Pass seems close to continuous, but there’s at least a break or two in the snowpack there. While the quantity of the snow is looking quite good, we’re still going to need some more warmth and temperature cycling to get the snowpack to some quality corn. Even with Bolton’s western exposure and afternoon sun, a lot of terrain still needs some rounds of softening. The combination of temperatures, which I guess were somewhere in the 40s F, and the cooling breeze that we’ve had the past few days, just isn’t enough to really soften the snowpack. Granted, I was out on the mountain in the later afternoon period when the sun angle is getting lower and temperatures are starting to drop off, but it was obvious that only areas in direct sun had seen much cycling of the snow to get to appropriate quality corn, and even those areas still need work. Heck, most of terrain above 2,000’ that was not in the direct sun, still had snow from our most recent storm earlier this week. I toured up to about 2,500’, but didn’t push above that elevation that because it was only getting cooler and windier as I ascended, and the quality of the snow just didn’t seem to be worth it.

So while spring snow conditions weren’t quite there today, the recent snows and good preservation we’ve been seeing do bode well as we head into the next several weeks of the season. Tomorrow’s forecast around here seems sort of similar to today’s, so I wouldn’t expect primo ski conditions, but Sunday is supposed to kick things up a notch with temperatures around 60 F and more sun. That might be enough to get some of that south-facing terrain into good shape.

April 19, 2022May 30, 2022

Bolton Valley, VT 19APR2022

An image of fresh snow from an April snowstorm in the Timberline area parking lots at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Our most recent April snowstorm brought some solid accumulations even down to the base of Timberline at 1,500′.

I wasn’t able to get out for a ski tour this morning, but I did have enough time to head out to Bolton later in the afternoon and check out what this most recent storm had to offer. As we know, a great feature of the March through June portion of the ski season is the long lasting daylight, and that makes late afternoon and even evening ski sessions very practical.

It kept snowing right through the day today, but it did warm up enough to melt back the earlier snow a bit, especially the lower one went in elevation. There was still a solid coating of snow in place even in the late afternoon at the base of the Bolton Valley Access Road, and here’s the storm accumulations profile I found at that point:

340’: T-1”
1,000’: 1-2”
1,500’: 3-4”
2,000’: 7-8”
2,500’: 8-10”
3,000’: 10-12”

This storm was unquestionably another solid resurfacing of the snowpack at elevation. The mountains must have had at least an inch and a half of liquid equivalent as snow, and combined with the density of that snow, it was enough to resurface slopes of just about any angle, right up to the steepest of the steep. The density of the snow meant that it covered, and stayed stuck to, just about every slope out there. It’s easy for snow to be too dense to enable quality turns though, and this storm didn’t just flirt with that line, it flew way past it. Even the folks out in the west coast ranges that routinely deal with Sierra Cement and Cascade Concrete would have cried after dealing with this stuff.

An image of new snow from an April snowstorm at the base area of Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Some of the dense accumulations of new snow at the main base area today

There are times when you’re ski touring, and you can’t quite tell what the quality of the turns is going to be like until you really rip off the skins and start your descent; this was not one of those times. Right from the start of my tour, I could tell that the skiing was going to be disastrous. On the lower half of the mountain from say 2,000’ on up to ~2,500’, the snow was super dense, with a bit of melting going on to increase the density just a bit more for good measure. I held out a little hope that the quality of the snow in the higher elevations would improve, as it often does with lower temperatures producing drier snow that skis better. “Ha”, not this time. As I continued to ascend, the snow conditions only got worse. The snow went from something that was super dense and a bit wet, that you really didn’t sink into much… to an even worse version of that. As temperatures dipped below freezing on the upper mountain, the top couple of inches of snow has become a solid mass that produced the most horrible, upside-down snowpack you could imagine. The skiing was challenging, dangerous, disgusting, and everything in between.

An image of snow from an April snowstorm curling off a roof at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Spring snow doing what it does out at the resort today

So the snowfall from this storm was indeed a great resurfacing, and a solid addition to the mountain snowpack, but it would have taken another good half foot or so of drier snow to really get the immediate quality of the ski surfaces up to snuff in the Bolton Valley area. It was snowing while I was out there today, with some nice steady snow at times, but there was probably only another inch or two of additional snow above the dense stuff, so not enough to really bring up the snow quality to something more respectable.

Every spring snowstorm is different though, and that’s part of the fun of experiencing them, and we’ll just have to see what the next one does.

