Timberline Archives - Page 6 of 14

February 16, 2019February 17, 2019

Bolton Valley, VT 16FEB2019

An image of Ty skiing powder with Dylan and Erica looking on in the KP Glades area at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont

An image of Dylan skiing powder in the Villager Trees area of Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont — Dylan in the Villager Trees floating through some of the 25 inches Bolton picked up over the last three days.

In the past 72 hours Mother Nature has dropped 25 inches of snow on Bolton Valley, and with the first part of that accumulation coming in quite dense, it’s been a great resurfacing of the slopes. The bulk of the snow came from Winter Storm Maya during the early part of the week, and the last few inches came from a slightly warmer storm that hit the area yesterday. That system brought freezing levels above the base elevations of the local resorts, so we were eager to see how that played out with respect to the quality of the snow surfaces.

“In the past 72 hours Mother Nature has dropped 25 inches of snow on Bolton Valley, and with the first part of that accumulation coming in quite dense, it’s been a great resurfacing of the slopes.”

We got to Timberline not long after the opening of the Timberline Quad, and encountered some briefly heavy snowfall that ended up sticking around in lighter intensity much of the morning to add a bit of freshening to the slopes. Temperatures were forecast to be in the mid-20s F, but it certainly felt a bit colder than that with the snowfall and some wind. We kicked off the day with an initial top-to-bottom run on Timberline to get a sense for how high the freezing line had gone yesterday, and the effects were definitely a gradient with respect to elevation. There was no obvious sharp line to note, but above 2,000 the effects seemed to be fairly minimal. Even below that elevation though, the mountain has seen several additional inches of accumulation, so there actually was great powder skiing all the way down to 1,500’. The areas that created the most trouble in our experience were where grooming had kicked up some chunks of dense snow to create an irregular subsurface.

An image of big flakes of snwo falling at the Timberline base area at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont — Some fairly heavy snowfall greeting us this morning as we arrive at Timberline

We headed over to the main mountain to take advantage of the additional elevation and catch some lunch after a bit more skiing. We had a great run on White Rabbit and Snow Hole, and indeed the depths of powder and quality of the subsurface just kept getting better and better the higher you went. We relaxed with a good lunch at the James Moore Tavern, and seemed to get in there just before it started getting busy.

An image of Erica deep in the powder skiing the KP Glades area of Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont — E blasting away some of the powder as she drops a steep pitch in the KP Glades

After lunch we headed up The Crack, found a lot of nice powder in Maria’s, then worked our way back to Timberline. We were still finding a lot of powder even at that point in the day, so we hung around for some additional Timberline runs, catching things like the Tattle Tale headwall, that was looking very steep and appealing to Dylan, and then some fun and games in the KP Glades where everyone seemed to get themselves covered in powder through various crashes or others purposely lacing them with the white stuff.

It is technically a holiday weekend, and while the resort was bustling, lift queues were almost nonexistent since the entire resort is open and everyone is well spread out. We even got word from Stowe that while the free days on our passes were certainly working there, the resort was really busy due to the holiday, so people should be prepared for that. Overall though, it’s just great that the resorts are getting such excellent conditions for a big holiday weekend and upcoming vacation week.

February 13, 2019February 14, 2019

Bolton Valley, VT 13FEB2019

An image showing very heavy snowfall at the Timberline Base at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont

An image showing snow accumulation on a ski jacket due to intense snowfall at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — The snowfall was so intense on my ski tour at Timberline this morning, that my jacket was turning white just a few minutes into my ascent.

The current storm affecting our area has been named Winter Storm Maya, and as of this morning it’s already delivered a solid addition to the local slopes with snow containing more than an inch of liquid equivalent. Snowfall began yesterday afternoon, and the flake structure has been producing some very dense snow – my analyses from at the house were revealing water content in the snow as high as 13-16% H2O!

After doing some clearing of the driveway this morning, I headed up to the Timberline area at Bolton Valley to get in a quick ski tour before work. Temperatures have been warming throughout this storm, so I was greeted by some very nice temperatures way up into the 20s F at the Timberline Base. I was also greeted by pounding snow in the range of 1 to 2 inches per hour, with huge flakes and zero wind. The big flakes were coming down so hard that my jacket was turning white just a few minutes into my tour. The intense snowfall, big flakes, and no wind are fantastic conditions for building up fluff, and that was a welcomed addition to the accumulations from this storm cycle; based on what I saw from my snow analyses at the house, there is probably some upside-down character to the initial accumulations we’ve had on the front end of this event.

