Storm Archives - Page 25 of 29

January 14, 2012January 29, 2012

Bolton Valley, VT 14JAN2012

An image of Dylan skiing powder in the Villager Trees at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont — Dylan smiles away as he blasts through the powder at Bolton this afternoon.

The complex winter storm that has been affecting the region finally wound down today, and it’s been a great boon for the Vermont ski areas. The storm began on Thursday morning when it delivered some fairly standard synoptic snowfall, and through Thursday evening we’d picked up 3.7 inches of 9.2% H2O snow at the house, with the mountains picking up about a half foot. Thursday night into yesterday morning we were in the dry slot of the storm, and then yesterday afternoon the second round of snow began… and boy did it come on strong in the evening. While the first half of the event had favored the eastern slopes of the Greens, the second half pounded the western slopes, and that was very evident as I headed home from Burlington on Friday evening. Our bus took Route 2 instead of I-89 because of storm-related travel issues, and at one point yesterday evening at the house we picked up roughly 3 inches of snow in an hour. After last night’s snow, the storm totals wound up at 11.7 inches for our location in the valley, and in the 1.5 foot range up in the mountains, with Jay Peak approaching 2 feet. It was ultimately enough snow to get Stowe’s ski terrain 100% open.

The downside of the new snow was that cold air came with it – it was approximately 10 F this morning at the house, and 3 F up in the Village at Bolton Valley. Fortunately, there wasn’t any wind, but we still brought hand and foot warmers for the boys in case they needed to take the edge off the chill while skiing. E wasn’t all that impressed with the conditions on Sprig O’ Pine after their preliminary run while I parked the car, but I was hoping that was due to effects of the wind and the exposure of that terrain. After a little debate, the boys decided that they were cold enough that they would head into the lodge to fire up some of the hand warmers and put them in their boots and gloves, and then we headed back out into the cold in search of more powder.

Leaving the Mid Mountain Lift, we quickly saw that the Enchanted Forest looked extremely powdery with little traffic up to that point, so we headed in. We found the coverage and powder to be pretty nice, but in general the snow just felt a little “slow” with the cold temperatures. With this in mind, we headed to Glades to get a little more pitch, and that helped move things along a little better. Glades had seen a fair bit of traffic to track up the snow, but we found some good shots of untracked in the jug handle area.

An image of Erica in a Telemark turn in the fresh snow at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — E arcing through a Telemark turn in the fresh snow on Bolton Valley's Glades trail

The snow was decent, but none of us really seemed to be grooving, and Ty appeared especially glum and ornery about the day up to that point. It turned out that his hands were still cold despite the hand warmers, so we decided to make another trip inside and have lunch in the process. When we got into the lodge, we were astonished to discover that all the hand warmers the boys were using were stone cold. That was extremely disconcerting, as we’d bough a big box of them at Costco, and were expecting them to work. We fiddled around with them for a bit, and I also headed down to the ski shop and bought a couple packets of a different brand for comparison. The new packets fired up right away and got quite hot. With a little more shaking and processing we were actually able to get our original packets going as well, but they didn’t cook like the new ones, they just seemed to be of the “slow burn” variety and only got up to lukewarm relative to the hot ones. Once we were done with lunch, we hooked the boys up with a combination of the “slow” and “fast burn” varieties of hand warmers, and headed out to see if we could finally get that groove going.

To get some challenge and potentially find Ty some “satisfying” turns, we headed up on the Vista Quad and descended via Vermont 200. That turned out to be a good choice, with generally great coverage, lots of good snow, and only a couple of icy ledges to navigate. Ty definitely got some of the turns he had been seeking, and everyone enjoyed the challenge and powder/chowder we found. Below Mid Mountain we headed back to Glades and hit the jug handle area as we’d done before. Both boys seemed to have fun ripping that up.

