Stowe Archives - Page 7 of 14

April 10, 2016April 11, 2016

Stowe, VT 10APR2016

An image of Mt. Mansfield in Vermont with fresh snow from an April snowstorm

An image of Dylan dropping into a ski line below the Kitchen Wall at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont — Dylan drops into some powder along the Kitchen Wall today at Stowe

Although the lowest elevations were softening in the April sun, Stowe’s terrain in the upper elevations of Mt. Mansfield appeared to hold onto winter snow all through the day yesterday. That got me thinking about taking a couple more runs in the powder today, and although Ty was a bit under the weather and E planned to stay home with him, Dylan was happy to go with me to see what we could find.

We couldn’t get out early, but we were able to head out to the mountain around midday. Even in the valleys, temperatures were holding at or below freezing despite lots of April sun, so we knew that at least the air temperature wasn’t going to be affecting the snow. Today was even sunnier than yesterday, and the high peaks like Mt. Mansfield were standing out brilliantly above the lower elevations. It was quite a sight to behold as we traveled along Route 100 east of the Green Mountain Spine.

Dylan and I followed my procedure from yesterday, parking in the Midway Lot and heading right up the Gondola. Since I knew coverage was fine in the Kitchen Wall area, we headed right there to see how the powder was faring in the highest lift-served elevations. I hadn’t actually taken the main Kitchen Wall Traverse yesterday, but I have to say it was one of the most challenging trips I’ve had through there. The snow pack is just that bit on the low side that keeps some extra stumps sticking out in a few places, so you really have to keep your eyes open for the best routes to use.

We were quickly able to tell that even up in those elevations, any snow in direct sunshine was turning mushy, so we picked a partially shaded line for Dylan and he dropped into one of the snowfields. He had some nice turns, but as we got down lower, even though we were predominantly in the trees, we encountered a lot of challenging, sticky snow wherever light was sneaking into the forest. Down in the Nosedive Glades we generally stuck to the main routes to avoid that type of snow, but we found plenty of good turns on lightly tracked or skier packed snow. We finished off with Nosedive, which had conditions similar to yesterday, with the snow quality being better the higher you were in elevation.

We knew the window for ample off piste skiing was just about closed with the way the powder was getting sticky, so we decided to stick with an on piste run down Gondolier. We debated going to Cliff Trail, but Dylan said we would be too tempted to head off piste and we’d end up paying for it if we got into mushy snow. We still managed to get sucked off piste below the switchback of Perry Merrill, and that was our most exciting adventure of the day. The snow was actually pretty well preserved because of the shady nature of the area, and we came upon a nice cliff band with an ice fall that will no doubt be a lot of fun when we have ample midwinter powder. Dylan and I were already planning to take our BJAMS ski group to the area next season. We had to sift our way through some denser evergreen areas to get back to Perry Merrill, but our navigation was good and we quickly got back on piste. We ran that run out with a combination of Perry Merrill and Gondolier, and that was enough to consider ourselves satiated for the day. We did get into a bit of corn snow near the bottom of Gondolier, and Dylan commented on how that was his favorite snow on the trail, so he’s definitely ready for full on spring conditions vs. the transitionary snow that appears on some of these spring days.

April 9, 2016

Stowe, VT 09APR2016

An image snowing fresh snow on Evergreens after an April snowstorm at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont

An image showing a depth measurement of a foot of powder at the top of the Gondola at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont — A quick depth check at the top of Stowe’s Gondola today revealed a foot of midwinter powder.

Over the past three weeks we’ve had a couple of March snowstorms that produced some moderate powder days, and another April one ahead of our most resent storm cycle, but there wasn’t anything that fell on the weekend or was quite big enough to get me out for early morning turns. That’s just sort of the way it’s been this season, but yesterday evening the Northern Greens did a bit of their more typical convening with Mother Nature and snow began to dump along the spine as moisture smacked into the mountains on a westerly flow. We had some decent bouts of snowfall here at the house, and being a Friday night, it was definitely enough to get me thinking about a trip to Stowe. By morning, totals for the full storm cycle were hitting 12 to 18 inches at the northern resorts, so after catching up on a few things at the house, I headed off for some turns around mid-morning.

“Indeed Mansfield had done its usual business, and a quick probe in untouched snow outside the Cliff House as I put on my skis revealed a nice foot of midwinter powder.”