An image of heavy snowfall at the Timberline Mid Station area at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — The snowfall continued to pound down as I reached the Timberline Mid Station this morning.

“The accumulations I found from this storm so far were 9-10” at 1,500’ at the Timberline Base and about 12-13” at 2,500’ at the Timberline Summit.”

The Timberline Base was really deserted when I was up there this morning; there was just one other car in the lot, and the skin track had already picked up three inches of new snow since the last person had used it. I guess filling in the skin track doesn’t take too long when it’s snowing at an inch or two per hour, but it was still surprising. The accumulations I found from this storm so far were 9-10” at 1,500’ at the Timberline Base and about 12-13” at 2,500’ at the Timberline Summit. That pounding snowfall probably did bump up that upper number a bit, even over the course of just a half hour ascent.

An image showing a skin track for ascending on skis at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — A view of the upper part of the skin track on Timberline this morning as it slowly disappears in the heavy snowfall.

The trip down Intro was fun, since the initial snow’s hefty density meant great coverage even in spots that might typically get scoured a bit by the wind. Below the Timberline Mid Station, I opted for Twice as Nice, because the only skier traffic I could see there was the vestiges of one old track. Boy did the mountain get a resurfacing though – you had to really try hard to find the old subsurface, and for the most part, it’s now just a distant memory. Winter Storm Maya has definitely been a shot in the arm for the snow conditions so far though, and there’s plenty of snow still to come. The 3 to 4 inches of fluff on top of the denser snow definitely set the skiing right-side-up this morning, so turns are looking really nice for the foreseeable future.

January 30, 2019January 31, 2019

Bolton Valley, VT 30JAN2019

An image of the spell Binder trail with ski tracks in powder at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont

An image of the Timberline Mid Station area at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Touring up to the Timberline Mid Station today with a bit of light snowfall in the air

We’ve been under the effects of Winter Storm Jayden since yesterday, with a half foot of snow or more falling in the area as of this morning. I decided to get a short ski tour in at Bolton Valley, where they were reporting a foot of new snow.

There were several cars at the base of Timberline, with a very nice skin track in place, and the trip up to the Timberline Mid Station was quick. Depth checks revealed 6 to 8 inches of powder at the base elevations of 1,500’, and 8 to 9 inches up at the mid station elevations. Although the powder wasn’t especially deep today, there was enough of it that I wasn’t worried about hitting the subsurface, and the base is actually quite soft anyway due to snow from other recent storms.

Conditions were just about perfect for being out on the slopes today, with temperatures around 20 F, no wind, and light snowfall filling the air. We’ve got some cold temperatures on the way for the next couple of days before they moderate over the weekend.

January 20, 2019January 21, 2019

Bolton Valley, VT 20JAN2019

An image of Ty skiing the Lost Girlz area at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont

An image of Erica spraying powder as she skis in fresh snow from Winter Storm Harper at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont — E throws up some powder today during our Timberline adventures in the snows of Winter Storm Harper

The current weather system affecting our area has been named Winter Storm Harper, and its snowfall began around here yesterday afternoon. There was a long lead up of light snow into the evening, but overnight it finally started to unload snowfall at roughly an inch per hour. The snowfall density hovered around a fairly standard 10% H2O because the flakes were quite small and temperatures were in the single digits F, but those small flakes still managed to accumulate at quite a pace throughout the morning.

Temperatures were only expected to stay in the single digits F today, so I had initially planned on heading for some backcountry skiing to stay warm, but once we saw that there was zero wind and all of Bolton Valley’s lifts were running, our plans shifted to riding the lifts. We headed up to Timberline around midday and found continued snowfall that was robust enough to challenge both the road and parking lot plows to keep up with it.

“…with the storm cycles we’ve had recently it’s just been resurfacing after resurfacing. So, you can certainly go fast and big on the slopes, and that’s just what the boys had fun doing today on the steep and deep terrain.”

We started off with a quick run on Spell Binder to get warmed up, and the depth of the powder seemed to range from 15 to 25 inches. I’d say the low end values would represent what had come from this storm, with the deeper areas including snows from previous storm cycles. Anything in that range of depths was more than enough to keep you floating though, since it was fairly hearty mid weight powder.