An image of Ty skiing fresh powder in the Villager Trees at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont — Ty cruising through that fresh powder in the Villager Trees

To continue with the positive energy, we sought out some untracked snow in the Villager Trees, and found an impressive snowpack for what has been a slow season for snowfall – I stuck my measurement pole in a representative protected area at ~2,600’ and got a depth measurement of 30 inches. While we explored around, the boys amused themselves by taking down some huge icicles from one of the ledges. On the descent, the powder was deep and thoroughly bottomless, and while many fun turns were made, the powder was almost too deep for some of the pitches in there. The turns were so good though that we were able to call it a day after that and finished off with more powder on the sides of Lower Bentley. It had actually gotten sunny and warmed up a bit as well, into the high single digits, and with the hand warmers cranking the boys didn’t have any more issues with the cold. Back at the car we found out that the “fast burn” hand warmers had already burned themselves out after just a couple of hours, while those of the “slow burn” variety were still going. At that point everything seemed to make sense – a combination of the two types would really be optimal. So after a slow start today, things really picked up and we managed some decent powder from what has been the biggest winter storm of the season up to this point.

January 14, 2012August 7, 2012

Significant mid-January winter storm for Vermont

Over the past couple of days we’ve been affected by a fairly significant, two-part winter storm that has really resurfaced the slopes. The storm began on Thursday with some synoptic snow, where we accumulated 3.7 inches of snow comprised of 0.34 inches of liquid equivalent at the house, and the mountains picked up about a half a foot. We headed up to Bolton for some skiing in the evening, and we found pleasant temperatures and nice powder. Yesterday we were generally in the dry slot of the storm, but toward the afternoon and evening, the back part of the system came through and it really started to unload fluffy Champlain Powder™ in both the mountains and valleys. Here at the house we picked up almost 3 inches of snow in one hour while the snowfall pounded the area around dinner time, causing temporary road closures and prompting the issuance of Winter Storm Warnings for the western slopes of the Green Mountains:

An image of the Winter Weather Warnings map put out by the National Weather Service in Burlington in the evening on January 13, 2012 — Due to the heavy snowfall yesterday evening with rates of 3 inches per hour in some locations, Winter Storm Warnings went up for the western slopes of the Green Mountains.

Down here in the valley, the storm finished up today with a total of 11.7 inches of snow comprised of 0.91 inches of liquid equivalent. Up in the mountains, snow totals were generally around 1.5 feet, with Jay Peak topping out around 2 feet. The north to south storm totals list for the Vermont ski areas is listed below:

Jay Peak: 23”
Burke: 12”
Smuggler’s Notch: 15”
Stowe: 18”
Bolton Valley: 15”
Mad River Glen: 16”
Sugarbush: 18”
Middlebury: 13”
Suicide Six: 8”
Pico: 14”
Killington: 14”
Okemo: 8”
Bromley: 10”
Magic Mountain: 12”
Stratton: 12”
Mount Snow: 11”

The National Weather Service Office in Burlington generated a snowfall map for the second part of the storm, where totals in the Stowe area pushed past the 1-foot mark:

National Weather Service map of snowfall totals from January 14, 2012 for Vermont during the second half of the two-part mid-January snowstorm — Snow totals topped the 1-foot mark for the second half of the storm alone in parts of the Stowe area.

For more full details on this storm, head to the detailed report at the winter weather section of our website.

January 12, 2012August 30, 2012

Bolton Valley, VT 12JAN2012

An image of E skiing fresh powder at night on the Sprig O' Pine trail at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont — E cruising through some fresh powder tonight on Sprig O’ Pine at Bolton Valley

The incoming multi-part winter storm started to affect the region today with the first round of snow. The snow started falling at our location in Waterbury right around 6:00 A.M. this morning when I was making my observations for CoCoRaHS, and there was probably a half inch of accumulation when I left roughly an hour later. There was the potential for downsloping on the western slopes of the Greens, and indeed, just a few miles west of the house, the snow really tapered off. There was little if anything falling in Jonesville and Richmond as I drove through, and nothing going on in Burlington. Later in the morning though, it did start snowing in Burlington, and there was roughly a half inch of accumulation when I left around 5:00 P.M.

When I got back to the house this evening, I found 3.7 inches of snow on the snowboard; the snow seemed fairly dense but it was still medium weight stuff at 9.2% H2O. Up in the mountains, afternoon reports were indicating about a half foot of snow from the event, with the higher totals toward Central and Southern Vermont where the snow had come in a little earlier and stronger. Here’s the north to south list of totals from some of the ski areas as of this afternoon:

Burke: 4”
Smuggler’s Notch: 5”
Stowe: 3”
Bolton Valley: 4”
Sugarbush: 5”
Suicide Six: 4”
Pico: 7”
Killington: 7”
Stratton: 7”
Mount Snow: 6”

Knowing that we’d picked up 3.7 inches down below in the valley, it was likely that Bolton had done better than 4 inches of snow reported in their early afternoon update, but even that was enough to get us thinking about an evening session of turns with the boys. There are only so many times a season when the right combination of new snow, comfortable temperatures, and minimal wind come together to make for that optimal night skiing experience, and tonight was looking like one of those nights.