Temperatures were still at or below the freezing mark at all elevations, but the new snow was already starting to melt off in the valleys thanks to the strong April sun. The mountains were holding their own with respect to the snow however, and I headed right to the Midway Lot and up the Gondola to see what Mansfield had delivered below The Chin. Indeed Mansfield had done its usual business, and a quick probe in untouched snow outside the Cliff House as I put on my skis revealed a nice foot of midwinter powder. I took a first run down Gondolier, and encountered some simply amazing snow along the edges of the trail. The powder petered out to just a few inches in depth by the time I was back down to the Gondola base, but there had been a pretty solid resurfacing on the upper half of the mountain, and it was only the lowest ¼ of terrain that left much to be desired in terms of hitting the old base.

I wasn’t yet sure what I was going to explore with respect to off piste adventures, but back in the Gondola I rode up with a couple that had been in the Nosedive Glades, and another gentleman who had just visited the Kitchen Wall, and it all sounded quite good. Based on the accumulations I’d seen, I didn’t have to second guess any of it and headed right off to the Nosedive Glades from the north. As I headed along the Glades Traverse the realization hit me that we were indeed dealing with April-style visitation numbers at the resort – there was just untracked entry after untracked entry into the glades. Eventually I just had to choose one and I dropped in. The powder was great, with just a little hint of getting thick due to temperatures and sun, with the effect increasing a bit as you lost elevation. I knew that higher would be even better, so I visited the Kitchen Wall area next, and found a solid 10 to 14 inches everywhere I checked.

An image showing ski tracks in powder snow in the Nosedive Glades at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont — Even at midday it wasn’t hard to find untracked lines in even the most common glades today thanks to the lower number of resort visitors this late in the season.

I went with my Telemark skis today because I wanted to really blast my legs after not skiing for a stretch, and my only regret would be that I was just burning too quickly each run after being off the boards for too long. I’d have to stop and rest them often, but I can’t say it was really all that bad just hanging out in the warm spring sun. A few runs on that Mansfield vertical serviced by high-speed lifts was enough to totally cook my legs, but at least my body got the workout it needed. Hopefully we won’t have to deal with such a period of generally horrible conditions as we’ve seen the past few weeks for quite a while – I can already tell that I’m going to pay for today’s workout and it’s only been a few hours since I finished!

March 13, 2016

Stowe, VT 13MAR2016

An image of Luke in the air after a jump in the Tyro Terrain Park at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont

An image of Elisabeth skiing on the Gondolier Trail at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont — Elisabeth enjoying today’s spring snow at Stowe Mountain Resort

The sunny weather and soft spring skiing from yesterday carried right into the second half of the weekend as we visited Stowe this afternoon for the BJAMS ski program. Ken’s tweaked knee from last Sunday was diagnosed as a sprained MCL, so I’ve heard he’ll be off skis for four weeks while it heals. Erica had to do a bunch of shuffling around of today’s groups due to various absences this week, and I actually wound up with a group of 10 students. That’s a substantial group even with both Ken and I to manage it together, but fortunately Big Luke was able to step in for his dad and give us a reasonable ratio of coaches to students. All told then with students and coaches, our group was a dozen strong, and I suspected that anywhere we went with our crazy crew… people were definitely going to know that we were around.

“There’s not too much else to say about today’s skiing – the snow is in spring mode and so are the students, so it’s simply bumps, and jumps… and more jumps.”

There was no question about the softness of the snow today at any elevation, and with my group ready promptly and raring to go at startup time, we headed right over to the Gondi for a sampling of its terrain. I could see that there were plenty of bumps on Gondolier, so we tackled that first with a quick photo session in one of the first bump lines. From there were moved over to the Fourrunner Quad and it was lap after lap with spring snow and visits to the terrain parks due to very high demand within the group. By around 3:00 P.M. it was time to head back to Spruce for the s’mores session, and everyone finished the day off with what appears to be becoming the customary “post s’mores free skiing session” off the Sunny Spruce Quad. I think almost all the skiers in the group, even Big Luke, dropped their poles for their final runs. And with our snowboarders Cole and Ryan as part of the crew, I may have been the only person left with poles at the end of the day. Those huge snow whales on West Slope are still going strong, and as you can imagine it was quite a raucous time out there on that terrain with the afternoon sun and continued soft snow.