An image of Dylan skiing powder snow in the KP Glades are of Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont — Dylan plowing through lots of untracked powder today out in the KP glades

That introduction on Spell Binder set the tenor for the day though, and it less us know that both the depths of the powder, and the degree of resurfacing called for steep terrain and plenty of it. With that in mind we spent the afternoon visiting a ton of powder-filled, steeply-sloped favorites like Lost Girlz, Thundergoat Pass, KP Glades, Sure Shot Trees, Doug’s Solitude, etc. Off piste coverage is excellent, and with the storm cycles we’ve had recently it’s just been resurfacing after resurfacing. So, you can certainly go fast and big on the slopes, and that’s just what the boys had fun doing today on the steep and deep terrain.

An image of Dylan jumping on his skis in the Thundergoat Pass area at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Dylan catching some air on Thundergoat Pass today as we focused on the steep and deep terrain thanks to our recent storm cycles

We took a mid-session break in the Timberline Base Lodge to have some food and pop in some hand/boot warmers, and seats were just about filled, but we were able to get a table within a minute or two. Food options are fairly minimal now from what we saw, but there were fries and chicken fingers for hot items. I’m sure it’s hard for the resort to manage the availability of food services at the Timberline Base Lodge because of the variability in its opening schedule, but we’d certainly be ordering more food if they had more available. We’d love to go back to the South of Solitude days as well!

An image of Ty skiing powder snow in the trees at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Ty slicing up the powder in the trees today

Overall all though, it was simply fantastic to get the whole family out for a lift-served Timberline powder day, and I think this was our first one of those this season. As usual, Ty was very impressed with how the lot was quite full of vehicles, but people seemed to be nonexistent on the slopes. I guess the message is that they were well spread out. E was cold and didn’t come out for our last run, but it was a big hit with the boys, especially Dylan. We hit Doug’s Solitude to Adam’s Solitude, and he jumps off big ledges, lots of untracked powder, and a chance for Dylan to ride his favorite return track to the base with all its whoops, jumps, walls, and endless halfpipe nature.

January 10, 2019January 11, 2019

Bolton Valley, VT 10JAN2019

An image of drifted snow and some heavy snowfall behind the Timberline Base Lodge at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont

An image showing ski tracks in powder snow on the Spell Binder trail at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont — Catching first tracks this morning on Spell Binder during our ongoing winter storm

We’re in the midst of a long, strung out winter storm system that began way back on Monday evening. The storm has already dropped 20 inches of snow down here at the house, and I’d expect some of the local resorts to report totals in the 30-inch range by tomorrow morning. With the northwest winds driving the moisture into the mountains, I wasn’t surprised to find that the Vista Quad was on wind hold again this morning, just as it had been when Ty and I went out for some runs yesterday. I’d been contemplating both lift-served turns up at the main mountain, or touring down at Timberline, but the Vista Quad remaining on wind hold sealed the deal on some skinning at Timberline.

“Snow had settled in there nicely and I measured about 22 inches of surface snow atop the headwall.”

I arrived at Timberline to find fairly heavy snowfall and not a lot of plowing. I had to wrap around to the far entrance to gain entry, but I plowed my way through 8 to 12 inches of snow in the Subaru and got over to the main parking area. There were a few cars present, but I was worried that I’d be breaking trail on the ascent when I found no signs of a skin track next to the Timberline Base Lodge. Fortunately, the lower areas of the track had just been erased by the winds, and once I got to Twice as Nice there was a great track in place.

Winds had definitely affected the snow, but after looking around at the options by the Timberline Mid Station, I found that Spell Binder was entirely untracked and decided to the skier’s right would offer up some great turns. Snow had settled in there nicely and I measured about 22 inches of surface snow atop the headwall. The turns were great, but even there the snow had been affected by the winds, so the powder wasn’t quite as light and airy as it was in the trees. I’d popped into the trees briefly at the top of my ascent to take off my skins out of the wind, and it was dead calm in there with beautifully fluffy snow. The trees should really offer up some great skiing in the coming days!