April 3, 2022April 29, 2022

Bolton Valley, VT 03APR2022

An image showing the trails of Whiteface Mountain in New York viewed from the Wilderness are of Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont

An image of the mid station area for the Wilderness Double Chairlift after an early April snowstorm at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — A view of some of the drifted snow at the Wilderness Mid Station while I was out on today’s ski tour at Bolton Valley

After skiing yesterday’s fresh powder out on the hill, I hadn’t really planned to ski today, since the forecast called for gray skies and temperatures heading above the freezing mark. We were thinking we might have left one of our water bottles up around 2,800’ on Wilderness during yesterday’s ski tour though, so that was incentive enough to get me out for another go. If in doubt, it’s generally good to get out and get some exercise anyway.

I made my way up to Bolton Valley around midday, and whereas temperatures yesterday were in the upper 20s F when we’d arrived, today they were in the upper 30s F. Some of the new Friday/Saturday snow had definitely melted back, and that effect decreased with increasing elevation, but the freezing line was still somewhere above the 3,000’ mark. So, I never encountered any snow yesterday that had been fully preserved below freezing. With that said, the snow skied really well. On the upper mountain, the new snow had seen little settling, and untracked areas skied like dense powder vs. any sort of mush. At all elevations, even where the snow was transitioning due to the above freezing temperatures, it seemed to be doing it in a subtle way. It wasn’t sticky, just dense, and perhaps that slow change was due to the cold overnight temperatures and the overcast keeping away dramatic warming from direct sunlight. In thinner areas where the new snow had melted back, the skiing typically transitioned right to the underlying corn snow, and that skied really well. It was sort of strange to move from areas of dense powder skiing, right to spring corn snow, but somehow it worked.

An image of a roof with snow in the Bolton Valley Village after and early April snowstorm hit Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — A scene from the Bolton Valley Village showing some of the recent snow while I was up at the resort today.

In any event, the water bottle ended up being right where we thought it was, so that part of the tour was quite successful! I of course used the opportunity of being up at the resort to grab another Spicy Tuna onigiri from the Miso Toh Kome stand, and I brought some onigiri home for the boys as well.

March 28, 2022April 16, 2022

Bolton Valley, VT 28MAR2022

An image of heavy snowfall taking place during a March snowstorm in the village area of Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont

An image of a sign about ski touring with some fresh snow during a March snowstorm near the base area of Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — This morning saw some additional snow accumulations from our ongoing storm cycle.

With the way it was pounding heavy snow when I left Bolton yesterday, and their morning report indicating a foot of snow for the storm total at that point, I figured another ski session was in order today.

Snow levels had dropped all the way to the valleys yesterday, but they really didn’t start picking up much accumulation at those lower elevations until the evening. Even the valleys were coated in white this morning, so accumulations started there, and the mountains just tacked on more.

When I first got up to the mountain this morning, I encountered blizzard like conditions due to the snowfall and wind, and the wind was certainly stronger than I saw at any point yesterday. Like yesterday, the snow would often come in pulses – you’d have light to moderate snowfall with a brightening of the sky, and then visibility would drop and you’d encounter heavy snow. At one point on today’s tour, intense snow came on so fast that visibility dropped to ~100 feet in just seconds. I was in the middle of taking some photos, and had use some of the initial exposures because part of what I was shooting about 200 feet away literally became invisible behind the snowfall, and I just had to move on.

An image of a bike ramp in the Wilderness Woods area of Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — I got this image just before heavy snowfall hit and literally made this whole scene disappear before my eyes.

The temperatures this morning was pretty cold, down in the single digits F, so I found the snow a bit slow except for the less settled/lower density areas. The more consolidated areas of powder with the finer grains or wind-based compaction were just on the slow side due to the combination of temperatures and the snow density

“Based on my ski sessions from yesterday and today, I wouldn’t put the current skiing in the top 20% of the season’s turns, but probably into that next quintile down. It was definitely good, but even in this fairly lackluster season, we’ve had a number of better storm cycles in terms of both total liquid equivalent, subsurface quality, and powder quality/dryness.”

Based on my ski sessions from yesterday and today, I wouldn’t put the current skiing in the top 20% of the season’s turns, but probably into that next quintile down. It was definitely good, but even in this fairly lackluster season, we’ve had a number of better storm cycles in terms of both total liquid equivalent, subsurface quality, and powder quality/dryness. With the continued snowfall, today’s additional liquid equivalent was enough to bump up the resurfacing to really encompass blue and some black terrain. The biggest bump I think this most recent event gets when it comes to the overall quality of the ski experience was due to skier numbers, which were way down. I was touring in the late morning today and there were only 3 or 4 tracks coming down Lower Turnpike where the Wilderness Uphill Route is located. A typical midseason day would definitely have seen more activity by that point. Sure, it was a Monday, but yesterday was sort of the same; it’s just that time of year when many people don’t have the drive to ski because it’s not wintry where they are, or they’ve moved on to other activities, or whatever. That’s of course one of the reasons March and April are so great in the mountains – we keep getting snow, and the availability of fresh tracks is a little easier.