After dinner we headed up to Bolton; we were in the dry slot portion of the storm system at that point, so precipitation was minimal and the Bolton Valley Access Road was in good shape. Arriving at the village (2,100’) we found a temperature of 30 F, and the only precipitation was some small snow grains/mist. I dropped E and the boys off at the Snowflake Lift so that they could take a run, and made it back up to the loading area before they’d even finished their descent. While I waited for them, I got to speak with our friend Matt who was checking tickets that evening. He said that the mountain had received a decent shot of snow, and that they were even thinking of opening up Timberline for the weekend. That will likely depend on how things look over there after the rest of the storm system comes through, but that was encouraging to hear.

When E and the boys returned to the lift, we headed up for another Snowflake run. They had taken the Butterscotch Terrain Park on their descent, and conditions didn’t sound all that inspiring in terms of softness and powder since they had taken the main area with the big snow whales. For that next trip we visited Sprig O’ Pine, and found some very nice powder off to the skier’s right before the area where it merges with Bear Run. The 4 inches that the resort had reported seemed about right for the lower mountain, although I suspected there would be a bit more on the upper mountain with the continued snowfall. We took one more Sprig O’ Pine run to enjoy that powder we’d found, and it continued to serve up some nice turns since it was dense enough to keep you from bottoming out. Our 3.7 inches of snow down at the house was made up of 0.34” of liquid equivalent, so with Bolton presumably picking up at least that 0.3” to 0.4” of liquid, that was plenty of cushion above the base snow.

Next it was time for a summit run off the Vista Quad. As we glided above Spillway on the lift, we were astonished by how good the coverage looked, and how many tracks were on it; it almost looked like it was open. We looked around for all the detritus that litters the trail, and it was really hard to find anything sticking out; I actually questioned if they had made snow on it because of how buried everything was. Clearly it wasn’t open though, as there was a patroller stationed at the bottom to catch folks who were bending the rules. More than likely, the new snow was just hiding all those object lurking below the surface, making for a very dicey descent. Up at the Vista Summit the air temperature had cooled a bit down to 24 F, but it was still quite nice overall. We took Sherman’s Pass, which generally had a nice surface for carving, and we had a really good time in the fresh snow off to the skier’s left above the Mid Mountain area. Ty was making so much noise and having so much fun coming down through there, that the patroller stationed in the area checked to make sure we hadn’t poached Spillway.

An iamge of Dylan in front of snow-covered evergreens lit up by the night skiing lights at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont — Dylan pauses on Sherman’s Pass as the night skiing lights illuminate some of the fresh snow on the trees.

Since it was a school night for the boys, we didn’t stay too much longer, but it had definitely been worth getting out for a few runs; it felt great to have the skis dig into that soft, fresh snow. The recent snow was deep enough that we were able to ski right across the access road to the parking lot, and in terms of ski conditions, that’s typically a great sign to be able to comfortably ski across main roads to your car. E had a good time and we’ll certainly be back for another evening session if circumstances line up appropriately again. This front end dump has already featured plenty of snow and liquid equivalent to get some additional terrain going, because there were plenty of areas that were very close. If some decent upslope comes in on the back end of this system tomorrow, that will provide additional help. I’d say everyone is excited about where the mountains will be after this event, which all told may bring up to a foot and a half of snow.

December 29, 2011August 9, 2012

Another storm for the holiday week, another foot of snow for the northern mountains

We were very happy when the local mountains got about a foot of snow from our Christmas Day Storm, a few days ago, but apparently Mother Nature wasn’t quite done delivering the goods for the holiday week. We just had another storm drop similar amounts of snow thanks to upslope conditions on the back side. The storm was actually rather warm, and it cut right through Northern New England such that mixed precipitation was expected in the middle of the event, leaving us unsure if it would be a big net gain for the slopes. Fortunately the slopes did get quite a net gain in liquid equivalent, with snow on the front and back ends, and only modest amounts of rain or mixed precipitation in the middle.