January 3, 2019January 4, 2019

Bolton Valley, VT 03JAN2019

An image of ski tracks in powder at the Timberline area of Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont

An image showing a ski track in powder on the Villager Trail at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Catching first tracks on Bolton Valley’s Villager trail today thanks to some fresh powder from an overnight Alberta Clipper

An Alberta Clipper system came through the area overnight, dropping a half foot of snow at some of the local resorts by morning, so I headed up to Bolton Valley for a morning ski tour this morning. With roughly 5 inches of new snow found at the house this morning, and the resort reporting the same, it didn’t seem like there was a huge elevation dependence with this event. Plus, now that the bullwheel replacement on the Timberline Quad and associated operations are finally done, Timberline is back open for ski touring, so I figured I’d get to check out the conditions there for the first time in a while.

“…I found a very even coating of about 5 inches of new snow at the Timberline Base (1,500’) and roughly 5 to 6 inches up at the Timberline Summit (2,500’).”

Temperatures were in the mid to upper 20s F with light snow falling and zero wind, so we’re talking super friendly conditions to be out on the hill. Since wind was pretty minimal during this event, I found a very even coating of about 5 inches of new snow at the Timberline Base (1,500’) and roughly 5 to 6 inches up at the Timberline Summit (2,500’).

An image of a car with fresh snow on it in the parking area near the Timberline Base Lodge at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Today’s new snow on one of the vehicles in the Timberline parking area

The new snow was excellent dry powder in the 20 to 1 range for snow to water ratio, and there’s generally plenty of base, but the consistency of the base is horrible. It’s rock hard, and in a few exposed places that had presumably seen flowing water, there was simply clear ice as the top layer of base. There was a nice established skin track in place on the Twice as Nice ascent route, but the ascent was definitely the most challenging part of the tour. Slightly steeper spots with just powder on ice provided little grip, and you could see that in those areas some people had to diverge out from the main skin track and take shallower routes due to lack of grip with their skins. Fortunately there were only a handful of spots like that, but navigating them was a definite challenge. It’s good that there wasn’t much wind with this event because scoured areas would be a nightmare.

“The new snow was excellent dry powder in the 20 to 1 range for snow to water ratio, and there’s generally plenty of base, but the consistency of the base is horrible.”

After seeing the conditions on my ascent, it was obvious that the best bet for a descent was going to be something that had previously groomed, and had a fairly shallow angle. So, I headed down Villager from the Timberline Summit, and that was an appropriate pitch. I still had to hit a couple of blue/black pitches on Sure Shot on my route, and there was no way to avoid touching the hard subsurface there, even on 115 mm boards.

The Lower Turnpike area with its nice mellow pitch would probably have offered up the most consistent bottomless turns today, but it was nice to get a chance to get out on Timberline again. I can’t imagine there was any point to skiing ungroomed terrain before this latest storm, and this snow isn’t going to be able to hold up to much traffic, but there are definitely some nice powder turns to be had on terrain of the appropriate pitch.

November 24, 2018November 26, 2018

Bolton Valley, VT 24NOV2018

An image of the Timberline Quad from near the Timberline Summit at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont

An image of Dylan skiing powder in the trees at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont — Dylan gets into some of the powder in Bolton Valley’s trees today as the resort opens up for a special early season day.

With the great run of November snowfall we’ve had, Bolton Valley decided to run some of its lifts today as an early kick off to the season. In addition to running the lifts, they had a number of events taking place, such as special discounts and lunch specials for pass holders, as well as roasting marshmallows outside by an open fire.

“The powder from Thanksgiving has settled somewhat, but I still found a general 12 to 24 inches in the 1,500’ to 2,500’ elevation range.”

E and the boys and I headed up to catch a few runs, and I decided to skin up from Timberline and meet the rest of the family up at the Village. Since our last visit to the mountain on Wednesday, the Thanksgiving cold front snows had definitely freshened up the powder on the slopes. Some skiers had been out since then, but overall traffic was much lighter than what it had been at the beginning of the holiday week. The powder from Thanksgiving has settled somewhat, but I still found a general 12 to 24 inches in the 1,500’ to 2,500’ elevation range. Temperatures were right around 30 F when I arrived, and were even climbing a bit above freezing as I made my ascent to the Village.

An image of the base of the Timberline Quad with snow at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Powder covers the assortment of materials by the base of the Timberline Quad.

Only the lower mountain lifts were in operation today, so there were lift queues of about 10 minutes, but it was such a nice day that nobody seemed to mind hanging out as they kicked off the season. E and the boys had done a couple runs before I arrived, and once we caught up, Dylan and I headed for a little tree skiing in the powder while Ty worked on some snowboarding with E. We then stopped in for the lunch special at the Bolton Valley Deli & Grocery, which has been remodeled a bit to provide more seating.