I finished up a bit early and was able to hike up for a bunch of extra photos on West Slope, and man what a treat it was to be able to photograph with so… much… light! I had the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM out for the first time in a while, and was able to run at a shutter speed of 1/8000 sec and still stay down around ISO 100. The bright March sun on glaring snow was almost too much, and I nearly had to stop down a bit to avoid overexposing the images. For now though, it worked out at F/2.8 once I got all my settings tweaked, so hopefully folks will enjoy the sampling of action shots I’ve put with the report. One of my favorite images from the day was definitely Big Luke in the Tyro Terrain Park – he actually requested the shot, so I had plenty of time to set it up just the way I wanted. He aired it out and I think he’ll be pleased with the result.

An image of Dylan, Ryan, and Cole on the Mountain Triple Chair Lift at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont — Chairlift Games!

There’s not too much else to say about today’s skiing – the snow is in spring mode and so are the students, so it’s simply bumps, and jumps… and more jumps. We’ll see what next weekend brings, but the weather models are certainly showing murmurings of a potential winter storm about a week out. We’ll have to see if we can finally get one of these to take a decent track or whether we’ll get another one of the many raw deals we’ve had this season, but I suspect the winter weather enthusiasts are going to have an interesting week of model watching to see what this potential storm does.

March 6, 2016March 6, 2016

Stowe, VT 06MAR2016

An image of the Spruce Peak Village at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont

An image of Ken skiing the Green Acres area at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont — Ken dropping into a line in Green Acres, where we found some of the best snow today at Stowe.

Based on my tour of the Bolton Valley backcountry yesterday, I didn’t anticipate skiing much powder today with our BJAMS ski group today at Stowe, and therefore I packed narrower skis for me and the boys. I’d say it was the right call, because we spent most of our time on piste, and aside from our initial runs on the softened slopes of lower Spruce Peak, the snow we found was roughly 20% decent and 80% crap.

Fortunately for us, we did start out on the lower slopes of Spruce Peak for the beginning of this afternoon’s session, and off the Sunny Spruce Quad the snow had softened in the sun from top to bottom. The boys had taken some earlier runs, and announced that we should head for Freddie’s Chute. I couldn’t believe that they were serious, because Freddie’s has all natural snow, faces south, and is loaded with ledges and rocks that quickly catch the sun and burn out the snow. Low and behold though, the coverage was there, so even though we haven’t had any really great winter storm cycles in the past few weeks (or at all this season for that matter) the storms of mixed precipitation that we have had are substantiating the snowpack in the mountains to some degree.

After some good turns on the lower slopes of Spruce Peak, we decided to do a few runs off the Sensation Quad. I hadn’t taken the group there at all this season, so it seemed like a good day to do it with no plans for our typical Mansfield powder explorations. I was actually surprised to see all of Spruce Line open for business aside from the initial headwall, and that’s amazing because patrol never seems to open that even when we have a ton of snow. We decided to make our way there by dropping into Green Acres, and that was where we undeniably found some of the best snow of the day. The high elevation and evergreen protection kept the snow soft and powdery in there, and it was deep enough that it was one of the few times today that I wished I’d brought wider skis. Spruce Line had some good shots, but the snow was generally dense or wind-packed, so while good, there wasn’t any of the powdery snow that we’d found in Green Acres. We did some additional runs off Sensation, hitting Sterling, Upper Smugglers, and Main Street Headwall, but they were all generally a mess of ice and firm snow with decent surfaces few and far between. Ken’s description of the worst areas was “plate ice”, which is that glare ice that’s got no redeeming qualities aside from the novelty of seeing the treads of the groomers carved into it. It’s just hideous stuff that really nobody in their right mind should have to ski.

Clouds were moving in at times, and with afternoon temperatures cooling down, snow that had softened in the sun was starting to firm up, so we headed back down to the lower slopes to finish off the day. We did a few more laps off the Sunny Spruce Quad, and even down there the snow wasn’t as soft as it was earlier, so it was changing from corn to frozen granular and becoming much less inspiring. We found that a number of us have similar boot sized and we started to switch around skis – I got to try Jack’s 163 cm Nordica Bad Mind skis (120-84-109), and that was a lot of fun because unlike my Salomon Scream 10 Pilot Hots, they’ve got some edge. I stayed on them for the rest of the day, and I thank Jack for the demo. Not only did his skis have edges, but they’ve only got a half season on them, so they’ve still got plenty of pop in them unlike my Salomons that are over a decade old.