I followed the storm down at the house, and it began yesterday with a front end shot of snow that gradually mixed with sleet and went to a bit of rain overnight. The morning, the back side of the storm came through with plenty of snow. With all this snow I decided it was a good idea to get roofing Lakewood CO and other areas services to ensure that no structural damage had occurred to our house during the storm. It started up in the morning, and then pounded the mountains and mountain valleys today with snow falling at a rate of 1 to 2 inches per hour. In the end we wound up with 9.7 inches of total snow at the house, and the local mountains topped out at around a foot of snow. Below is the list I’ve seen for storm totals for the Vermont ski areas using their 48-hr snow totals. The list is from north to south along the spine of the Greens:

Jay Peak: 8″
Smuggler’s Notch: 12″
Stowe: 8″
Bolton Valley: 11″
Mad River Glen: 8″
Sugarbush: 12″
Middlebury: 6″
Pico: 10″
Killington: 10″
Okemo: 4″
Bromley: 0″
Magic Mountain: T
Stratton: 1″
Mount Snow: 0″

While last time around with the Christmas Day Storm, the Stowe area was the sweet spot for accumulations, this time around the east side of Addison County seemed to do the best with some locales topping the one foot mark for snowfall as indicated in the map of snowfall totals from the National Weather Service Office in Burlington:

A map of snow totals from the National Weather Service Office in Burlington Vermont for the snowstorm on December 27-28, 2011 — While the Christmas Day Storm delivered the highest snowfall totals in the Stowe area, this storm seemed to hit hardest in the mountains to the east of Addison County.

For the full details on this storm, head to the detailed report at the winter weather section of our website.

December 28, 2011December 31, 2011

Bolton Valley, VT 28DEC2011

Our current winter storm started up yesterday afternoon with some snow that gradually changed over to sleet and other mixed precipitation overnight. As of this morning though, the precipitation was back to snow, and this afternoon we got pounded with 1 to 2 inch per hour snows in the local mountains and mountain valleys. The snow was so intense that the northbound lane of I-89 between exits 10 and 11 (Bolton Flats area) had to be closed due to accidents.

With all the fresh snow, I decided that I’d head up to Bolton to check out the accumulations and get in a few late afternoon/evening runs. Driving along Route 2 I noticed what seemed to be more cars than usual, but I knew the reason once I could see all the cars backed up on I-89. I was thankful for my short trip to Bolton, because the driving was a bit tricky. I did eventually run into travel issues on the Bolton Valley Access Road however. At the big S-curve below Timberline I saw several cars stopped, and it looked like most of the snarl was due to what appeared to be a two-wheel drive vehicle having trouble on the hill. I was even slowed down in the Subaru for a bit because I had to come to a dead stop and then get over into the snowier downhill lane to pass. Our tires on the Subaru are getting close to the time for replacement, so it took a few attempts to really get the traction to get around that car while avoiding the downhill traffic. It was definitely a greasy situation with the intense snowfall, which was falling too fast for the plows to keep up with it. I even overheard a guy say that he was having trouble getting up the road with studded Hakkapeliitta tires. Up in the village there was decent wind at perhaps 20 MPH, and moderate to heavy snowfall. The new snow probably came in quite fast on the mountain while people were skiing – I saw a car having to be helped out by a tow truck in the relatively flat parking lot.

An image of a tow truck helping a stuck car int he Bolton Valley village during heavy snowfall from a storm on Decmeber 28, 2011 — Amidst heavy snowfall, a tow truck helps out a stuck vehicle in one of Bolton Valley parking lots this evening.

The Vista Quad had been shut down with the high winds earlier in the day, but the Mid Mountain Chair was still running and I caught a ride. From Mid Mountain I hiked up about 100 feet to see what the accumulations were like higher on the mountain, and I found about 7 inches of new snow in the areas that didn’t seem to have been hit by the wind. The light was fading, but I caught some turns up there and they were very sweet – whoever gets out tomorrow in wind-sheltered locations is going to have some great turns. I stuck around for another couple of lift-served runs off Mid Mountain, and conditions were of course very nice with the new snow. The only issue was that the temperature was dropping quickly and the snow was actually starting to get “slow”.