After lunch I headed back to my car at Timberline via the Timberline Summit, and snow in the sunny areas was getting a bit thicker, but I found some excellent dry powder by sticking to north-facing and sheltered terrain. We’ve got a Winter Weather Advisory in effect overnight into tomorrow, but that’s for mixed precipitation. This system should add a bit of liquid to the snowpack, but there’s not really any snow associated with it. There’s another storm coming in the midweek period however that appears to have much more snow potential.

November 21, 2018November 22, 2018

Bolton Valley, VT 21NOV2018

An image of Dylan skiing powder after a snow squall at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont

An image of ski tracks in powder snow at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont — Today’s ski tour was quite an outing with heavy snow squalls and lots of fresh tracks.

The big synoptic snowstorms from last week put down a lot of base on the slopes, and this week has followed up with some modest refresher storms to keep the powder fresh. Today’s feather weather event was the passage of an arctic cold front with very impressive snow squalls that reduced visibility to near zero at times – and we were on a ski tour at Bolton Valley just as the first barrage of heavy snow hit the mountains.

Stephen and I had been talking about getting out together for a ski tour at the mountain during this holiday week, and things lined up today so that Johannes and Dylan could join us. I planned on a tour that would bring us from Timberline up to the trails of the main mountain, shooting for some of those lesser used routes to get everyone some fresh tracks. We began mid-morning with light flakes falling, and the snowfall gradually ramped up to a steady, heavy level of intensity with big flakes as we made our way toward Cobrass. While we were switching over our gear for the descent, a big squall enveloped the mountain. Snowfall rates were off the charts, with visibility down to less than 100 feet at times. It was the kind of snowfall where you put your gear down for a few moments, and small stuff could be easily lost because of how fast it became covered.

An image of Johannes jumping a water bar during a ski tour at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont — Johannes with a bit of air as he negotiates a powdery water bar on today’s ski tour

“Snowfall rates were off the charts, with visibility down to less than 100 feet at times.”

The descent portion of the tour brought us some great fresh powder on routes like Five Corners, Sure Shot, and Tattle Tale. It’s getting hard to tell exactly how much base is down now after so many recent storms, but I was generally getting depths of 15 to 20 inches, with much of that powder. Everything was also topped off with a couple more inches that fell during the tour itself due to the intense snowfall.

Tomorrow is going to be an impressively cold Thanksgiving day, with highs in the mountains around here in the single digits F, so I think it will be nice being inside enjoying some holiday food. Bolton Valley is actually planning to run the lifts on Saturday, at which point it should be much warmer.

November 17, 2018November 18, 2018

Bolton Valley, VT 17NOV2018

An image of Ty performing an off axis flip into some of the snow in the Bolton Valley Village in Vermont after some November snowstorms

An image of Dylan getting ready to pack up his climbing skins during a November ski tour at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont — Dylan gets ready to pack up his climbing skins as we get ready to start out descent during the family’s ski tour at Bolton Valley today.

We’ve had some great snow in the Northern Green Mountains over the past week. Three coastal storms have affected the area: a double barrel low pressure system last weekend, a low pressure system hugging the coast in the midweek period, and now Winter Storm Avery this weekend. All told, the local mountains have picked up two to three feet of snow in the past seven days, with Bolton Valley reporting 32 inches during the period as of today. That’s a good pace of snowfall for any week during the winter, but it’s an excellent pace for November. This is when the mountains should be building that natural snowpack, so this is an especially good time to be getting these substantial storms.

An image of snow from recent November storms at the Timberline base area of Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Some of the recent snow accumulations at the Timberline base area of Bolton Valley

“Snow depths were generally 1 to 2 feet throughout the tour…”

The family got out for a tour in the snow from last weekend’s storm, but I had a busy week and wasn’t able to check out the snow from the midweek system. We had time to get out today though, and there’s been enough snow now that even Timberline was an option.

An imae of Dylan skiing some of the powder from November snowstorms at the Timberline area of Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont — Dylan in some of today’s power at Timberline

Timberline had already seen lots of visitors as of late this morning, so there was a well-established skin track on the usual Twice as Nice route. Snow depths were generally 1 to 2 feet throughout the tour, and temperatures were just creeping above freezing down at the base, so the powder down in the lower elevations was starting to get just a bit wet. In the higher elevations the snow was fairly dry, middle-weight powder, so the skiing was quite good. I’d say starting at the main base up above 2,000’ would be a good move to optimize the best snow, so I might think about that for my next tour, but even touring down to the 1,500’ elevation is still quite reasonable.

