Jay Peak, VT 10MAY2014

An image of Erica Telemark skiing on the Interstate trail at Jay Peak Ski Resort over Mother's Day weekend 2014.
Mom out on the slopes of Jay Peak for Mother’s Day weekend.

The season before last was our most recent trip to Jay Peak for Mother’s Day weekend, and over the past few weeks it’s been looking like this season might offer a chance for a similar trip. Although April didn’t deliver much in the way of new snowfall, the cold temperatures in March and fairly average April temperatures kept the snowpack around. Jay Peak even decided to keep their lifts running for Mother’s Day, which was not the case back during the 2012 trip, when we hiked for turns.

The lodging packages can be great this time of year at Jay Peak, and a few weeks back at the end of April, I got an email about their deals in May, which included a $229 Ski + Splash + Stay option for the entire family. Since that’s not too much more than it would cost the four of us to just go lift-served skiing for the day, it’s a great deal when you realize that along with the skiing you get lodging, two days of water park access… and two days of skiing. Unlike our last Mother’s Day package, this year’s doesn’t include the Mother’s Day brunch, but it does include fresh pastries and OJ delivered to your room daily.

“We basically had the
whole trail to ourselves
though, with just a
couple other skiers
out in the area…”

I watched the forecast to make sure that the weekend wasn’t going to be a washout, and by midweek it was looking good and we called in a reservation. The boys have fun skiing of course, but when it comes to Jay Peak, it’s really all about the Pump House Waterpark. We let them know that if they wanted to head up to Jay Peak and hit the water park, they’d have to agree to at least put in some practice on their Telemark gear. With the ebb and flow of this season, they just haven’t gotten in many Telemark days, and we wanted to get them a bit more time to work on their turns before the season came to a close.

An  image of a man on the front porch of the Westfield General Stoer in Westfield VermontThe boys were definitely on board with that idea of some Telemark time, so in the afternoon we loaded up the gear, stopped off for some groceries, and headed up to Jay Peak. It was surprisingly warm today, with temperatures in the 70s F at the house and even a bit of humidity due to some rain that had come through. The clouds were pulling out by the afternoon though, and the sun kept the temperatures right up there in the 70s F even as we approached the mountain. We checked in at the Tram Haus Lodge with the help of some friendly lodging staff, who brought us, our bags, and our ski clothes right up to the room so that we could gear up for some afternoon turns while the lifts were still running. We had a different style of room this time than our previous trip back in 2012 – on that trip we had a 1-bedroom, which has a separate bedroom from the main area, and a full kitchen. This time we had a studio sweet, which has a smaller kitchenette area and it consists of only one room. There’s typically a higher cost for those rooms, but if you want a bedroom with privacy or the larger kitchen, it’s the way to go. In either case, both rooms we’ve been in have that same level of quality craftsmanship, with a Vermont theme in the décor. We actually only had a short time to check out the room when we first got there though, because we quickly got our ski gear on and were out the door to catch some afternoon turns.

There’s actually skiing available at both the Stateside and Tramside areas, although the areas of skiing aren’t currently connected, so you have to pick one or the other. With the late hour, we decided to ski Tramside, since we wouldn’t have to travel anywhere. Also, the skiing there was on the Interstate trail, which is just about perfect for the boys to work on their Telemark turns. We grabbed our ski gear from the car, booted up, and headed right to the Metro Quad in front of the Tram Haus Lodge. The biggest thing that struck me was how easy it was to walk in my boots; with Telemark boots at temperatures around 70 F, it felt like I was almost walking around in street shoes.

Once on the snow, the boys jumped right into their Telemark turns as if they hadn’t missed a beat, and that’s what we were hoping to see. For Dylan, identifying his strong and weak sides was more obvious, but Ty was really putting down some consistent turns in both directions. The snow was mostly decent corn, but there were a few sticky spots, and a few spots where coverage is getting narrow. We basically had the whole trail to ourselves though, with just a couple other skiers out in the area, and it was especially familiar since it was where we’d had some of our favorite turns when we visited over the holidays.

When the Metro Quad shut down, we headed back to the room and everyone relaxed for a bit. After I got some work done, Ty, E, and Dylan were still reading or playing on their tablets, so I decided to head back out for a quick ski tour before dinner. I switched back into my ski clothes, got my skins and skis from the car, and headed for a quick skin up Interstate. The sun was still an hour or two away from setting, and the snow remained quite soft. It was kind of a treat to just walk out the door and have the snow there at this time of year.

