Bolton Valley, VT 04JAN2015

Snow began falling in the middle of the afternoon yesterday in association with our most recent winter storm, and it fell at an average of roughly ½ inch per hour through the evening down here at our location in the Winooski Valley. Around midnight the snow was starting to mix with some sleet, but it had essentially come to a halt anyway. When I check my snow measurement boards this morning I found minimal additional accumulation, and a perusal of the snow reports from the Vermont Ski Areas revealed a general 4 to 6 inches of new snow for the northern mountains.

“I did a check on the new accumulation there at the Vista Summit and found 5-6″, which was right in line with the snow report.”

We hadn’t made definite plans to head up to the mountain today based on the uncertainty of the results from any mixed precipitation, but it sounded like crust wasn’t an issue, so by mid morning we’d made our way up to the Bolton Valley Village. A few rain showers on the way up the Bolton Valley Access Road had us concerned about the appearance of mixed precipitation on the mountain, but as I dropped E and the boys off at the Village Circle, it appeared as though we were just dealing with passing showers.

“…this storm has covered up a lot of the old base and should be a good shot in the arm for the overall state of the subsurface going forward.”

We headed up the Vista Quad and found a good shot of dense snow up there. I did a check on the new accumulation there at the Vista Summit and found 5-6″, which was right in line with the snow report. Winds were generally light aside from the summit, and temperatures were relatively mild at somewhere around the freezing mark. We worked our way down to Hard Luck to check out some steep, on piste terrain, and found that the mountain had received a decent resurfacing. Packed terrain skied well, with a little stickiness in spots, and the off piste held dense powder that gave you a bit more of that stickiness to deal with. On the lower half of the mountain we skied Glades, which had good coverage among skier packed snow and snow that was a little wetter than it had been up higher on the mountain.

Since my everyday RT-86 Telemark skis are currently at the Nordic Barn to get a broken binding repaired, I decided to pull out new my Rossignol Sin 7 alpine setup for the very first time. I’d been expecting to get the Sin 7 setup out when an appropriate day arose during our school ski program at Stowe, but this storm seemed like the perfect opportunity to put the skis into action with my midfat Teles sidelined. I’d already tested out the Sin 7 (128/98/118) at the end of last season, so I knew what to expect. Their width was definitely nice in that dense fresh snow, and I at ~100 mm at the waist, I could certainly feel that width on the groomed snow relative to my 108/70/101 Salomon Scream 10 Pilot Hots. But, I know they would still be quite spritely on the quick turns despite that width, and they were a lot of fun. I can’t wait to get them out in some lighter snow and put them through a good school program day with all the kids at Stowe.

“Their width was definitely nice in that dense fresh snow, and I at ~100 mm at the waist, I could certainly feel that width on the groomed snow relative to my 108/70/101 Salomon Scream 10 Pilot Hots.”

We took an Alta Vista/Schuss/Fanny Hill run next, finding plenty of good turns, but some sticky snow as well. Knowing that the snow was only going to be getting wetter as time went on, we skied down to the car after that. It was definitely worth getting out for turns today though; this storm has covered up a lot of the old base and should be a good shot in the arm for the overall state of the subsurface going forward. We’ve got a number of opportunities for snow this coming week that should continue to enhance the conditions.