Spruce Peak Archives - Page 7 of 10

January 11, 2015January 16, 2015

Stowe, VT 11JAN2015

An image of the Spruce Peak Village at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont with snowflakes in the air

An image of Kenny jumping off a rock as he skis in the Chapel Glades at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont — Kenny holds no punches as he drops into the Chapel Glades at Stowe today.

Today marked the start of the season’s BJAMS ski program at Stowe, so the whole family was excited to once again hit the slopes with friends, classmates, and faculty. I was also quite interested in finding out what the ski conditions were like on the slopes of Mt. Mansfield. We’d headed out into the Jay Peak backcountry yesterday after hearing about the good snow that the area had seen this past week, and the conditions we found certainly didn’t disappoint; there was roughly a foot of midwinter powder out there. I knew Mansfield had picked up some good snow in the past couple days based on Powderfreak’s pictures on American Weather, but was it on par with what we’d found farther north, and how would it hold up to all the weekend visitors to the resort? I hedged my bets after seeing the pictures, and decided to bring my Rossignol Sin 7 skis for the day – I had a hunch that we’d be able to spend a good amount of time off piste and I suspected I’d want my wider, rockered boards instead of my on piste carvers.

“While riding the lift I caught sight of a couple of kids skiing in the trees above meadows, and as I watched the powder spraying off their skis, I knew it was going to be game on in the off piste.”

On our way up Route 100, we could see that the Greens were lost in snowfall off to the west, and fluffy flakes soon began to fill the air down in the valley. The snow globe flakes stayed with us all the way to the resort and put quite a spirit in the air as we kicked off the ski program season. With all the construction going on for the new facilities in the Spruce Peak Village, parking is at a real premium, but our ski program participants are being allowed to use the parking area at the Spruce Peak Performing Arts Center. It’s a bit of a walk for the kids, but everyone was really appreciative of the resort allowing that use; I think the logistics of transferring over from the Mansfield side are even more challenging with all the little ones.

Our usual ski group would be growing today with the addition of Wiley and Jonah – everyone felt that they were more than ready to join us in our usual off piste escapades, and both boys were excited to get at it. Although our group had now increased to a total of eight students, Ken was joining us as well, so we had a pair of adults to keep tabs on everyone. Having a lower ratio of students to coaches is nice, but it’s especially helpful with the amount of off piste skiing our group does. It’s much easier to get separated among the trees than out on the trail, so it’s important to have as many eyes on the group as possible. We’ve found that if we have one or two of the older or more experienced students leading, that can free up one coach to be the tail guide and a second coach can then keep their eyes on things from the middle of the pack and follow individuals that might take different routes. Ken and I have done it with similar groups before, so we were ready for the increased numbers today.

“…when the powder is looking good down at the bottom of Spruce Peak, you know it’s going to be good on Mt. Mansfield.”

We kicked things off with a ride on the new Meadows Quad Chair, which has replaced the Alpine and Easy Street Chairs. This new chair is a fixed grip quad, but it has one of those moving carpets underneath for efficient loading – the chairs are spaced quite close together on the new chair, and presumably the moving carpet lets them load a higher volume of skiers overall. While riding the lift I caught sight of a couple of kids skiing in the trees above the meadows area, and as I watched the powder spraying off their skis, I knew it was going to be game on in the off piste. The boys inquired about jumping into the trees, and I told them that we’d do a warm up run on the trails first, but we’d be getting into the trees right after that; when the powder is looking good down at the bottom of Spruce Peak, you know it’s going to be good on Mt. Mansfield.

Our group made its way over to the Gondola on Mansfield and as we traversed across the initial flats of Perry Merrill, I headed off to the skier’s right to check on the depth of the powder. A quick check revealed almost a foot and a half of champagne fluff, further confirming that we were going to be able to find plenty of soft snow. We worked our way down into the north side of the Nosedive Glades, and found lots of soft snow as expected. The good conditions weren’t too surprising, since Luc had told me he’d already been in there earlier today and found it quite good. Still, it’s always nice to really get you feet on it and find out for yourself. There was a solid foot of powder on untouched lines, and I’ve got to say, there was really just about the same amount of fluff as what we found in the Jay Peak backcountry. Mighty Mansfield has clearly done well in the snowfall department over the past several days. There was the usual amount of ice in the middle of snowmaking trails, but just about everywhere else it was not only the powder that was impressive, but the underlying and on piste surface as well.

An image of Luc, Julia, and Kenny lining up to drop into the Chapel Glades area at Stowe Mountain Ski Resort in Vermont — Lining up for the drop in on Chapel Glades today

We worked our way over to the Fourrunner Quad and visited the Chapel Glades and Sunrise Glades. As usual all you had to do to get some untracked lines was just venture a bit farther afield. As we finished off that run I started exploring any woods shot that I came across, and was very impressed to see Wiley and Jonah right behind me on all those adventurous forays. With attitudes like that, I think they’re going to have a lot of fun in our ski group. And, they weren’t just handling it, they looked really comfortable following my traverses and lines through the deep powder.

After a break in the Octagon, and a trip down Liftline to retrieve Kenny’s gloves that he’d dropped from the lift, we worked our way over to Nosedive Bypass and down through the glades again. Wiley really seems to have a nose for powder, and I often found him poking around the same areas as me as we sought out the best snow. I think one of the best treats today, aside from the fact that Stowe had picked up such a good amount of snow this week, is how much of it people had missed over the course of the weekend. Ken and I just kept finding good snow slightly off the beaten path, and that’s really nice for a Sunday afternoon.

December 13, 2014December 14, 2014

Stowe, VT 13DEC2014

An image of the some of the trails in the Gondola area at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont — A gorgeous day at Stowe for our annual ski program training

Today was our annual training day for Stowe’s ski program with the local schools, and indeed it was a great one. We’ve often had fresh snow on these mid-December training days, but the past few days featured a cutoff nor’easter that delivered 2 to 2 ½ feet of snow to the Northern Vermont ski resorts. And, the snow wasn’t just fluff either; there were roughly three inches of liquid equivalent in that snow, so it was a major boost to the natural base depths. The snow depth at the Mt. Mansfield Stake just pushed past 30 inches with that storm, and it probably won’t be settling too much due to the density of the snow.