An image of Bolton Valley's night skiing lights obscured by heavy snowfall - December 28, 2011 — It was a white maelstrom tonight for skiing under the lights at Bolton Valley.

Although still quite snowy and slick, the drive back down the access road was uneventful, and the traffic was moving on I-89, but it was still backed up for quite a distance in the northbound lane. Down here at the house I found 5.7 inches of new snow on the snowboard, representing the snowfall during the 12:00 P.M. to 6:00 P.M. collection period. Relative to mid afternoon, the snow had definitely been getting fluffier; I estimated that it was probably in the range of 4 or 5% H2O. The radar still shows the moisture stacked up against the Greens, and more snow has been falling this evening, so it looks like this will be a decent event. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the local mountains start to open up some natural snow terrain after this event.

An image of traffic backed up in the northbound lane of I-89 in the Bolton Flats area due to heavy snowfall on December 28, 2011 — With the heavy snowfall, traffic was still backed up on I-89 when I headed home from the mountain.

December 26, 2011August 8, 2012

Christmas upslope snow sets the holiday mood in Northern Vermont

We were away on Christmas Eve, but when we returned to the house yesterday morning, it was snowing. There was already 0.7 inches of new snow on the snowboard, and you could tell that the intensity was ramping up and more snow was on the way. We were heading down to Southern New England for more holiday visiting with family, but I cleared the snowboard and set up the webcam so that that any new snowfall could be monitored from afar. The driving was actually a bit tough through Green Mountains with the incoming snowfall, but once we got east of the Greens it tapered off. Luckily, we seem to have just missed the snowfall. If we’d have left any later, we might’ve been stuck driving home in some horrible weather. When this sort of weather occurs, there is usually an increase in road accidents. A lot of people don’t understand that driving in snow can be extremely dangerous, so it’s important to try and avoid driving dangerously. If an accident does occur at the fault of another driver, it’s important to get in touch with a las vegas injury lawyer, or another in the local area, to make sure that the driver at fault can provide compensation to cover any medical bills or damage to the vehicle. Hopefully though, people will drive cautiously.

Even though the storm was just an Alberta Clipper, the upslope snow potential of the Northern Green Mountains can always produce more, and I knew we were taking a good hit of snow when I checked my web cam yesterday evening and saw that my four-inch measuring boards were basically buried. I had to rely on my 12-inch measuring board to get the snowfall measurements off the web cam. Powderfreak was the best source of updates for the storm though, and he kept them rolling all night while the Stowe area got blitzed with snow. He put up some awesome pictures of skiers and tracks in the fresh powder at Stowe Mountain Resort yesterday in the Northern New England thread at American Weather.

By the time the event wound down this morning, we’d picked up 5.1 inches at the house and the local mountains had accumulated about a foot. For the areas that have reported in so far, I’ve got the north to south list of event totals (48-hour snow totals) at Vermont ski areas below. The Smugg’s to Bolton stretch along the spine looks to have done nicely with this one, with Mt. Mansfield right in the sweet spot:

Jay Peak: 6″
Burke: 4″
Smuggler’s Notch: 10″
Stowe: 14″
Bolton Valley: 10″
Mad River Glen: 7″
Sugarbush: 4″
Pico: 1″
Killington: 1″
Bromley: 1″
Stratton: 0″
Mount Snow: 1″

The final snow totals for the area shown below in the map from the national weather service with the sweet spot being where that fuchsia color is located around Stowe:

A map of snow totals from the National Weather Service Office in Burlington Vermont for the Alberta Clipper and associated upslope snowon December 25-26, 2011 — This Christmas Day Alberta Clipper system really delivered, with a jackpot in the Stowe area that saw totals close to double digits and about a foot in the mountains.

For the full details on this storm, head to the detailed report at the winter weather section of our website.

December 24, 2011December 30, 2011

Bolton Valley, VT 24DEC2011

A westward view of Whiteface Mountain above the clouds from Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont — Looking out across Lake Champlain and the sea of clouds toward Whiteface in the Adirondacks.