As the boys finished off the last few runs on their own, Ken and I took a run through the Ridge Glades and down in the glades below along the right of East Run. Some of that terrain off to the side of East Run is really steep, probably 35 degrees, and in horrible shape. Ken came into one of those steep lines very aggressively and had a pretty big tumble where his equipment went everywhere. He was generally OK, although he did say he tweaked his knee a bit and something popped, so he’s going to have to assess how things go over the next few days to see if it’s anything serious. That area of trees definitely fit in with the general 20% decent/80% crap, where there was probably 20% decent snow on the whole slope, and the rest was a combination of ice, roots, stumps, dirt, and whatever else isn’t snow – it’s just hideous. We do appear to have some snow coming into the area tomorrow, so hopefully that will add a bit more to the snowpack in areas that need it.

February 28, 2016

Stowe, VT 28FEB2016

An image of Ken skiing the Kitchen Wall area at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont

An image of Dylan skiing the Kitchen Wall area of Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont — Dylan drops into one of the Kitchen Wall snowfields today to enjoy some of the snow delivered to Mt. Mansfield from the past couple storms.

On our ski outing yesterday we got a taste of the current backcountry conditions at Bolton Valley, and today we got to see how the lift-served terrain at Stowe has been fairing since the snows from Winter Storm Petros. With additional snows falling overnight from another moderate system skirting the northern border of Vermont, conditions were improving dramatically the farther north one went. We had students in our group from Wolcott and Hyde Park that had picked up 4 inches of snow at their houses, and Jay Peak saw another 7 to 10 inches overnight.

Ken and I had a fairly large group with 7 students today, and based on the way the snow had played out yesterday at Bolton, we immediately took everyone to the top of the Gondola and into the lower reaches of the Kitchen Wall terrain to get a feel for how the powder was skiing. The snow was excellent, with a good 6 to 8 inches of midwinter powder for everyone to enjoy. The students commented on numerous occasions how good the snow was. The best powder lasted down to about the 3,000’ mark before it began to get thinner and a bit wetter. At that point we’d stick to the trails, where conditions varied from midwinter snow to spring like, to ice, depending on elevation and aspect.

An image of Jonah skiing the Kitchen Wall area of Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont — Jonah attacking a line on the Kitchen Wall

The kids had liked the first run so much that on our next one we took the high Kitchen Wall traverse and dropped into the untracked powder in one of the snowfields. There was a good 8-12” of snow up there, so bottomless turns were the norm. Even down below in the evergreens we found plenty of untracked lines and the kids’ overall energy was very positive. One line that we found ended up taking us basically through a cave, and you had to do some major body contortions to pull that line off smoothly.

Ken was thinking of paying a visit to Ravine, and I told him that we’d likely be able to ski the top ¼ at least based on what we found last week. We were all amazed to find the top entrance absolutely untracked at 3:00 P.M. on a Sunday afternoon, so some of the boys dropped in, and we eventually found out why it was being left alone. There was nice powder on top, but presumably some of the rain from Winter Storm Petros had wrecked the subsurface. It was a moonscape under there, so after skiing the available powder for a few hundred yards, we switched out to Gondolier for the rest of the run.

Unfortunately for Ken, he really brought the wrong pair of skis today. He was at Sugarbush yesterday where he found bulletproof conditions and struggled on skis with no edges. Anticipating the same thing today, he brought his freshly-sharpened, skinny, 195 cm old-school cruising skis. He couldn’t believe that we were skiing almost a foot of powder up high, and his long, skinny skis were essentially the exact opposite of what he would have liked to have in tight, powder-filled trees. We joked about how we used to ski everything on such skis, no matter how tight, but the new shorter, fatter, rockered, twin-tipped boards are so superior, and one can forget how much work it takes to push around those long sticks.