An image of Ty falling in the powder while on a ski tour at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont — Ty going down in the powder on today’s ski tour

After our tour we headed up to the main base to pick up our season passes, and learned that there’s talk of starting the lift served season a week or two early. I’d say we’re happy either way, since there’s still plenty of touring to do even if the lift-served skiing hasn’t started.

November 10, 2018November 11, 2018

Bolton Valley, VT 10NOV2018

An image showing some of the four-wheel drive vehicles parked at the Timberline base area of Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont as heavy snowfall fills the arir from a November snowstorm

An image of ski tracks in powder snow on the Lower turnpike trail at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Our most recent storm brought plenty of snow for powder skiing in the Northern Greens.

You can put away the rock skis for this storm. Indeed the Northeastern U.S. has been under the influence of a double-barrel low pressure system that the weather models have been showing for more than a week, and it’s finally delivered a healthy shot of snow to the Green Mountains. With one low pressure system traveling through the eastern Great Lakes, and another up the New England coast, there was some warm air involved in this event, but the precipitation in the mountains has generally been frozen, and it’s been plentiful.

“There’s definitely a nice density gradient to give you those easy powder turns with ample protection below.”

Most of the mountain valleys even picked up some snow, but when the snow began yesterday afternoon, the eastern slopes seemed to be the areas getting the most precipitation and notable accumulations even in the valley bottoms. I was hoping to head up to Bolton Valley for some turns today, but the lower accumulations in the valleys of the western slopes had me wondering how the resort had done with respect to snowfall. They don’t have their webcam in operation yet, and they’re not making immediate snow reports, so I quickly popped up to the mountain this morning to assess the potential for turns.

Signs of leftover snow like we had at our house disappeared as I dropped down into Bolton Flats, and at the base of the Bolton Valley Access Road (340’) there was no accumulation. There weren’t even any signs of white until I hit 1,000’. So I’d say that indeed, accumulating snow levels were definitely lower in elevation on the eastern slopes – snow at 1,000’ in the Bolton Valley area was about equivalent to 500’ at our house slightly east of the spine. The snow depths did eventually did go up dramatically with elevation however. I found 3 to 4 inches at the Timberline Base (1,500’) and up in the Bolton Valley Village (2,000’) there were 6 to 8 inches on the ground with heavy snowfall adding to that by the minute. The resort was clearly all set in terms of snow, so I hoped to head back up in the afternoon for a tour when I had sufficient time.

An image of November snow in the Bolton Valley Village at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Snowfall and plentiful snow on the ground in the Bolton Valley Village today

After visiting the ski swap in Waitsfield in the early afternoon, I was able to head back up to Bolton Valley in the midafternoon period to get in that ski tour. The accumulations I’d see in the Village in the morning just continue to increase as I skinned up toward the summits, and all told I found the following accumulation profile with respect to elevation:

340’: 0”
1,000’: Trace
1,200’: 1”
1,500’: 3-4”
2,000’: 6-8”
2,100’: 8-9”
2,500’: 10-12”
3,000’: 12-14”

I did get readings as high as 16” on the upper mountain, and one drifted spot with 20”, but I’d say 12-14” is a decent measure of the top end I found for depth. It seemed like there was some old snowpack up high, but I don’t think it interfered with measurements of the new snow because it should have been pretty solid by now.

An image of afternoon light from the top of Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Afternoon light and mountains off to the west as I begin my descent from the top of Bolton Valley

Even base temperatures had dropped into the 20s F when I was up there in the midafternoon, and my thermometer was showing 19 F when I was up at the Vista Summit, so the snow wasn’t wet at all. Below ~2,500’ there was a thick layer in the snowpack that was only an issue in wind scoured areas. I’m not sure when that developed (maybe during the warmest part of the storm), but today’s additional snow sort of mitigated that, at least with the 115 mm skis I was on. Above 2,500’ it didn’t seem like that layer was even present, and turns were fantastic in midwinter snow. There’s definitely a nice density gradient to give you those easy powder turns with ample protection below. With tonight’s temperatures, the only enemy of the powder would be wind, so the good snow should be there a while for those who want get after it.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: