Wood's Hole Archives - J&E Productions

March 4, 2023March 13, 2023

Bolton Valley, VT 04MAR2023

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

January 28, 2023February 4, 2023

Bolton Valley, VT 28JAN2023

An image of Jay jumping in the Wood's Hole area of Timberline after plentiful snow from Winter Storm Kassandra at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont

An image of Jay blasting through some of the powder left by Winter Storm Kassandra at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Today was the much anticipated opening of Bolton Valley’s Timberline area, and thanks to Winter Storm Kassandra and other recent storm cycles, we spent the day blasting through fresh powder everywhere we went!

Today was the much anticipated season opening of Bolton’s Timberline area, and as announced, they livened things up a bit for the event with free coffee and a visit from the El Gato Food Truck. Bolton Valley fans were of course excited to get the last main pod of the resort open for the season, shifting the alpine trail network up to its full speed, but even more exciting was the fact that the snow at Timberline has simply been sitting there and accumulating over the course of these last several storm cycles. There’s been some ski touring traffic in the area, but the Timberline Uphill Route hasn’t officially been open, so the visitation hasn’t been all that heavy. All this, combined with the fact that the back side of Winter Storm Kassandra finally put some of that classic Northern Greens upslope fluff in place to top off the snowpack, meant that some fantastic powder skiing awaited the visitors.

An image of Erica powder skiing in the Wood's Hole area of Timberline after Winter Storm Kassandra at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Th numerous winter storms we’ve had recently are really burying all those obstacles on the off piste and opening up lots of terrain as E demonstrates in the Wood’s Hole area

E and I headed up for the anticipated 9:00 A.M. opening of the Timberline Quad, and when we got into the lineup around 8:45 A.M., there were only about a dozen people there. The lift opening went off without a hitch, and from then on, Timberline was a lift-served powder playground. There was a mid-morning rush where the lift queue grew large, but before that point it was minimal to nonexistent. We had light to moderate snowfall for a good part of the morning when one of the small waves of low pressure in the area pushed through, and temperatures were about as perfect as you could want – they were on the mild side, but stayed below freeing to avoid any disruption to the quality of the powder.

“The Tattle Tale Headwall was even open, and that speaks volumes about the state of the snowpack right there because it can take a lot of snow to get covered. A couple more solid storm cycles would push it to that next level for hitting bigger features, but the snowpack is certainly in midwinter form.”

The conditions were certainly nothing in the realm of all-time by Northern Greens standards, but it was great, right-side-up bottomless powder everywhere we went, and even down to the 1,500’ elevation, the base depths are good for just about all the terrain. The Tattle Tale Headwall was even open, and that speaks volumes about the state of the snowpack right there because it can take a lot of snow to get covered. A couple more solid storm cycles would push it to that next level for hitting bigger features, but the snowpack is certainly in midwinter form.

February 26, 2022March 4, 2022

Bolton Valley, VT 26FEB2022

An image of Erica and Tyler getting ready to ski some powder from Winter Storm Oaklee below the Spell Binder headwall at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont

An image of Ty skiing powder from Winter Storm Oaklee in the Timberline area at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Ty out there charging through the powder from Winter Storm Oaklee at Bolton Valley

This morning, Ty, E, and I headed up to Bolton Valley to check out the snow from Winter Storm Oaklee. The boys were both asleep as E and I were just about to leave to get in on some of the fresh powder, and we assumed they were just going to sleep in. Ty just happened to wake up at the right time, and he was excited to join us, so that was fortuitous timing for him!

Having clear skies, comfortable winter temperatures, and about a foot of fresh snow held the potential for some great skiing. Based on my snow density observations down at the house, the storm cycle progressed from denser 8-10% H2O snow into some impressive 2-4% H2O champagne, and indeed what we found out there at Bolton today was some very high quality powder. This was also the first chance for E to try out her new Rossignol Spicy 7 HD skis, and she was very happy with how they felt with today’s conditions.

An image of Erica Telemark skiing in powder from Winter Storm Oaklee at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — E dancing through today’s powder with some impressive contrast between the cold smoke, bright sun, and snowpack

The denser snow from the front end of the storm cycle wasn’t too evident underfoot actually, so the only major downside of today’s powder skiing was that it wasn’t quite bottomless. Depending on the pitch, you were certainly touching down on the subsurface, but on everything except for the steepest terrain, the powder turns were quite good. On moderate-angle terrain you could typically get by with 80-90% bottomless skiing, and because the powder was just so incredibly dry, you could ride it on lower angle terrain and it skied really well because of such low impedance.

An image of Jay skiing off piste in the powder from Winter Storm Oaklee at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Jay getting a taste of the off piste Winter Storm Oaklee powder today at Bolton

Measurements throughout the morning revealed plenty of 8-12” powder depths, and we just ended up staying down at Timberline for our entire session because there was rarely a lift queue of note. A lot of trails weren’t open simply because the headwalls didn’t have quite enough snow to cover them up fully, but routes were available to traverse below them, and all that terrain was just loaded with quality powder. We generally stayed on piste because there was plenty of powder available there, and it was the better option anyway. Some off piste areas are dicey because of the recent warmth, but the off piste areas that are typically protected from the warmth and are well manicured were in great shape, so we did have some nice turns in those spots.

Storms like this are where one’s knowledge of their local hill really comes into play for putting together a fun session vs. one where you’re constantly dodging rocks and logs, wrecking your skis, or even worse, potentially wrecking yourself. Although we did spend most of our time on piste over the weekend because there was plenty of available powder there, our travels also brought us into some off piste lines that we trusted, and we found great turns in those areas.

An image of Ty jumping while skiing the Wood's Hole area of Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — You wanted to be careful about which off piste areas you skied today due to the recent warmth, but the usual protected spots were skiing quite well with the fresh powder.

From conversations with friends and colleagues who have skied in different spots in the Northern Greens over the past few days, it sounds like with respect to off piste turns, the farther north you go, the better the base gets. These next couple of bread and butter systems that are coming though this week should only help in that regard, and then we’ll have to see if that mixed system that’s farther out there in time can further substantiate the base.

February 6, 2022February 12, 2022

Bolton Valley, VT 06FEB2022

An image of Jay catching some air while skiing among the powder left over from Winter Storm Landon in the Doug's Knob area of Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont

An image of Jay skiing off piste powder from Winter Storm Landon in the Timberline area of Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont — The recent powder from Winter Storm Landon remains in excellent condition as we discovered in Bolton Valley’s off piste areas today.

Temperatures definitely warmed up today relative to yesterday, so E and I headed out to Bolton Valley for an afternoon ski session. We spent our time at Timberline, since it’s only been open for about a week, and it allowed us to check out some of our favorite areas for the first time this season. We checked out Twice as Nice, where the on-piste conditions are excellent, as well as spots like the Corner Pocket Glades, Doug’s Woods, Doug’s Solitude, Doug’s Knob, Wood’s Hole, etc.

Conditions continue to be excellent, although the trails are getting pretty tracked up at this point, so we had to head a bit farther off piste for fresh snow. In line with the observations from my backcountry ski tour yesterday, we found powder depths at around 20 inches, even down to the 1,500’ – 2,000’ elevation range.

We were hoping for some afternoon sun, but we only had it very briefly before clouds moved in from the west and the light got flat. This made the action photography more challenging, but we still managed to get in some good sequences. It was a solid ending to the weekend that Mother Nature really turned into quite an extended break – many schools, like Dylan’s, had a four-day weekend with both Thursday and Friday off due to Winter Storm Landon.

A snowy scene from the snows of Winter Storm Landon near the Timberline area of Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Snow scenes remain all around the resort as Winter Storm Landon’s accumulations continue to stay light and fluffy in the cold temperatures.

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.