An image of the West Slope trail at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont with large snowmaking whales — Huge snow whales made for fun times on West Slope today

We finished off the day over at Spruce Peak, where areas in the sun were already turning to spring corn snow. The resort had made some huge snow whales on West Slope, and everyone was lapping those, which held soft snow and some great contours and drops. It’s definitely starting to feel like spring with the lasting sunlight we’ve got, but apparently we’ve still got some winter storm to come – the forecast suggests we’ve got three potential storms this week, so it should be interesting to see where things stand next weekend. Right now the Mt. Mansfield Stake is at 34”, so if things break right perhaps we’ll hit that magic 40” mark that means that most of the off piste terrain is reasonably well covered.

February 21, 2016

Stowe, VT 21FEB2016

An image of Wiley spraying powder snow while he skis in the Cliff Trail trees at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont

An image of Dylan skiing in the Cliff Trail Trees at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont — Stowe’s reporting up to 9 inches from our latest storm, and the BJAMS boys were out in force today doing their best to get into that fresh powder.

The Alberta Clipper system in our area had already dropped 4 to 6 inches of snow yesterday, and as of this morning the totals were passing a foot up at Jay Peak, and Stowe wasn’t too far behind. Heading northward was definitely the way to go today. It was generally just cloudy at our house, but right as we were passing north out of Waterbury into Stowe, the precipitation started to come down more vigorously, and the precipitation was snow, or a mix of rain/snow even down in the valley. That’s a good sign for even better things going on up high, and indeed precipitation changed over to all snow just as we hit The Matterhorn at around 1,000’.

Anticipating a day with fairly standard February light, I had my all around Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM on my 7D II, and although the snowfall was generally tapering off, I saw the clouds sitting on Mansfield up high and quickly switched out to my F/1.2 Storm Day Lens before I went out to meet my group. Based on everything I was hearing from Powderfreak, the powder was really sweet up in those clouds, and that was where we’d want to be getting today’s photos.

An image of Mt. Mansfied with clouds on the upper mountain at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont — With this view I knew we’d be shooting up in the clouds today, so I opted for the F/1.2 lens to get the most light under those conditions.

After a couple of sessions away, I was back with my regular group of BJAMS students today, which featured Luc, Ty, Wiley, Jonah, and Dylan. Our decision on where to go was easy based on my most recent beta, so we immediately high-tailed it over to the Gondi and headed up into the clouds. Our initial foray onto Gondolier revealed some very sweet snow – worlds better than what we’d encountered on the very same route just two weeks ago. I let the boys warm up on Gondolier for that first run before we thought about heading off piste, but boy was it tempting; short forays into the snow along the sides of the trail revealed a healthy 8-10” of medium-weight powder that skied like a dream – especially in this nightmare of a ski season. By the last third of the vertical, we found that the on piste snow got a bit firmer, and the powder got a bit thinner, but we’d already seen what we needed to see up top – it was definitely time to hit the trees.

“…short forays into the snow along the sides of the trail revealed a healthy 8-10” of medium-weight powder that skied like a dream – especially in this nightmare of a ski season.”

We worked the Gondola the whole afternoon, enjoying that great snow up top whenever possible and hitting lines in the Cliff Trail Trees, High Road Trees, Perry Merrill Trees, and Nosedive Glades. We even skied the top third of Ravine before we cut back to the piste to be on the safe side. It’s not an issue of rocks in there so much as we need just a bit more snow to put a deeper later above the ice – it is a streambed after all. We could see some great lines dropping into the top of the Hazelton Zone, and I’m sure they would have delivered for a few hundred vertical, but we knew that the turns would be tough by the bottom.

An image of Ty skiing powder snow in the High Road Trees at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont — Ty finding great snow in the High Road Trees on the upper elevation terrain of Mansfield

On the group dynamic side of things, I have to say I was very impressed with Jonah and Wiley. They were the most eager in the group when it came to hiking around a bit and they were definitely setting a tone for getting to the highest quality snow vs. easier access to the more typical surfaces. They have definitely figure out our group’s mindset and the current makeup of the team is really starting to mesh.

An image of Jonah on the Stowe Ice Slide at Stowe Mountain Ski Resort in Vermont — The boys hit the Stowe Ice Slide after s;mores for a good session of tricks and snowball bombardment.