“…there was just so much of that deep packed powder that it didn’t even make you want to head off the beaten path for untracked snow.”

The forecast for today was looking great; with the low pressure system finally weakening, there was the chance for some sun, and temperatures would be in the 20s F. With the hefty amount of construction going on over at the Spruce Peak Base Area, the meeting place for today’s session was in the Midway Lodge. The space actually felt much better than the old day lodge where we would typically meet, and a lot of that seemed to be because the space was simply configured better. Everything was well organized when we arrived, and since we had almost an hour before we’d get together with our group, I headed over to the Spruce Peak Base for a bit to eat at the Great Room Grill. The new structure that’s going in over there is still at the stage of steel framework, but it should ultimately have plenty of space for the children’s programs and whatever else they’ll be putting in there.

We got together with Joe and Emile from BJAMS for our ski group, and had Steve Dever as our instructor for today, who is actually Emile’s neighbor. Each year we seem to get a little something different out of the training session, and this year Steve spent a lot of time on techniques for safety, such as strategies for where to stop on the trail and how to position your body to ensure maximal visibility of oncoming skier traffic. On the technical side, we talked a lot about pole work and “finishing” turns with regard to speed control.

We were generally on piste today, but conditions were simply fantastic on the groomed runs as one might expect after two feet of dense snow. Those first couple of runs on Perry Merrill were simply divine as far as groomers go. We headed over to the Fourrunner Quad for the second half of the morning, skiing some of the usual routes out toward Sunrise. Steve stopped us above the Chapel Glades, pointing out how that was a great one to do with the kids, and the snow looked good enough that a number of our group headed in and met up with everyone else on the other side of the glade. I checked with my measurement pole and found 21 inches of snow there, so there was more than enough coverage. We’re well past the 24-inch mark at the stake, and the fact that so much of that is dense snow makes it even more substantial. Coverage really wasn’t an issue in there, and there were areas of packed snow where there had been enough skier traffic. There was plenty of powder in there was well though, so getting into the powder off piste is definitely an option on appropriate terrain now.

The sun was out a good bit this morning, and with temperatures probably around 30 F at the base, you couldn’t really ask for much more. You could certainly see the quality of the groomed snow drop a bit on the popular routes as the morning wore on, but there was just so much of that deep packed powder that it didn’t even make you want to head off the beaten path for untracked snow. If I’m not searching out powder to ski in, that’s a definite sign of some seriously good snow on piste. It was a little hard to pull away in the early afternoon, but we wanted to pick up the boys from Norris’ house in time for him to get off for his Nordic skiing program. The next snowstorm appears to be coming in the middle of the week, so we’ll see what we get out of that one.

March 30, 2014April 3, 2014

Stowe, VT 30MAR2014

An image of Erica skiing the Hayride trail at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont — Out at Stowe today in some of the dense snow brought by our recent storm

I was a little concerned about the potential ski conditions at Stowe today based on what I’d seen at Bolton Valley in the morning, and asked E if she was thinking of cancelling the BJAMS ski program in the afternoon. But, she decided that the conditions looked reasonable enough to keep it scheduled and avoid having to do a make-up day next weekend. It was definitely the right call, because by the time we got to the mountain, any precipitation had shut off, and it looked like the conditions on Spruce Peak were excellent.

“There were still areas
of untracked snow on
the sides of trails, and
it would just peel away
beautifully with each
turn, just like I’d
encountered at Bolton.”

At Bolton valley in the morning, the lower half to two thirds of the main mountain was the place be, with those smooth turns in the fresh shot of dense snow. You generally wanted to be somewhere underneath the 2,500 – 2,800’ elevation range to get fresh tracks below the more substantial rain crust near the summits. The Sunny Spruce Quad covers the lower half to 2/3 of Spruce Peak, which would be in the 1,500’ to 2,500’ elevation range, so it was likely a good option. Indeed, any concerns about conditions on that terrain were removed when I took an initial run off the Sunny Spruce Quad with the boys. There were still areas of untracked snow on the sides of trails, and it would just peel away beautifully with each turn, just like I’d encountered at Bolton. The snow was so dense that it was easily bottomless and you weren’t touching down on any old surfaces. I’d traded in my fat Tele skis for some skinnier alpine skis, and I was definitely wishing I had some cambered fats like the boys did for smearing turns in that snow. We heard reports from others in our ski program who had ventured up higher to the top of the Sensation Quad at ~3,200’, and that turned out to be up into the crust elevations at that point, with ongoing freezing mist/rain that would coat your goggles. In general though, the precipitation that we’d seen in the morning had tapered off, so it was just cloudy for much of the afternoon. We joined up with E and Claire, who both had some free time to ski since there were so few participants at the program today, and we had a similarly great run off Sunny Spruce. The snow might have been just a touch heavier on that second run. It was either that, or I got that impression after not surfing quite as much untracked snow.

We didn’t stick around too long at Spruce because we were thinking of making a run down the Bruce Trail. However, when we got to the entrance at the top of the Bruce, we saw that not a soul had skied it. We could have had the entire trail to ourselves with first tracks, but between breaking trail through the high-elevation crust up top, and then potentially dealing with mushy, untracked snow down below, we didn’t think it was worth it. We took a run down Hayride instead, which had excellent, soft snow. Later, when we headed up to the top of the Gondola at ~3,600’, we could tell that the freezing level had definitely risen to bring those higher elevations more into play with respect to softening. You still didn’t want to break fresh lines up there because of the substantial crust, but stuff the people had skied was in great shape by that point and the on piste runs were excellent from top to bottom. We had great Perry Merrill and Gondolier runs; you could just carve so hard into the snow and it would hold and push right back. In between we had a good break at the Midway Lodge, where everyone got to rest those legs that were pushing hard through the new snow. I think that was our first stopover at Midway this season, and although E and Claire don’t get to head over there much with their usual ski groups, I let them know how quiet it typically was if they were looking for a peaceful place to give their students a ski break. We got some snacks and hung out by the fire, and unfortunately I wasn’t able to find any of Mitzi’s granola to buy. I mentioned it to Claire, and she pointed out a woman over by the ticket counter who was in fact Mitzi herself. On our last ride in the Gondola around 3:30 P.M., we were noting some sleet coming down. Normally that’s not a great sign relative to pure snow, but in this case it was a sign of some colder air somewhere up there in the higher elevations.