An image of Jay walking with Telemark skis in front of the base lodge at Jay Peak Ski Resort in Vermont
Dad heads back to the Tram Haus Lodge after a short evening ski tour.

After dinner, the boys were calling for some water park time, and we had some good rides in the river and on the slides before finishing off with a sit in the indoor hot tub. It wasn’t overly busy, but there was a steady stream of people at the slides, so I suspect there are plenty of visitors to pay the bills. The attendant who was running the green and blue slides tonight was a lot of fun; he was constantly proctoring races between the two slides. I raced Ty and Dylan with me on the green slide and them and on the blue slide, and they won. The blue slide must be shorter. There was also a prom going on this evening for Richford over in the tram base lodge, and along with a hockey tournament that’s taking place, there have been a lot of people out an about around the resort grounds today. We’ll see how everything goes for Mother’s Day tomorrow, but hopefully we can check out the Stateside area and make some turns over there.

Bolton Valley, VT 25FEB2012

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

We’re currently in the midst of what could be one of our largest snowstorms of the season here in Northern Vermont, with multiple feet of snow possible for the higher elevations along the spine of the Greens.  Earlier this week, the mountains already picked up about a foot of snow from the combination of two storms, one on Tuesday/Wednesday, and another on Thursday, so a substantial dump from this storm will really have conditions going off.  The current storm actually started up in this area midday yesterday, and I saw a fresh inch of snow on the ground in Burlington when I left around 4:00 P.M.  We’d received up a couple of inches of snow at the house as of 6:00 P.M., and thanks to inch an hour snowfall, we picked up another quick couple of inches through 8:00 P.M. before the precipitation tapered off overnight.

This morning, temperatures were around the freezing mark down in the valley, and little snow was actually falling at our house, but the mountains were getting pounded with upslope flakes.  Powderfreak sent in a report to Americanwx.com this morning indicating that it was a total whiteout at Stowe Mountain Resort.  So much snow had fallen overnight that snowmobiles and even snowcats were having difficulty getting up the mountain.  The upslope power of the Northern Greens was in full effect.

Looking through the windshield at heavy snowfall we make the ascent of the Bolton Valley Access Road toward Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
Ascending into the higher elevations of Northern Vermont today revealed a world of heavy snowfall and challenging driving conditions.

Not surprisingly, heavy snowfall was hitting Bolton Valley as well, but high winds meant that all the chairlifts were on wind hold at the resort, and employees were stationed at the bottom of the Bolton Valley Access Road to save people the hassle of driving up if they didn’t know about the weather delays.  We’d all brought our Telemark skis and skins and were planning to earn turns as needed, so when we reached the bottom of the access road we let the employees know that we’d be earning turns and they waved us through.  Having old tires with minimal tread, even the Subaru struggled to get up the steep S-curve on the access road this morning, and a big part of that was because the snow was falling so quickly that the plows couldn’t really keep up.  Fortunately, we were able to get up to the Village safely.  The snow was indeed falling very heavily up above 2,000’ in the Village; I’d estimate that was coming down in the range of 1 to 3 inches per hour.

An image of cars parked in the Bolton Valley Village under heavy snowfall at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
When we finally arrived up in the Bolton Valley Village this morning, we were greeted by snowfall pounding down at rates of 1 to 3 inches per hour.

Dylan had to use the restroom right when we arrived in the Village, so E and the boys headed up to the base lodge quickly with some of the Telemark gear, while I finished suiting up and got the rest of the gear together.  Just as I was about to head up to the lodge as well, I got a call from E that the Mid Mountain Lift was running, so I grabbed the boys’ alpine gear for them to use.  It was quite a load with three pairs of skis, two pairs of poles, and a couple sets of boots, but I managed to get everything up to the lodge, and indeed the Mid Mountain Lift was humming along serving at least a little vertical to happy skiers and riders.

Dylan’s stomach was bothering him a bit, so E hung out inside with him while Ty and I headed out for a few Mid Mountain runs.  Outside the lodge at the ski racks, we met up with Jason, who had just come down from Wilderness with another one of the instructors.  He said there was indeed a lot of snow up there in the higher elevations – enough that you wanted to stick to terrain with good pitch if possible.  The wind was also strong, so that was having an effect on the distribution of the snow.  Heading to the upper mountain would have been my plan as well, but it’s still a lot of work for the boys at this stage, so sticking to lift-served terrain on the bottom half of the mountain was the way to go.  We’re already very excited about how far the boys have come in terms of ascending for skiing, but it’s going to be fun to see what things are like as their skills and stamina continue to increase.

An image taken while riding the Mid Mountain Chair at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont showing heavy snowfall obscuring the view
Riding the Mid Mountain Chair during the storm

Ty suggested Enchanted Forest for our first run off Mid Mountain, and the snow was excellent, but only the steepest spots were really good for skiing in the deep powder, so we headed back to Beech Seal to finish off the run.  Acknowledging the need for steeper pitches, I took Ty over to the Butterscotch Terrain Park via Deer Run.  We did get some nice turns in the park on the steep pitches on the back side of the features, but some of the best turns were actually on that steep pitch where Deer Run drops down to Sprig O’ Pine.  Unfortunately I didn’t get any photos there, but I pulled out the camera and got some nice shots of Ty skiing of the terrain park features amidst the very heavy snowfall.

The intense snowfall from the storm was lots of fun to witness, but the strong winds that came with it were much less enjoyable.  The winds were from the west/northwest, so riding the chair was no problem, but they really bit into you when you headed down the west-facing runs.  Thus it wasn’t too long before Ty and I were ready for a lunch break.  Dylan had actually fallen asleep while we’d been outside, but he woke up once we were back inside; he was feeling much better and was ready for lunch.  We headed upstairs and had lunch near the Fireside Flatbread area; crowds were pretty minimal with so many people being turned back at the base of the access road, so it was very quiet up there.

A view out the window of the base lodge at very heavy snowfall hitting Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
Enjoying the view of the tremendously heavy snowfall during lunch

The four of us headed back out for a few more runs after lunch, starting with a run down Glades since Ty and I hadn’t checked it out earlier.  The steeper terrain at the top was sufficient for some decent powder skiing, although that meant that it was getting plenty of traffic, so fresh tracks were a little harder to come by.  We also checked out Beech Seal, since it’s got reasonably steep terrain at the top.  It was also fine for turns, but it’s pretty exposed to the west wind and that took away from the experience.  It continued to snow, so it was hard to pull away from the slopes, but the wind was unabated and we eventually decided it was time to take off the skis and save some energy for tomorrow, which looks like it’s going to be a memorable one.  We had also promised the boys that they could do some swimming at the sports center after they skied, so they were anxious to get down to the pool.

An image of Ty and Dylan playing in the snow near the base lodge during a big snowstorm at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
The boys hit the snow for some fun while E and I pack up the ski gear

The pool at the sports center was hopping with many visitors that had decided to stay inside out of the storm, and while E and the boys swam, I took the opportunity to tour around the Village and get some photographs of the snow.  I got some great images of where the fluffy Champlain Powder™ had accumulated with fantastic loft in sheltered locations such as on the leeward side of the Courtside 2 Condos, and in other spots I got some cool shots of the dramatic drifting caused by the wind.  I found cars in the parking lots that sat through the whole storm and had virtually disappeared beneath the snow.  Even in some of those drifted areas though, the snow often managed to retain incredible loft.  One could walk through some waist or chest deep drifted areas where the snow would simply dissolve around you as you went through it.  The snow was actually letting up for a time while I toured around the Village, and there were some points where it almost appeared as though the storm was over, but it always seemed to make a resurgence.  The breaks in the blizzard-like conditions certainly helped with the photography though.

An image of deep snow accumulating on the Courtside 2 Condominiums during a big snowstorm at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
Enjoying the snowy sights as I walk around the Bolton Valley Village in the afternoon

At the end of the afternoon, our descent of the access road was much easier than the ascent had been; the snow wasn’t falling quite as hard, so presumably the plows could keep pace.  When we’d left the house earlier in the day, it wasn’t really snowing, so we were very curious to see if anything had gone on down in the valley while we were away.  That question was answered pretty quickly when we found that the snow in the driveway was now a foot deep, and 7.1 inches of new snow had accumulated on the snowboard while we were at the mountain.  I took a core sample from atop the snowboard and the snow came in at a density of 3.8% H2O.  But the storm isn’t done delivering Champlain Powder™ just yet; through 10:30 P.M. this evening we picked up an additional 8.4 inches of 2.1% H2O powder, and it’s still going.  We’ve now received over 20 inches from this storm down here in the valley, and the mountains will likely double that amount; it looks like tomorrow at Stowe is going to be simply off the hook!