We finished off the day hitting the s’mores session and watching the ice skaters in the Spruce Peak Village, followed up by a lot of time on the Stowe Ice Slide with slide tricks and simultaneous bombardment by snowballs. All in all this latest little storm resulted in a great step up in conditions at the mountain. We’ve still got a long way to go to get anywhere near a normal base depth, but the snowpack depth at the Mansfield stake hit 30” for the first time this season so some ground is being gained. A couple more storms are in the pipeline this coming week, so we hope they can play out reasonably well the way these last couple did, and keep that snowpack growing.

February 7, 2016February 8, 2016

Stowe, VT 07FEB2016

An image of some BJAMS students having chocolate-covered waffles up at the top of the Gondola at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont

An image of a snowy evergreen by the Cliff House on Mt. Mansfield at the top of Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont — Although it hasn’t been especially wintry by any stretch of the imagination in Northern Vermont this week – the area below The Chin of Mt. Mansfield still seems to produce when it comes to snow.

I typically start off my daily ski trip reports with some discussion of the recent winter storms and how they played out with respect to the local powder and snowpack. This week though, there’s really not much to cover in that regard. Our most recent storm of note was last Saturday, which definitely offered up some powder for my visit to Bolton Valley, and then Sunday featured slightly milder temperatures that produced some nice soft snow on piste at Spruce Peak. Since then though, snowfall has really been flat.

We’ve cooled down somewhat since earlier last week, but that’s not a great recipe for good conditions without some new snow to soften things up. Nonetheless, today was a BJAMS ski program day at Stowe, so we headed off for our usual Sunday afternoon session. Today E decided to promote “service with a smile”, one of the themes from Catholic Schools Week, by assembling the student groups according to grade level instead of ability. The goal was to let the more advanced students in each group help the others work on their skiing. I was with Dave today coaching the fifth graders, which included Dylan, Molly, Calvin, and Ryan. I went with my Telemark skis since I figured I’d be able to handle everything at Molly’s pace, and it was my only outing for the weekend so I wanted to maximize my workout.

An image of the ice rink in the Spruce Peak Village at Stowe Mountain Ski Resort in Vermont — Checking out some of the facilities surrounding the new ice rink in the Spruce Peak Village while the kids take an early run before our ski program

There’s really not much one can do to sugarcoat a description of the general on-piste conditions though; although not quite at the level of “we just had a massive rainstorm and moonscape-generating flash freeze”, 80-90% of the trails were still heinously icy. I’d say some of the worst culprits we visited were Cliff Trail, Upper Nosedive, and Perry Merrill. Cliff Trail was insanely bad, simply due to its narrowness combined with the fact that its snow settles in like a half pipe and there are very few spots along the edges of trail to actually ski – in most spots trying to ski the edge means attempting to ride a huge double fall line.

Fortunately there were some bright spots out there with decent, and at times even excellent, snow. The lower half of Spruce Peak had some nice spots, presumably due to being low enough in elevation and south facing to get the snow softening a bit. I’d say the very best snow of the day was from 3,000’ on up at the Gondola. Roughly 4 inches of recent snow had accumulated up there, and the powder along the edges of the trails and even the snow that people had pushed there was just so superior to most of what was available on the mountain. I will say that even in the worst of weather patterns, it’s hard to keep those upper elevations below The Chin down when it comes to snow. That area is an absolute snow magnet and skiing there definitely reminds one of what good snow is like. There were also plenty of areas with excellent snow along the edges of trails that had built up over the course of the day. In some cases you could go for dozens and dozens of turns and not even have to think about hitting any ice, but those accumulations along the trail edges can be hit or miss – sometimes they just disappear and you’re left dealing with the regular trail surface

“I’d say the very best snow of the day was from 3,000’ on up at the Gondola. Roughly 4 inches of recent snow had accumulated up there, and the powder along the edges of the trails and even the snow that people had pushed there was just so superior to most of what was available on the mountain.”

In any event, the kids did really well in terms of working on their short radius turns to ride the trail edges and stay in the good snow. Ryan had an especially good section on Lower Nosedive that left me very impressed. One goal was for the students who were more advanced in their skiing to help their peers by simply serving as models for those who were learning. Dylan did a great job in that regard by showing everyone just how tight turns can be when skiing those trail edges.

Fortunately we don’t have to ski next weekend because there’s no ski program due to the holiday, so perhaps Mother Nature will get her act together over the next couple of weeks to bring the conditions up to par for the second half of February. We do have some days of snow coming this week based on the forecast. There aren’t any big storms on the horizon, so we’ll have to see what the mountains do with the more modest events that are currently in the pipeline.