It was approaching 4:00 P.M. when we returned to Spruce Peak, but the boys managed to squeeze in one more run before the end of the day. Despite this past storm not being 100% snow, the conditions came together in a great way nonetheless. We may have some additional chances for snow coming in the next week or so, and we’ll have to see what kind of snow we’ll get out of them. Whatever the case, the base is in great shape for a nice long continuation of the season as we head into April and May.

March 23, 2014March 24, 2014

Stowe, VT 23MAR2014

An image of Ken skiing Angel Food at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont — Today will go down as one of the best days of the season at Stowe

Today will simply have to go down as one of the best days of the season at Stowe; I just can’t see how it wouldn’t. Another half foot of snow fell overnight, bringing snow totals to 20 inches in the past 72 hours, and that’s on top of the multiple feet of snow that have fallen in the past three weeks. Off piste, people push their ski poles into the snow and they go up to and beyond the handle before they hit a firm surface, and the depth of the snowpack at the Mt. Mansfield Stake is approaching 90 inches. While that’s really just the average peak snowpack depth for the higher elevations of Mt. Mansfield on a seasonal basis, it clearly marked a threshold of sorts for the snowpack at all elevations on the mountain today. When even the base elevations have over 40 inches of snowpack, three to six foot trees across the mountain have now simply disappeared under the snow. All one needs to do is pull off trail, glide into the trees, and the acres upon acres of powder lines just open up. It’s that time of year when lines appear that you forgot even existed… and they’re everywhere. Stowe’s already incredible tree skiing simply rises to another level, and you are quickly overwhelmed by the fact that in a day on the mountain you won’t even be able to scratch the surface of what’s available. Let’s not forget the weather that Mother Nature provided today, in the form of brilliant late March sun. And, lest that strong sun try to mess with the quality of the powder out there, Mother Nature also saw fit to keep it just wintry and cool enough to keep even low-elevation, south-facing snow in fluffy, pristine, midwinter form. Indeed it all came together today.

An image of Erica skiing powder in the Lower Smugglers Trees at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont — The lines off piste are bottomless and everywhere

When we got the word about the decent shot of additional fresh snow overnight, we decided to get an earlier than usual start so that the family could do some runs together before the start of the BJAMS ski program. As we ascended toward the first run of the day on the Sunny Spruce Quad, my eyes were drawn to the lines in the trees all around us, and how they were simply choked with snow. We tried out a new line in the Lower Smugglers Trees, and then let brought Mom to one of Ty’s favorite lines in the area so that she could have first tracks in that section. We headed under the alpine slide tunnel and onto the open terrain above Meadows, which held fantastic snow. I tried to impress upon E and the boys just how ridiculously good the quality of that snow actually was – we’re talking essentially base-elevation, south-facing terrain in late March, and there wasn’t a hint of hard base to find under there or any effects of the full sun on the snow. The fact that they weren’t flabbergasted like I was suggested that they weren’t quite as impressed, but there was no denying the quality of the powder we’d encountered off piste. It was just… so… bottomless. The powder had that density gradient that just keeps going and going, and the hard you would push down, the deeper you’d go before you’d find that there was just nothing there. E had time for one more before she had to get ready for the ski program, so we skied some similar lines with similarly fantastic results. Ty and Dylan and I followed up with a run by ourselves that included the Ridge Glades, and it was fun to watch Dylan drop through the deep powder in one of the steep entries. He’s been right back on his game, even after a few weeks off his skis.

“It was
just… so…
bottomless.”

For ski program today, we teamed up with Joe and Ken’s group, bringing in Ethan and Jack into the crew along with Ty, Dylan, and Luc. Luc’s dad joined us as well, and we did one more warm-up run on Sunny Spruce while my friend Chris got ready to meet us down at Spruce Camp. Ken suggested that we head out to some of the Ridge Glades and Side Street Trees, and that was lots of fun. Dylan followed my explorations, and naturally I managed to get us down into some ice cliffs that required some steep turns and drops, but he found a nice line to take him smoothly through.

“…it was just one
of those days where
everything came
together to make
the skiing fantastic.”

We met up with Chris, and our group of ten headed over to the Gondola with thoughts of an Angel Food run. With the snowpack this deep and fresh snow to boot, it was an obvious choice. The traverse was well set with many other folks having the same idea today, but the snow quality out there in Angel Food was simply excellent. Everyone seemed to have a great time on the snow, and Ken and I nailed our desired return traverse to the letter. One of my favorite parts of the run was spreading out among the trees on the return traverse, and getting fresh lines of powder that kept going and going and going. It was such a good run that I was totally ready to hit it again and explore more of those are to the skier’s right with fresh powder.

Some folks from the group headed back to Spruce Peak after that, but Ken, Chris and I stuck with Ty, Dylan, and Luc for another Gondola run, this time down Chin Clip and the Chin Clip Streambed, a.k.a. “Ravine”. Conditions in the streambed were excellent, and Dylan’s run through there produced one of the best comments of the day. He was having so much fun jumping off all the ice waterfalls in the streambed, that he couldn’t believe he had ever spent his time going around many of them – his comment was, “I can’t believe I was missing that in my life!” I explained to him that it’s because he’s becoming a better and more confident skier, and that a year or two ago jumping off those kinds of drops would have represented a much bigger challenge. It can be hard to recall exactly how things appeared when you were at a different stage of skiing, but he’s certainly enjoying the streambed from a whole new perspective now.

