April temperatures have been running several degrees below average here in Northern Vermont, and for those awaiting warmth, the winter weather must feel simply interminable. Some of us don’t have a whisper of complaint though, since we know when we’ve got a good thing going. While average April temperatures around here can bring snow, below average temperatures typically bring more snow, drier snow, and preserve the snowpack. With the approach of the current storm, the National Weather Service in Burlington was already talking about the potential for the snowpack at the Mt. Mansfield Stake to get back up to 100 inches, and as of this evening’s co-op report, indeed it’s there. The snowpack is essentially wall-to-wall everywhere in the local mountains here, so topping that off with fresh powder is a recipe for some awesome skiing and riding.
“Well let’s just say, the turns were fantastic – we had medium to moderately dense midwinter powder covering everything, temperatures near 30 F, and an almost fully untracked resort to ski.”
It’s spring vacation week for E and the boys, so E was able to join me this morning for a tour in the new snow up at Bolton Valley. We’ve had substantial accumulations of snow all the way to the valley floors with this latest storm, so I knew the potential was there for some dry, winter-style snow up at elevation. We headed out this morning amidst light snow at the house, and arrived in the Bolton Valley Village to steady snow and temperatures in the upper 20s F. A quick check on the new snow in the parking lot around 2,000’ revealed accumulations of 5 to 6 inches.
We started skinning right from the car up the Lower Turnpike ascent route, and found a decent skin track in place with just a couple inches of additional snow in it. We eventually worked our way over toward Vista and the depth of the new snow continued to steadily increase with elevation. By the time we topped out above 3,000’ on Alta Vista, my depth checks on the powder were revealing 10 to 11 inches. We de-skinned by the trees out of the wind, and E was pretty slick with her ski-on skin removal.
On the entire ascent the snow quality was looking really good, but you never quite know how things are going to ski until you drop. Well let’s just say, the turns were fantastic – we had medium to moderately dense midwinter powder covering everything, temperatures near 30 F, and an almost fully untracked resort to ski. Wind effects were pretty minimal on much of the mountain so it really was a dense, velvety resurfacing that skied like a dream. It’s definitely a good time to get out there and enjoy those uncrowded slopes with all this new snow.
With the continuing snowfall during today’s tour, I went with our Sonar Blue lenses for my Anon M2 Goggles. They’ve got 46% visible light transmission and are recommended for graybird days and tree skiing, but they were definitely a good fit for today even with snowfall since we’re talking late-April light.
In an update from this afternoon, eyewall noted that he encountered about 7 inches of new snow at the Bolton Valley Village elevation, so it sounds like they’d picked up another inch or two with the additional snow since E and I had left. That would put accumulations near the summits around a foot, so it’s definitely been a nice April event for the mountains around here.
Sounds like unprecedented skiing conditions this time of year!