I’ve updated yesterday’s accumulations profile with the additions I saw this morning:

340’: 0” -> 1-2”

1,000’: T -> 2”

1,200’: 1” -> 2-3”

1,500’: 2” -> 3”

2,000’: 4” -> 5”

2,500’: 5” -> 6”

3,000’: 6”

3,300’: 6”+

Today’s tour only brought me up to ~2,700’, so I can’t update those numbers from the higher elevations, but the trend between the additional snowfall and settling seemed to be to tack on another inch or two to what was present yesterday afternoon.

We may have another storm coming into the area for next weekend, so we’ll see if we get some turns out of another spring storm cycle.

March 27, 2022April 10, 2022

Bolton Valley, VT 27MAR2022

An image of heavy snow falling and a snowmobile covered with snow during a late March snowstorm at the main base are of Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont

An image of ski tracks in fresh powder from a late March snowstorm on the Cougar Trail at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Checking out some of the fresh tracks in the new snow while out on my ski tour today.

Even with Powderfreak’s timely snow updates providing knowledge of how much snow fell and how it was skiing on Mansfield today, you never really know quite how it’s going to be until you get up on the mountain. I’d seen Bolton’s initial morning report of 1-3” in the 2,000’-3,000’ elevation range, so when I found 2” at the Timberline Base at 1,500’ on the way up the Access Road, I knew the accumulations had been increasing through the morning.

Arriving at the main base, I started out the ski day with a tour up to the Wilderness Summit at ~3,150’, and someone had also broken trail up Ricker Mountain, so I followed that for a bit and probably topped out around 3,300’. This was one of those days where it was definitely nice to be able to start touring above 2,000’ with the elevation dependence of the snowfall.

The powder skiing was great, so after my tour, I hung around for some lift-served laps as well. There was plenty of fresh snow in those runs, since I was able to connect over to parts of Wilderness on those runs for powder laps. As of midday, there was already a solid resurfacing of the low angle terrain, so aside from any scoured areas, the powder on that terrain was skiing beautifully. Even low-angle terrain that had been skier packed was excellent, so this new snow had adhered nicely to the subsurface. On one of my lift-served runs, I saw this in play with the quiet turns of skiers on Bear Run and Sprig O’ Pine as I passed over on the Vista Quad.

An image of snowfall and drifting snow at the Wilderness Summit during a late March snowstorm at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Up at the Wilderness Summit today, with some interesting snowdrifts starting to form

I’m not sure how much liquid equivalent has been put down at elevation with this storm, since we’re certainly not getting as much liquid down here in the valley as the mountains are. We’ve had about 0.12” of liquid from this event down here, but based on how the powder turns felt today, the mountains had probably seen 0.3-0.5” up high as of midday? Anyway, medium angle terrain was a mixed bag in terms of sufficient resurfacing. In areas of untracked powder over at Wilderness, I was generally getting bottomless turns even up to some single black terrain. There were some great turns in areas that hadn’t been scoured. When I was over skiing the lift-served terrain on Vista though, you were definitely getting down to the old base on the blues and blacks – there certainly hasn’t been enough liquid equivalent put down with this event to hold up to those levels of skier traffic.

Today it was snowing all the way down to the valley floor, but accumulations didn’t start until ~1,000’. Here’s the new snow accumulations profile I found around midday:

340’: 0”

1,000’: T

1,200’: 1”

1,500’: 2”

2,000’: 4”

2,500’: 5”

3,000’: 6”

3,300’: 6”+

Once above the 2,000’ level, there weren’t any massive increases in accumulations that I saw, just sort of slow, steady increase, as the profile shows. The powder was meaty as Powderfreak had indicated in his report, so powder turns were great.

The snowfall today ranged from huge, pounding flakes, to lighter episodes where the snow continued, but the sky would brighten. It was really pounding when I left, and made me want to stay for another run or two. I’m not sure if it can keep up at today’s snowfall pace overnight, but tomorrow would obviously be another great day if it did.

An image of heavy snowfall near the base of the Wilderness Chairlift at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Another view of some of the heavy snowfall coming down today near the base of the Wilderness Chair

In terms of not quite knowing what it’s going to be like until you get there, today definitely delivered. Overall, the snow was great, and so was the scenery. It was often snowing hard with those big flakes, but the light levels and visibility were often pretty high because it’s now late March.