We headed over to the quad for a run from the very top of Lookout, and it was a bit windblown in spots, but improved as we got farther down. I don’t think we saw another person during the entire run. We finished off with the boy’s request for a cruise down Perry Merrill, but not before we hit the Tombo Woods and the Tombo Waterfall. The waterfall is actually getting pretty small because of all the snow that has now built up below it, but it was great fun. We even got in a little extra powder skiing along the edge of the Hazelton Zone, and it was fantastic snow just like we’d been encountering everywhere else.

An image of Ty and Dylan jumping off a large snow pile at Stowe Mountain Ski Resort in Vermont — No skis, no problem.

Since Chris had some time, we stopped off for some dinner at Sushi Yoshi, and had quite a good feast with a variety of different sushi rolls. Ty ate a lot of sushi, but I still think he was ready to keep eating more even after it was gone. One of these days we will find out how much it takes to fill the bottomless hole he has for sushi. It was a great cap to what will definitely remembered as one of the best days of the season, and it wasn’t even the result of a big storm, it was just one of those days where everything came together to make the skiing fantastic.

March 9, 2014March 10, 2014

Stowe, VT 09MAR2014

An image of Luc above Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont jumping off the ridgeline of Mt. Mansfield into powder below — It was the BJAMS boys dropping powder bombs off the Mansfield ridgeline today.

Jack had inquired about a hike to The Chin during our BJAMS ski program last Sunday, so while getting my ski group up into Stowe’s alpine terrain has been on my mind over the past couple of weeks, that really got me thinking about a hike for today. The snowpack at the Mt. Mansfield Stake has been sitting at roughly 60 inches for the past three weeks, so I’m satisfied with base depths, and the only other concern that would affect the quality of the skiing would be the usual suspects up there in the alpine like wind and sun crusts, etc. Temperatures also looked reasonable for today, with highs in the 10s and 20s F, and with no strong winds expected and lots of sunshine, it seemed like we were on for a trip above tree line.

“I shot a few pictures
of the accomplishment,
and then came the
highlight of the trip…
the jumping.”

Although I’d like to get them up onto The Chin into Profanity Chute at some point, with no direct knowledge of the current snow conditions in the alpine, and this being the boys’ first hike above tree line this season, something a little less aggressive was in order. So, just like we did for our alpine outing on April 7^th last season, I decided to go with a hike up Cliff Trail Gully, followed by skiing in that general vicinity. With that plan in place, I met up with today’s group, which consisted of Kenny, Ty, Jack, and Luc, and informed them of the plan. While Dylan is feeling quite chipper after his recent bout of illness, we want to make sure that his physician says he at 100% before we subject him to anything overly rambunctious. So, after grabbing the feature photo on our last trip up Cliff Trail Gully, unfortunately he had to hold out in the base area today.

After a warm up run on Sunny Spruce with Connor while we waited for Jack, everyone was finally ready to go, so we headed to lockers to prepare the gear. The guys got any water and snacks together, I did some fitting of their packs, and we were off to the Gondola. Up at the Cliff House, I helped everyone attach their skis to packs, and in general after working with Kenny’s setup a bit, the arrangements were pretty good without too many skis hitting heads or legs. Luc was carrying his skis, and I talked with him about switching arm positions as need and trying to let his shoulders do as much work as possible so that his arms wouldn’t get too tired. Kenny was very excited, because he said it was the first time he’d ever hiked for skiing.

An image of Luc, Jack, and Kenny heading up the boot ladder in the Cliff Trail Gully on Mt. Mansfield above Stowe Mountain Ski Resort in Vermont — Up the boot ladder go the boys

There was a decent boot ladder in place, so Ty took the lead, the other boys followed, and I brought up the rear. Ty was off like a shot, and within minutes it seemed like he was ¼ of the way up the gully and I had to reel him in a bit and tell him to hold so that the group could catch up. He was good about that, and hung out on one of the obvious stopping plateaus created by the massive room-sized boulders that fill the gully. Kenny was taking his time while he figured out what this whole “hiking with skis” process is all about, and I while I hung out with him, I gave him lots of tips on how to move efficiently in the terrain. He was floored by how fast Ty flew up the gully, and I let him know that Ty had done an awful lot of this kind of hiking and that he’d be much faster as he got used to it. The boot ladder wasn’t too bad, but in some spots you could tell that it was made by someone with fairly long legs. That set the boys at a disadvantage, but they worked it out, and I’m sure Ty was putting in plenty of shorter steps that they got to use. I did get to express to them how if they’re ever the first to set the boot ladder, shorter spaces between steps are the way to go, as they work for everyone.

As we climbed higher in the gully, Kenny was very impressed by the views, and I told him how they would just keep getting better with every step. Kenny really started to catch his groove with the hiking when we got into the upper, less steep half of the gully, and he commented on how much easier it was getting. Once into the upper half of the gully, Ty and Luc quickly gained the ridge line, and it wasn’t long before the rest of us caught up and we were there. The wind was minimal and the sun was warm, so the boys immediately started to explore the immediate area above the gully. I shot a few pictures of the accomplishment, and then came the highlight of the trip… the jumping.

An image of Ty jumping off the ridge line of Mt. Mansfield above Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont into powder below — It was jumps, jumps, and more jumps!

There hasn’t been much snow to set up a big cornice along the ridge, but there was at least a little bit of one, and more importantly, plenty of snow deposited just below on the leeward side of the ridge. I can’t recall who suggested it first, but the boys quickly got into a session of leaps, slides, tumbles, and bomb holing, all thanks to the deep snow deposited below the ridge. I’d say they had a good half hour session of jumping before I reminded them of the time and pointed out that we weren’t going to get in much additional skiing today if we didn’t get going. The boys were able to pull themselves away, and after a few snacks, we started our descent of the gully.

An image of Ty skiing the Cliff Trail Gully on Mt. Mansfield above Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont — Finally, the boys made the ski descent of the gully.