We picked up a final 0.4 inches of snow overnight to finish off this event at 3.7 inches of total snow at the house and somewhere around a half foot up in the mountains. With the opening of the mountain from the top for the first time this season, we decided to stop in for a few morning runs today to check out the conditions. The snow on the upper half of the main mountain was really looking promising when I skinned up during my morning session at yesterday, and I even had the chance to get into some of the new powder. At that point all the snowcat and snowmobile traffic had left the groomed surfaces full of track marks down the center of the trail, but we knew they’d take care of that with the groomers overnight.

We arrived up at the hill around mid morning to find that the latest rounds of snow had certainly continued the trend of setting up the natural snowpack and holiday scenery. In the main village lot at around 2,100’ the snowpack was 4 to 6 inches in depth, although a lot of it was new, fluffy snow. It was very pretty, even if it didn’t add a ton of liquid equivalent atop the old base. We headed up the Vista Quad for our first trip to the Vista Summit for the season – the views were spectacular, with blue skies above, and clouds covering the valleys below. Looking over to the Adirondacks to see the trails and slides of Whiteface hovering above the clouds was quite a sight.

Unfortunately, as inspiring as the views were, the conditions found on the new manmade snow on the upper mountain were the exact opposite. The surface of Sherman’s Pass was hard, and full of death cookies in many areas. After mentioning to E how great things had been yesterday with the fresh snow, and expecting the untouched snow that the mountain had put down to groomed into something really nice, it was a huge letdown. The much was apparent pretty quickly, and after a few dozen turns E broached the topic by commenting, “No offense, but these conditions are crappy.” There was no offense taken, as she was exactly right. I popped off to the side of the trail near the bottom of Vista Glades and found a bit of powder, but the groomers had really hammered the slope from wall to wall and there was barely a scrap of fresh snow to find. Both the morning and afternoon/evening sessions from yesterday had been so much fun, but this was more of a teeth-chattering slide across corduroy that was way too hard.

Fortunately, at least the bottom half of the mountain was in nice shape, since that hadn’t seen the new manmade snow. Without the constant freshening of trail and spirit that all the new snow had provided yesterday though, the experience just wasn’t elevated to quite the same level. E and I enjoyed some pleasant Telemark turns, and the boys had their first chance of the season to be out on their new carving alpine skis, so that was good. There was no need to return to the top after what we’d experienced up there, so we just did one more run off the Mid Mountain Lift. That provided another round of decent turns, but with holiday obligations calling, we decided that we’d head home and just finish food preparations and get ready for the travel we have coming over the next couple of days. Our first stop is going to be South Burlington for Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. The good news is that more snow is expected to come into the area tomorrow, and it looks like there are a lot of potential storms of varying sizes stacked up for the holiday week.

A sign on the lower terminal of the Mid Mountain Lift at Bolton Valley that says "I Dream of Nor'easters" — We couldn't agree more, and we're ready for the upcoming storms over the holiday week in Northern Vermont.

December 23, 2011December 28, 2011

Bolton Valley, VT 23DEC2011 (P.M. Session)

An image of Dylan Telemark skiing along the side of Bear Run at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont — Dylan drops into a Telemark stance along the edge of the Bear Run trail.

Although I couldn’t get the boys interested in rolling out earlier enough to join me in my morning session up at Bolton, they were keen on coming up with me for some afternoon/evening turns. E wanted to take care of some holiday chores with all of us out of the house, so there was plenty of incentive for us to hit the slopes. With the minimal terrain of just Bear Run and a few other things available, we also convinced both boys that it would be an excellent day for them to get out on their Tele skis and work on their Telemark turns.

While temperatures at the main base elevation (2,100’) had been just a bit below freezing when I’d left the mountain in the late morning, they had dropped a lot by mid afternoon and it was in the low 20s F when we arrived. We did three runs off the Mid Mountain Chair, and the boys immediately jumped into the little pathways in the trees along the edge of the trail when they saw they had sufficient coverage. The boys both worked on their Telemark turns, and they even attempted some synchronous turns during their practice so that I could try to get pictures. We enjoyed some nice little powder shots off to the sides of the groomed terrain, and we kept going a little wider off the trail each run to catch the untouched snow. Although we’d seen a couple of people skiing it, Ty and Dylan eventually realized that the bottom of Sprig O’ Pine was open on natural snow. One had to be a little careful to avoid any rocks, but it’s a pretty grassy area there so there weren’t actually that many to avoid, and getting to ski the powder definitely made it worth it. Dylan had had our skiing plan all laid out for us, that after three runs we’d go into the lodge for some food, but the boys decided to take a couple of runs on the Mighty Mite without their poles, and that delayed snack time. They ended up working on some Telemark turns in the powder off to the skier’s right of the Mighty Mite slope. There were also a couple of jumps over there, and I had fun watching Dylan get stuck on the top of one of them because he didn’t have quite enough speed to make it all the way over the hump. While the light snow continued to fall into the afternoon, by the time we were heading in for food around 3:30 P.M., the clouds had actually blown right out to entirely blue sky.