March 20, 2022March 26, 2022

Bolton Valley, VT 20MAR2022

An image from the top station of the Mid Mountain Double Chairlift with snow piled up on a March day at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont

An image of the Spillway trail rising into the clouds while riding the Vista Quad Chairlift at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — A view of Spillway today from the Vista Quad. Clouds were raising and lowering on the upper half of the mountain this afternoon before snow started falling at the ridgeline elevations.

The forecast this weekend seemed generally on the dreary side, but I did want to get out for some turns and exercise, and early this afternoon seemed like a decent window. The colder air and snow were expected to move into the area later in the afternoon, so midday offered the chance at spring snow that wouldn’t have tightened up, and it would be ahead of any rain that might fall on the lower elevations of the mountain.

Indeed I found some nice spring conditions today at Bolton Valley, all the way up above 3,000’. There’s a lot of good corn snow out there, but some trails have those still slick areas of denser snow and ice underneath that you have to watch out for. It wasn’t warm enough (generally in the 30s to near 40 F at 2,000’+ where I skied on the main mountain today) to really soften those densest spots, so the best skiing involved working your way around those areas and using the available corn snow. Some trails (like Alta Vista and Hard Luck) had more corn snow available and fewer slick spots, while others (like Spillway and Beech Seal) had more of those icy/dense spots to work around.

The good news is that all that dense snow is going to last quite a while as we head into the spring. Most natural snow trails had some coverage issues, so skiing was generally on routes with manmade snow today. There’s still a lot of natural snow in the elevation range of the main mountain though (the snowpack depth at the Mt. Mansfield Stake is around 40 inches), so a lot of terrain would be in play with natural base for any large storm cycles that come through in the next few weeks.

An image of a resort employee on a snowmobile in the Mid Mountain area of Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — A Bolton Valley employee on his snowmobile today at Mid Mountain in front of a closed Glades trail

When I first got to the mountain this afternoon, the cloud ceiling was up and down in the 2,500’ – 3,000’ range and there wasn’t any precipitation. On my last run though, it was snowing up at ridgeline level, and by the time I was leaving, the frozen precipitation was just starting to make it down to the Village elevations. The snow level must be well below 2,000 now though, because I can see that the precipitation is all snow on Bolton’s main base area webcam.

March 13, 2022March 21, 2022

Bolton Valley, VT 13MAR2022

A black and white image of Jay skiing powder after Winter Storm Quinlan on the Spell Binder trail in the Timberline area of Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont

An image of Erica skiing the powder from Winter Storm Quinlan in the KP Glades area of Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — As long as you knew the areas that have held onto good base snow, there was some great off piste skiing today thanks to Winter Storm Quinlan, as E demonstrates in the KP Glades.

Today was the day after the storm (Winter Storm Quinlan), and the weather had settled down. E and I headed up for morning turns at Timberline, and the conditions were great. It was still cold by March standards, somewhere in the teens F in the morning. The storm total reported by Bolton Valley was around 18 inches.

We spent our entire morning at Timberline, and just stayed there since there was plenty of snow even down to 1,500’, and there was still some wind around as we hit 2,500’. My depth checks generally revealed about 12” of new snow after settling down in the Timberline elevations, which with the density at the beginning of the storm was plenty to cover most on piste terrain. Initially, the headwalls of the steepest terrain areas were closed, since they had been scoured by the winds and thus not covered as well as they otherwise would have been. The traverses below them were in good shape though, so that gave you access to run after run of untracked powder on trails like Spell Binder. Eventually, patrol even opened the Spell Binder headwall, but you had to be quite cautious going down the most scoured sections.

An image of Jay skiing powder from Winter Storm Quinlan on the Spell Binder Trail of the Timberline area at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Jay enjoys some of that Winter Storm Quinlan powder today on Spell Binder

For off piste runs, you had to know the areas with good base depths, but the skiing in those areas was excellent. The usual steepest areas were still sketchy of course, as one storm can only do so much to cover up areas with poor base depths. E and I had a great run in the lower KP Glades, and when we showed it to Dylan and Parker once they arrived it the early afternoon, they were pretty impressed with the conditions as well. E and I left around 1:00 P.M., but the boys did a lot of off piste exploring in the afternoon, and my Dylan’s ski got a solid core shot to show for it.

“My depth checks generally revealed about 12” of new snow after settling down in the Timberline elevations, which with the density at the beginning of the storm was plenty to cover most on piste terrain.”

The parking lots up at the Village were already full when we arrived in the morning, so the Timberline Quad had intermittent periods with a lift queue as the people arriving made their way up to the main mountain, but thankfully those died off as people dispersed. Bolton opened the new expansion to the Timberline Lodge for the first time this weekend, and it looks quite nice. I hear they are also going to use it as rentable space for conferences and events, but it’s going to be a great addition to the space in the lodge.

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