The snow conditions were actually somewhat challenging, with a few pockets of soft snow, but a lot of wind slab, dense snow, and even pockets of leftover rain crust. The boys really showed their technical abilities, applying a range of techniques to take on some impressively steep, tight, and scratchy lines down the gully. I kept my eyes peeled for other options off to the skiers left, but with the current snowpack, nothing immediately jumped out that was worth pursuing. So, the boys finished their run right down through the Cliff Trail Gully itself, and it was quite impressive.

Of course, one great part about a run down from Mansfield’s alpine areas is that you have an entire run of 2,000+ vertical feet still to go. The boys chose Mac and Cheese, which actually seemed sort of tame after what they’d just done. We followed that up with some trees and bumps on Lower National. We also had time for one more run over at Spruce Peak once we got back. Actually, despite the time taken up by the hike and the run down the gully, I’m glad the boys spent a lot of time up there, because in general, the conditions on piste were pretty unimpressive. The off piste snow in places such as the Nosedive Glades was reasonable packed powder, even if well packed after this past week with minimal new snow, but trails with snowmaking and high traffic are really quite icy. There’s powder in the trees, but naturally it’s getting harder to come by at this point, and the boys weren’t really missing out on too much down below. Luc even commented on how he didn’t like the snow when we were down on Lower National, so he’s definitely refining his preference for good snow. Fortunately, it looks like we might get some storms this week, so hopefully we’ll have some softer conditions next weekend. Hopefully we’ll be back at Stowe for more fun in the snow.

March 2, 2014March 6, 2014

Stowe, VT 02MAR2014

An image of Luc dropping into some deep snow in the Kitchen Wall area at Stowe Mountain Ski Resort in Vermont — The boys out in the white stuff today on one of those sleeper powder days at Stowe

One of the early signs that Stowe has received a decent shot of overnight snow, is when Powderfreak sends out a pre-sunrise update and you see some nice depth to the snowy tire tracks in the parking lot. That’s the way it went this morning, and since a few inches down low can mean even more up high. It definitely piqued my interest, and suggested that we should go for one of those morning starts ahead of our afternoon ski program. With Dylan still under the weather, and E staying home with him, it would be just Ty and I heading out today. I waited until Ty woke up, he grabbed a quick bite, and we were off.

“Depth checks revealed powder close to two feet on north and other protected aspects, and while that crusty layer from a couple of weeks ago was presumably in there, it’s so deeply buried now that you’d never know.”

An image of Ty skiing powder in the open terrain above the Meadows trail at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont — Ripping up some big turns above Meadows

The lifts hadn’t been running too long at Spruce Peak when we arrived, and you could tell by the tracks that were appearing that there was some great fresh snow. We suited up in Spruce Camp, and then hopped on Sunny Spruce for a quick first run. When we saw that Freddie’s Chute was open, we headed right there and caught some of the fresh lines still available along the skier’s right. The snow that fell overnight was some gorgeous light and dry Champlain Powder™. There were several inches of new snow, and it skied really well, even if it didn’t have the density to keep you off the subsurface in previously tracked areas. We grabbed first tracks on some lines we knew in the Lower Smugglers Trees, and found the turns to be mostly bottomless there. We finished off with a run through the terrain above Meadows – there wasn’t quite enough powder to be bottomless down at those low elevations on south facing terrain, but the snow provided a good amount of resistance to make the turns fun.

“It was just me
and Ty, and a
couple hundred
acres of fluff.”

It was off to Mansfield next for some Gondola runs. We started with a run in which I introduced Ty to a full trip through the Hazelton Zone. With the snowpack at the Mt. Mansfield Stake above 60” now, there are no concerns about coverage. We just let our noses guide us through the terrain, and it was powder-filled adventure through streambeds, powder fields and steep river banks. We didn’t see another soul, and we didn’t even run into any tracks until we got down toward the main line in the bottom half of the area. It was just me and Ty, and a couple hundred acres of fluff. Depth checks revealed powder close to two feet on north and other protected aspects, and while that crusty layer from a couple of weeks ago was presumably in there, it’s so deeply buried now that you’d never know. South facing chutes were where that crust was evident though – there featured conditions with more like six inches of powder with a crusty base underneath. Once we found that out though, we stuck to the north facing terrain and other aspects where there were no problems. Ty said he loved the explorations and skiing in the area, along with the roller coaster exit traverse at the end. One comment he made was that the run seemed sort of long, which I’d argue is a nice problem to have. Our next run was through the Tombo Woods followed by some of the Switchback Trees, where the snow was great all the way to the bottom. When I did a depth check around the 2,000’-2,500’ mark on Switchback, I got a reading of 6 inches for the new snow. Ty noticed that his fat skis were serving him well, keeping him planing atop the snow and moving even when the terrain flattened out.

An iamge of Ty skiing some powder snow in the Hazelton area of Mt. Mansfield at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont — In the morning it was Ty and I getting to rip up the powder on Mansfield together.

Ty and I headed in for lunch at the Great Room Grill, getting sandwiches from the deli area, and then met up with Luc and Jack for our afternoon session. We started them off with the run that Ty and I had skied in the morning, and Ty like the fact that he’d had both first and third tracks through the Lower Smugglers Trees for the day. Back over on Mansfield, we took a great run through the Kitchen Wall area, and worked our way all the way through the Goatdive Woods and some of the Liftline Trees. Jack hurt his leg a bit on a run through the Sunrise trees, so we made our way back to Spruce, where he took it easy for the last hour in the lodge while the rest of the group finished off with some runs on Sensation. Main Street was an interesting mix of hard manmade racing snow below the fresh stuff, but outside the racing fences was some really good powder. We’ll definitely be back to check out some of the new routes we learned there. This was definitely one of those sleeper Stowe powder days that sneak in under the radar – we were psyched to have it on a Sunday.

February 23, 2014February 23, 2014

Stowe, VT 23FEB2014

An image of Dylan playing with a chunk of snow at the top of the Gondola at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont — Playing out in the sun and snow today at Stowe

It was back to Stowe today for our weekly BJAMS ski program, and we were curious to see what Mother Nature was going to deliver. The forecast called for temperatures in the mid 20s F at summit elevations, around 30 F at mid mountain elevations, and in the 30s F at base elevations. While those temperatures certainly weren’t going to soften the snow at all elevations, it seemed like there was a good chance for the lower slopes of south-facing Spruce Peak to soften up into something very nice.