An image of Ty and Dylan attempting synchronous Telemark turns on Bear Run at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont — Ty ande Dylan work on some synchronized Telemark turns on Bear Run.

We had a late lunch/early dinner in the lodge, and the boys really went to town on the food. As the sun went down, the light came on for the slopes and we headed back out for a few twilight runs. The evening runs consisted of more Telemark practice with a jaunt to that natural snow section of Sprig O’ Pine on each run. The temperature was around 20 F when we left the mountain about 5:45 P.M., and after the earlier clearing we’d seen, it was snowing again with some big flakes. It was colder in the valley as well once we descended – mid to upper 20s F. As of the 6:00 P.M. snowboard clearing at the house we’d picked up another 0.3” of snow to bring us to 3.3” total for the event.

December 23, 2011December 30, 2011

Bolton Valley, VT 23DEC2011 (A.M. Session)

An image of ski tracks in the fresh powder along the edge of the Sherman's Pass Trail at Bolton Valley in Vermont - December 23, 2011 — Making some tracks in the fresh powder along the edge of Sherman's Pass on the upper mountain

The potential storm system that we’d been watching for the past few days started trending warmer in some of the later weather model runs – warm enough that even the lower valleys in Northern Vermont looked like they might be dealing with a little rain before the snow moved in. That wasn’t the case though, at least in the mountain valleys east of the Greens. This morning when I got up I found 2.2 inches of snow on the snowboard at our house in Waterbury, and no sign of rain. Light snow was still falling at the house, and with even more snow expected to fall in the mountains throughout the day, it seem like an opportune time for some storm day skiing.

I decided to head up to Bolton a bit early to earn some turns ahead of the 9:00 A.M. opening of the Mid Mountain Double. I couldn’t quite convince the boys to go with me, but I figured I’d come home after a couple runs and get them to go up later in the day. The valley snow accumulations certainly dropped off as I headed west to the town of Bolton, and at the bottom of the Bolton Valley Access Road (340’), I’d say the accumulation looked like about 1”. As I ascended the road, I was surprised at how slowly the accumulation increased – even up at 1,000’ it didn’t seem like there was too much more than at the base of the road. Eventually the depth of snow started to increase though – up at 1,500’ at the base of Timberline, the trails had a decent covering of a few inches (although they may have had some base left from earlier storms). The ascent of the road was a little tricky; with temperatures near freezing, the new snow was a bit greasy. The traction control in the Subaru came on a few times in the slickest spots, but the ascent was pretty controlled and uneventful. Watching how slowly cars were descending in the other lane had also been a tip off that the conditions warranted caution. Up in the Bolton Valley Village area at 2,100’ I found 2-3” of fresh snow on the car next to me when I arrived, and I suspect that car had been there since the start of the snowfall. It was snowing a steady light snow as I prepared my gear, and there was no wind, so the potential for fresh tracks was looking good.

I ran into patroller Quinn at the base of the Mid Mountain Double Chair, and since it was getting close to the 9:00 A.M. opening time for the lift, he said that I should avoid skinning right up Bear Run to keep out of the way of downhill traffic on open terrain. Fortunately, this round of snow was enough to make skinning practical on natural snow terrain – even on the lower part of the main mountain. I was able to skin up Villager to Foxy, and with the addition of the new snow the natural snowpack was generally 3 – 4”. The fresh snow was reasonably dense, so it was plenty to keep my skis away from the ground underneath. I stopped in at the summit station of the Snowflake Chair, grabbed some snow photos, and spend a few moments enjoying the quiet and the snowfall.

