While the heaviest snows from Winter Storm Argos had been off to our south and west, the main low pressure system was expected to move a bit today to put the Northern Greens in position for some of their classic upslope snow. Ahead of that uptick in snow though, temperatures in Northern Vermont had dropped enough to bring snow accumulations all the way to the valley floors, and I decided to swing by Bolton Valley this morning for a quick ski tour.
“Not surprisingly, Bolton Valley picked up a lot more snow today as well – as of this evening they’re reporting a storm total of 20”.”
The additional accumulations were immediately evident in the lowest elevations. The base of the Bolton Valley Access Road at 340’ had an inch or two of new snow vs. the faint trace that was there yesterday afternoon. As soon as I got up into the main Village parking lot it was also obvious that the wind had changed direction from what we’d encountered yesterday, and heavy snowfall of at least 1”/hr was moving in. I had the back of my vehicle open for just a couple minutes while I changed boots, and being on the windward side I found my gear half covered with snow in just that amount of time.
The new influx of snow and wind since yesterday was a bit of a mixed blessing with respect to snow quality. There’s no doubt that the base has been substantiated between the wind and additional snow – the wind moved snow around, packed it down a bit, and just generally gave the snowpack more girth. Where I touched down in a couple of spots yesterday there would be no issue today. With those changes came more inconsistency in the snow density due to wind crust, so turns weren’t as light, airy, or consistent as yesterday from a powder skier’s perspective. Each powder day is different though, and it was nice to be able to charge a bit harder and not worry as much about touching anything under the snow.
I toured up to roughly 2,800’ on Peggy Dow’s, and fairly heavy snowfal continued for the hour or so that I was up there, with small to moderate size flakes. From the Village elevations on up it looks like ~3” of new snow fell by early morning. Below I’ve updated the total snow depths I found (yesterday afternoon –> this morning), and it looks like the resort had generally hit that 1-foot mark for settled depth on the upper mountain:
340”: Trace –> 1-2”
1,000”: 1” –> 3”
1,500”: 4” –> 6”
2,000”: 5-7” –> 8-10”
2,500”: 9” –> 12”
2,700” 9”+ –> 12”+
A check on Bolton Valley’s snow report, showed them reporting 9-12” as of ~9:00 A.M. this morning, which seems right in line with what I encountered.
With the lower valleys around here finally getting in on the snow action today, I was able to see a lot during my travels to and from the Burlington area. This afternoon, heavier snow pushed eastward from the Champlain Valley where it had been focused, and the drive home from Burlington to Waterbury was the classic journey from no precipitation into an ever-thickening maelstrom of big flakes. Roads were actually dry in Burlington, became wet by the Williston area, and then snow-covered past Richmond. Those who drive Route 2 or I-89 eastward know some of the spots with those long views down the trench-like Winooski Valley, and at each one today, the visibility to the east simply dropped another notch. Consistent with the visibility trend, the intensity of the snowfall was greatest once I got past Bolton. There was a van sideways on I-89 just before Exit 11 that had me in slow traffic for about 15 min, but I was able to get home by 5:00 for observations and liquid analysis on our recent snows. I was greeted by almost a half foot of new snow at the house, and it’s really come down in density. My analysis revealed ratios in the 30 to 1 range, which is going to supply some great powder provided it wasn’t totally blasted by the wind.
Not surprisingly, Bolton Valley picked up a lot more snow today as well – as of this evening they’re reporting a storm total of 20”. Even though they aren’t planning to run the lifts until December 10th, storms like this are a great way to start the season.