We certainly had brilliant sunshine when we headed to the mountain around midday, and temperatures in the low to mid 40s F in the mountain valleys gave way to a temperature of 38 F at the base of the mountain. Upper 30s F with sunshine was definitely enough to get Spruce Peak to soften right up, and even at the top of Sunny Spruce, on terrain that was in the sun, the snow was beautiful. Some of terrain not in direct sun also had good snow, but it was definitely hit or miss there. At the top of Sunny Spruce, I took the boys aside and chopped out some of the snow to show them some the crust that had developed subsequent to the mixed precipitation storm at the end of the week. I noted that it was why we wouldn’t be doing too much off piste skiing today, but you could see that there was indeed some very nice powder below the crust, so areas that had seen previous skier traffic would definitely hold promise. Indeed, most of the mountain didn’t even get above freezing during the last storm, so the snow was preserved quite well below the crust.

We had our usual group of Ty, Dylan, Luc and Jack, and Ken was able to join me today as an additional coach. I started everyone off with a look at the terrain above Meadows, and you could see that it was nicely sun softened all around, but terrain that had not been groomed or skied yet had a layer of crust on it. It actually yielded somewhat due to softening in the sun, but the snow the groomed/skied on Nastar Hill was just so good, there was no point in busting new lines through there. We ventured higher on the mountain via Sensation to see how high the soft snow had ventured. It was more varied up at the top of Spruce Peak, gradually getting better and better as we descended. They were actually just cleaning up from racing on Main Street, but we were able to ski it and found some nice smooth terrain on the side of the trail where racing hadn’t taken place. We hit one more run on Lower Smuggler’s and West Slope, which both had excellent, sun-softened snow.

After a quick break, we decided to head over to the Gondola to see if Chin Clip had softened at all. The most surprising conditions of the day were found on Upper Gondolier, where there was excellent midwinter snow, and large amounts of loose powder thrown about by all the people that had skied it during the day. Chin Clip had generally winter snow, nothing as good as the top, but as one got lower you could start to feel where the warmth had gotten to it. If it had all been as good as Upper Gondolier it would have been worth another run, bet we all decided that Spruce Peak was clearly the place to be in terms of snow consistency.

It was 3:00 P.M. when we returned to Spruce, and since Dylan was feeling a bit under the weather, I headed with him into Spruce Camp so that he could rest, and Ken took the boys out for some more runs on Spruce. We had a good time hanging out in the lodge, and it was so peaceful that I was dozing off more than Dylan was. Once E was back into the lodge from her coaching and could watch Dylan, I headed out to catch one more run. I just barely missed the boys’ last run on Sunny Spruce, but took a quiet run by myself on the Adventure Triple. I’d never really spent much time checking out the houses they have up there, and the views of the village were quite interesting from among all those buildings. Even down at that elevation, the snow was starting to firm up, so closing time was just about right for allowing people to get in on the best conditions. The base is in fine shape, even if it’s only around average, but we could use some rounds of snow to just soften things up and get the conditions bumped up in quality. It looks like we’ve got several chances for small systems this week, and any one of them could run into the mountains an unload a bit more than expected, so we’ll keep our eyes peeled for how the accumulations turn out over the next few days.

February 9, 2014February 11, 2014

Stowe, VT 09FEB2014

An image of Dylan between two pillows of powder snow on trees below the Kitchen Wall area at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont — Dylan exploring Mansfield’s deep deposits of powder today

We had a storm last weekend that produced a powder day on Sunday, so we headed out early and spent the entire day at Stowe, but with no fresh snow today, it was back to our more typical afternoon session spent with the BJAMS ski program. We actually arrived a bit earlier than usual so that E could have a special ski instruction session with one of the students on the carpet surface lift, so parking at the base of Spruce Peak was somewhat less hectic than usual. Skies were gray with clouds ahead of a storm coming in tonight, and temperatures were reasonable at around 20 F.

An image of Ty skiing powder in the trees near the West Run trail at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont — Out and about in the powder today

Luc and Jack were away at a martial arts event, so it looked like it would just be Ty, Dylan, and Kenny with me for our session. Kenny still had to eat lunch when we first arrived, so Ty, Dylan, and I headed up Sunny Spruce for an early run. We decided to do a bit of exploring in the trees off West Run, and found the powder there to be right around a foot, just like we’d encountered in many areas at Bolton Valley yesterday. Although the snowpack at the Mt. Mansfield Stake is still around the 40-inch mark, we didn’t find any serious issues with coverage in that area of mixed hardwoods and evergreens.

We hooked up with Kenny and stuck to Spruce Peak for our next run – E wanted us to check in with everyone gathering for the program at 1:00 P.M. to see if anyone else would be joining our group. Kenny was interested in West Smugglers because of the moguls, and he took them on with no problems. I was initially worried about the coverage on West Smugglers due to the fact that it’s all natural snow, somewhat south facing, and relatively low in elevation, but the coverage really was decent. If West Smugglers is doing OK, I had to think that Stowe was close to 100% open, and indeed I see that that’s the case when I check the snow report.

We found out that Ethan was going to join our group for the day, as I was told that he jumped at the chance when offered, so that brought us to four and we headed over to the Gondola for some runs. Dylan’s request was for some “Mac and Cheese” so we headed right there. I filled Ethan in on some of the usual off piste tips that I gave Kenny last week, stay together, get up and out of the way when you stop in choke points, etc. I also let him know how things would go with me as the only coach – we’d have Ty lead since he’s confident enough in his abilities and knowledge of the terrain to do so, and I’d take up the rear. The run was great, and Kenny exorcised some of the demons from last week by conquering some of those tricky spots in the main line we’d been working. Ethan had no problems, and I hadn’t suspected that he would based on his previous trips with our group. Once out onto Nosedive, I worked with the boys on short-radius turns and holding tight, controlled lines along the edge of the trail where there was some quality snow. For the most part, Nosedive was its usually icy self due to manmade snow and skier traffic, so there wasn’t anything different to note there.