I continued on over to the mid mountain area, then headed up Bull Run to Sherman’s Pass. The mountain was running a couple of snow guns on Sherman’s, presumably in spots they wanted to finish up for tomorrow’s planned opening from the Vista Summit. The snowfall definitely intensified on the upper mountain, coming in at a moderate level with some larger flakes up to 7 – 8 mm in diameter. The more intense snowfall had made a difference in the accumulations as well. Up around 3,150’ near the Vista Summit, depth checks revealed that new accumulations were 4”+, and I found total natural snowpack in the 6 – 8” range. That snowpack is actually pretty substantial, since there is a good layer of consolidated stuff on the bottom that went through the recent thaw/freeze. With this new snow on top, which is certainly not ultra fluff, one good storm is all it will take to open some of the mellower natural snow terrain on the upper mountain. As I put away my skins and got ready for the descent behind the top station of the Vista Quad, I check on the thermometer and the temperature was 28 F. Unlike below, there was a bit of a breeze, perhaps 10 MPH, and the wind turbine was running. I got a call from Johannes asking about where I was and if I wanted to ski with everyone, and I told him that I was at the Vista Summit and would be down soon.

The descent was nice. Although most of Sherman’s was messy with track marks and ruts from all the snowcat and snowmobile traffic, I was able to find some fresh turns off to the sides of the trail where equipment hadn’t blemished the snow. Just as I was descending to mid mountain I saw Helena getting off the Mid Mountain Chair, so the timing was perfect for meeting up. Helena was on her new twin tip skis, and although she commented that they felt weird at first, she made some beautiful, controlled turns, and it looked like she was going to take to them pretty quickly. Thomas and Johannes soon caught up to us on our descent, and we did a couple of runs while Stephen finished getting into his gear. At some point during that time we started to get some nice big 1” upslope-style flakes of snow – the intensity was still generally light to at most moderate at times, but it had that nice winter maelstrom look to it and it was helping to keep things fresh. I caught one more run once Stephen joined the group, and then I decided that I should head home for lunch and see if I could get the boys to come up for some turns. Even with the limited terrain that was open, the resort had that powder day buzz and the quality of the skiing was pumped up a notch due to the new snow. There were powder pockets off to the sides in which one could play around, and it made Bear Run all the more enjoyable.

An image of the Mid Mountain Chairlift at Bolton Valley with snow falling on December 23, 2011 — Thomas and Johannes enjoy a ride on the Mid Mountain Chair amidst big flakes of upslope snowfall.

Back down at the car I found close to an inch of new snow on it, and since I’d been there for a couple of hours, that would suggest a snowfall rate of ~0.5”/hr during that period down at the main base elevations. The temperature was a bit below freezing at 2,100’, but back down at the bottom of the access road it was certainly above freezing at ~35 F. Even back at the house it was above freezing at 34.3 F, and although the snow had continued to fall, the accumulation on our back yard snowboard had not gone above the 0.7” from this morning, presumably due to consolidation and warming. I told the boys that the skiing was a lot of fun up on the mountain, and that they should get in some Telemark practice – it was the perfect time to do it with fairly minimal, mellow terrain being open. Click through to get to a report on our afternoon session back up at the mountain.

December 7, 2011August 12, 2012

Vermont’s first notable storm of December on the way

An image of the winter weather advisories put out by the National Weather Service in Burlington for the morning of December 7, 2011 — The initial Winter Weather Advisories are up in Vermont for the upcoming snow event in the eastern and southern parts of the state

A storm that was initially looking to hit Southern New England with the heaviest snows is tracking a bit farther north, so most of Vermont will now be getting a shot of snow out of it. It’s not a huge storm, but it should provide a nice start to a base for the ski areas, since it will likely be cold enough to keep it around for the foreseeable future. The initial warning map put out by the National Weather Service Office in Burlington is posted to the left and the first map of snowfall estimates has been added below:

An image of the projected sowfall from National Weather Service in Burlington for the morning of 07DEC2011 — A few to several inches of snow are expected to fall overnight tonight throughout the state of Vermont.

Thursday, December 8th, 2011: The snow totals for the storm in this area are shown in the map below, in general the storm produced 2 to 6 inches of snow throughout the state:

For the full details on this storm, head to the detailed report at the winter weather section of our website.

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