December 21, 2014December 22, 2014

Bolton Valley, VT 21DEC2014

An image of Ty skiing powder on the Timberline Run trail at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Back out in the powder at Bolton Valley today

We had family staying over with us this weekend, so we hadn’t really planned on doing any skiing, but they’d actually departed by late morning today. E and Dylan happened to be out until later in the afternoon due to a birthday party, so Ty and I found ourselves unexpectedly home alone. I finished up some cleaning from the weekend, but we really had no obligations until a Christmas party in the evening, so as you can probably imagine based on this report, we found our way up to the slopes. Bolton Valley has actually expanded their terrain substantially in the past couple of days by opening up the Wilderness Chair, but the mountain had still seen a weekend’s worth of traffic by this afternoon. With that in mind, and recalling the good snow that I’d found during my ski tour on Friday, I figured that a little more touring would be a quiet way to spend a couple hours on a Sunday afternoon. With the knowledge gained from my previous outing, I also realized that I could further optimize the tour I’d done to get Ty the best powder with the least effort.

“The roughly eight inches of dense powder that I’d encountered on Friday was still sitting there…”

Timberline was very quiet as we arrived in the early afternoon – aside from a couple of workers dealing with some equipment in the lower parking area, there was only one vehicle parked in front of the base lodge. We’ve had slate gray skies in the area today but no snow falling, and with temperatures in the 20s F and winter solstice light, it’s one of those days where it’s easy to stay indoors if there isn’t something to lure you out. Fortunately, that powder is still out there, and we were thankful for that as we began our tour and got the blood pumping. We followed the skin track up Twice as Nice and got to watch a group of four skiers and snowboards descending the last pitches of the trail. They were encountering some crust and it was making the turns difficult. Ty was cringing a bit at the conditions he saw, and most notably heard, but I told him they were descending in totally the wrong location. They at least seemed to be having fun, enjoying the descent as a group, but they clearly hadn’t poked around on the terrain enough to find where the good snow was located. Even if they’d skied over on our side of the trail they’d be finding much better snow; you just needed to avoid the most exposed areas to stay away from the crust.

An image looking down toward the Winooski Valley from the Timberline area of Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — A view down the valley from Timberline

We stopped our ascent at the Timberline Mid Station instead of heading up to Brandywine as I’d done on Friday. I hadn’t encountered much in the way of good snow in the extra terrain above that point, and I knew that Wood’s Hole would offer some great snow due to the way it’s so sheltered. We took a short break as we switched over for the descent, and once we got going we indeed found that Wood’s Hole had nice snow. The passage through Wood’s Hole was a bit more challenging than it should have been though, as there are a few trees down across the trail. Presumably they fell due to some of that heavy snow from Winter Storm Damon.

An image of Ty Telemark skiing in the Lost Boyz glade at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Ty makes use of that durable powder left by recent December snowstorms

We continued across to Lost Boyz, finding it in essentially the same condition as it was when I’d skied it on Friday. There were a couple of tracks on their in addition to mine, but it really didn’t look like there had been much for skier traffic in there. We were fine with that of course, and found plenty of untracked lines to ski. The roughly eight inches of dense powder that I’d encountered on Friday was still sitting there – that rather dense snow really holds its own in terms of staying consistent, which is generally the case when the snow doesn’t have much settling to do. Ty was even feeling comfortable enough to send himself off some of the ledges in there, and at one point he pulled quite the acrobatic move as he skied with one leg behind himself after his ski tip got caught in the snow.

“…that rather dense snow really holds its own in terms of staying consistent…”

Below Lost Boyz we stuck to the same route I’d used for my tour on Friday, since I’d found generally good snow where I’d traveled on Spur and Timberline Run. Even though it was essentially the same route, it was fun exploring it with Ty, since he’d have different takes on the terrain and it got me venturing into pockets of snow that I might not have otherwise encountered. It was a great reprise of that route that served me well on my solo outing. The forecast calls for some warming during the middle of this week, but until that happens, it looks like that powder is going to stay where it is for those that want to get some smooth turns.

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