An image of Kenny, Ethan, Ty, and Dylan out among powdery trees below the Kitchen Wall at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont — The boys pose for a shot out in the powder below the Kitchen Wall

Kenny’s request was also for Mac and Cheese, so we took it again, but this time with a variation. I’d seen lots of untracked powder above our usual main route, so I took the boys on an exploratory session with a higher traverse through the area. I set the track, which turned out to be through a lot of powder. Depth checks typically revealed 20+ inches around there, and if our feet hadn’t been able to inform us of the depth, our eyes could have. Massive balls of fluffy powder sat on all the evergreens, and it was really starting to look like Mt. Mansfield in winter. Even with me setting the traverse track through the forest and multiple people behind me packing it down, Kenny struggled at times getting through the powder. I can see that we’ll have to work with him on that – there are certainly things that you learn about traversing through deep powder in the forest, and ultimately it makes your travel so much more efficient. I can remember when Luc struggled with that at times as well, but after a couple of seasons of exposure, he’s really starting to get it down. We did manage to find some nice untracked and lightly tracked lines with our added traverse, but I could see that we’d be able to get much more if we went farther. We’d worked Kenny hard enough by the time of our descent though, so that was enough deep powder practice for the time being.

Kenny was getting hungry after that excursion, not that he needs any special reason to get hungry to begin with, but we stopped in for some waffles at the Cliff House to take the edge off. Ty’s trail selection was next, and in the same vein as what we’d been doing, he chose straight up Cliff Trail because he loves all the little chutes along the skier’s right. What we’d ended up doing to finish off our runs was to skip past Lower Nosedive and head over to Lower National to work on the bumps. The boys worked on slowing down and staying in control, and I showed them how to avoid any icy patches between the bumps by making tighter, earlier turns that let you stay on the back side of the bump in the good snow.

Ethan called for a run to the Spruce Village fire pit for s’mores and hot chocolate, so we ended our Mansfield day after that run. After some fire pit time and some good snacks, we got a couple more runs on Sunny Spruce, including last chair. Ty and Kenny raced to the bottom by different routes in an exciting finish to the day. Snowfall was actually just starting to appear as we were leaving the mountain, and we’ve had light snow here at the house this evening, so it looks like the mountains will have a light refresher for tomorrow.

February 2, 2014February 3, 2014

Stowe, VT 02FEB2014

An image of Ty skiing powder on the Lower Tyro trail at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont — Out at Stowe today enjoying some of the overnight snow

Our latest modest snowstorm delivered as expected overnight, with 5 inches reported in the upper elevations at Stowe this morning. That was enough to get us to head out for a relatively early start today, so we met Jeff at the Children’s Adventure Center to get Kenny and Liana, who planned to join us for some skiing during the morning before our afternoon BJAMS ski program. We had some breakfast at the Great Room Grill to fuel up (I got to try one of their highly talked about breakfast sandwiches), and by the time we were done eating, all the lifts on the mountain were open.

The snow from this storm was fairly standard in terms of density, but I’d heard that the driest and lightest snow would be found in the higher elevations. We therefore decided to head over to the Gondola instead of making runs on Spruce, where much of the terrain is at lower elevations. Although it was Super Bowl Sunday, there were plenty of people out on the slopes in the morning, and the queue for the Gondola was several minutes long.

“Indeed the snow had plenty
of liquid in it and the mountain
had seen a decent resurfacing,
at least outside the high traffic
areas.”

From the Gondola summit we took a run that featured plenty of time on Switchback, and there was a lot of good snow. Indeed the snow had plenty of liquid in it and the mountain had seen a decent resurfacing, at least outside the high traffic areas. The sides of the trails held great snow, and E and I worked with everyone on short radius turns that could keep them in the good snow. We followed up that first run by working our way over to the Fourrunner Quad, where we skied Hayride, got into the Chapel Woods, and got into plenty of other stuff.

An image of Kenny skiing soft snow on the Lower tyro trail at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont — Kenny getting after some of today’s fresh snow with gusto

What I quickly noticed in the morning was that Kenny and Liana had improved their skiing a lot since I’d last hit the slopes with them – they’re now skiing in one of Stowe’s programs on Saturdays as well as our usual Sunday program, and that’s meaning a lot of time on snow. In Kenny’s case, it meant a dramatic enough improvement that he’d be comfortable skiing with our group on Sunday afternoon. I spent much of the morning assessing what he would need to work on to really bring his skiing up to that next level, and that included slowing down and making both more and shorter-radius turns, separating his upper and lower body even more, and keeping his hands up for more centered balance. By the end of the morning I was confident that he’d be able to ski with our group, especially since I knew we wouldn’t be going anywhere too crazy because the snowpack just isn’t quite ready yet.

An image of Erica skiing soft snow on the Lower Tyro trail at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont — Even E got to get out and enjoy some of the fresh snow before her ski program duties today.

The morning had already been quite a workout, so we headed back to the Great Room Grill for some lunch, and then jumped into afternoon ski program to continue tracking down good snow. Luke joined out group with Ty, Dylan and Kenny, and we headed off for more fun on the Gondola, Quad, and Triple. We had a couple of good runs through part of the Nosedive Glades, which are definitely ready for prime time. Kenny definitely held up fine with today’s runs, and I think that he’s really going to have the opportunity to keep working on advanced techniques if he can keep following the other members and noting the techniques that they use to tackle steep and often tight terrain.

Next up on the weather front is the potential for another modest system in the midweek timeframe. We’ve still yet to have a really notable storm this far north this season, but these modest storms are definitely helping to build the snowpack, even if they do so at a slower pace.

December 15, 2013December 18, 2013

Stowe, VT 15DEC2013

An image of snow on the roof of a shed with a snowgun in the background at Stowe Mountain Ski Resort in Vermont — All kinds of snow today at Stowe

Yesterday E had her training day for our school’s ski program at Stowe, and boy was it cold – it was below zero F for the entire morning. I’d sent E off with plenty of hand and foot warmers, and she made use of them. She actually cracked the lens in her goggles toward the end of the morning, but by then everyone was just about done anyway. I don’t think there were many takers for afternoon turns once the requisite training items were covered in the morning.

Things were a little different for my training day today – temperatures were rising through the teens F, and oh yeah, there was a bit of a snowstorm in the intervening period. This storm was one of those that comes out of the Ohio Valley and redevelops off the New England coast, and it brought up to 19 inches of new snow for the Vermont ski areas. Snowfall totals were a bit lower for the Northern Vermont ski areas, generally approaching a foot, but as my snow analyses had shown, there was plenty of liquid equivalent in the snow; as of this morning, we’d picked up close to ¾ of an inch of liquid in the snow and the density was close to 10% H2O. The snow was of course quite dry with the cold temperatures in the area, but it certainly wasn’t fluff that might be prone to blowing away.

“The snow depth at the Mt.
Mansfield Stake isn’t quite
to that 24” mark yet, but
people are definitely starting
to ski those areas of early
season trees.”

For today’s training session, Claire assigned me to the level eight group, and when the instructors were dividing up the trainees in that group, they further broke them up by those who had already skied five days or more, and those who hadn’t. Although I’d yet to ride a ski lift this season, I’ve been out several times already, so I joined the former group, with Steve as our instructor.

“During today’s session,
Steve brought us into
Sunrise Glades, Birch
Glades, and Lower
Gulch Glades, and
they were all in
pretty good shape.”

With all the new snow, Steve’s plan for the day was to let us ski a lot. Instead of working on drills, he wanted to work on group management (i.e., how do the coaches effectively manage their groups of students on the slopes) in between the skiing. This was actually a nice change of pace, since E and I have had plenty of sessions with drills for both us and the students over the past few training sessions. One new group management technique that I learned today was for brining the kids into new areas of trees. What Steve likes to do is to show the students the entrance to the glade, but instead of entering that first time, he goes around to the exit of the glade via the trails. That way, the students know what is in store, and are ready with a little more directional orientation for when they actually do ski the glade. We talked a lot about strategies to use when bringing the kids into the trees, and it was a good fit for the trainees in our group, because many worked with the advanced students and were indeed doing a lot of off piste skiing. Steve also worked on the partner strategy for ensuring that everyone is accounted for at each stop. We actually had a real-time demonstration of its effectiveness, since my partner John had misheard our lift destination on one run and ended up at the Gondola instead of the Fourrunner Quad. Since we knew he was missing, I was able to run over to the Gondola and retrieve him.

An image of Telemark skis with snow on them on a car ski rack at Stowe Mountain Ski Resort in Vermont — Grabbing the Tele boards for some afternoon turns

In terms of conditions, naturally they were best early on – we had a couple of great runs down Perry Merrill with good packed snow, and chowder and powder off to the edges. It was nice that Steve just let us rip it up. I generally found 12” of powder whenever I looked in undisturbed places, which is presumably the combination of snow from this storm and that frontal passage the other day. The snow depth at the Mt. Mansfield Stake isn’t quite to that 24” mark yet (22” as of this evening’s report), but people are definitely starting to ski those appropriate areas of early season trees. During today’s session, Steve brought us into Sunrise Glades, Birch Glades, and Lower Gulch Glades, and they were all in pretty good shape. If you were going for lines of fresh powder, you wanted to be on your guard a bit since there are still some obstacles about, but in many spots it was hard to tell that it was so early in the season. In areas that had seen skier traffic and had packed snow, you could just ski it and really didn’t have to worry about coverage issues. In any event, it was definitely nice to be back in the trees. Indeed those runs listed are the more moderately pitched, well maintained glades that are amenable to these earlier visits, but they’re very low on the mountain and that says a lot about the current state of the snowpack.

After some lunch and paperwork at the Great Room Grill, Steve said that we were done, but that anyone who wanted to could meet with him at 1:00 P.M. and work on identifying weaknesses in student’s ski technique and how to remedy the situation. Having done a lot of that over the past few sessions, I decided I’d just grab a pair of my Tele skis from the car and take a final run or two before heading home. I was just going to grab my mid fats and head back over toward the Chapel Glades, but then wondered if the Sensation Quad was open – if it wasn’t, it might be a nice place to earn some turns. With that in mind, I grabbed the fat boards off the rack, finding everything covered in a layer of new snow that had fallen during the morning. Once I checked in at the lift status board at the Spruce Peak Base, I saw that indeed the Sensation Quad was running. That meant that the terrain over there on Spruce would likely be pretty packed out, but I decided to just go for it instead of making yet another trip back to the car.

I took a trip up the Sunny Spruce Quad and made my way over toward the base of Sensation. There were actually very few people over in that area, but in terms of traffic, the damage had been done earlier in the day. There were still pockets of powder off to the sides of trials, but with Main Street closed for snowmaking, terrain was limited. Even the hiking terrain above the top of Sensation was tracked up, so people had clearly been doing what they could to get some powder with the limited acreage that’s currently available on Spruce Peak. In spots where the snow surface was down to manmade snow, the fat skis were definitely a poor tool for the job. I ended up just going with alpine turns in the areas where the snow was firm like that, because getting the fat skis on edge in a Telemark stance in those areas felt like trying to get a snowboard on edge on icy terrain. They’re just not meant to do that well. I will say that I notice the deficiencies of fat, rockered skis much less when I ski them alpine, so that may be one reason that so many people are willing to use them as more all around skis (or they just go in with the recent marketing trends and figure that’s the way it is). With my legs cooked from the morning’s runs, I was very ready to call it a day after that trip to the bottom. I really would have liked to venture over to the snowfields above Meadows for some powder, but they had that area roped off because of snowmaking below. It was looking so good in there with the tracks from when it had been skied – hopefully I can get in there on my next Stowe powder day.

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