January 31, 2016

Stowe, VT 31JAN2016

An image of the ski groups at the BJAMS ski program at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont as they begin their afternoon program session

An image of Jay, Jack, Emma, and Dylan on the Meadows Quad Chair at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont — Today was Jack and Emma’s first time riding the Meadows Chair and exploring some of the Meadows terrain during the BJAMS ski program at Stowe.

E was short on instructors for our BJAMS ski program at Stowe today, so I took on a different group than my usual cadre of experts. I was with Jack, Emma, and Nolan, who are beginner skiers making generally wedge turns. Dylan came along to help me, and Nolan’s brother Lucas was also able to assist. Although our three beginning students have ridden the Inspiration Chair already, I started them off by ascending the small slope up to the magic carpet to let the kids work on edging. We proceeded with a couple of magic carpet runs to check speed control and wedge turns. That went swimmingly, so we moved to Inspiration and worked on wedge turns until everyone had successfully complete the short course of gates that was set up there. Then, it was on to the Meadows Chair.

Today’s visit to the Meadows Chair was the first for Jack and Emma, so naturally that was very exciting for them. Nolan was able to stick with his brother Lucas, which meant that Dylan and I were able to work with the others and give them specific attention. We took the easiest route down from the top of the Meadows Chair, which included some of the gentle terrain features (banked slalom, humps, spines) that the resort has set up for beginners. Both of the kids did a great job (Jack loves the banked slalom), and this was aided by the superb snow conditions that were available today – temperatures in the 30s F created snow that was beautifully soft but not mushy. Jack and Emma are both pretty much at the Stem Christi stage now, and I was able to start working with Emma on that during our last run after Jack had to leave. She’s in fact already done those types of turns before and is certainly ready to improve upon them, so I think she’ll only be incorporating more and more parallel components into her skiing as the next few weeks progress.

It looks like the coming week will be generally mild with some mixed precipitation, so I suspect the slopes will generally be soft until temperatures drop to more February-like levels. At that point surfaces will likely tighten up, so hopefully plenty of new snow will be on the way.

January 24, 2016January 25, 2016

Stowe, VT 24JAN2016

An image of Dylan skiing some powder snow at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont

An image of ski tracks in powder at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont — The powder from our early week storm was still holding up well at Stowe today, although we did have to travel around a bit to get to it.

We had another beautiful midwinter day on tap today, so I planned to make good use of it with my BJAMS ski group at Stowe. It’s been a few days since our most recent snowstorm, but from my tour yesterday on the Bolton Valley backcountry network, I knew that the powder was holding up well. The only trick on a Sunday afternoon of course was to pay a visit to those lesser-used spots at the resort to get the kids some fresh tracks.

My group today was Ty, Dylan, Luc, Jonah, and Elizabeth, and after they took a quick warm-up run on Sunny Spruce, we met up and headed right over to the Gondola. We worked our way down into the Nosedive Glades, knowing that the main lines would be pretty tracked up at this point, but the snow would be of much higher quality than what would generally be available on piste. The snow was good, and there were still lots of untracked areas to be found if you wanted to venture around a bit of the beaten path, but I knew we’d find plenty of untracked snow on the southern end of the resort so we didn’t belabor the searching at that point. We were pleasantly surprised to find that Nosedive had been hit with a massive amount of manmade snow. There were huge 10-15-foot snow wales all down the slope, and the kids love playing on those, but they were also very impressed with the surface conditions. Instead of worn down scratchy surfaces, everything was chalky manmade, and although not quite as good as natural packed powder, it was really quite pleasant. You could hold an edge anywhere you wanted.

After a trip up the Fourrunner Quad we made our way to the lower angle glades on the southern end of the resort. There will still plenty of areas with untracked snow in the in the Chapel Glades/Birch Glades area, but we continued below that down to the Toll House for long run through the trees with almost limitless powder. The Toll House is a great place to when much of the resort is tracked out, but it’s especially good right now with the snowpack a bit on the low side and Stowe’s steepest glades still a bit too bony for safe skiing.

An image of an ice sculpture at Stowe Mountain Ski Resort in Vermont — The winner of the ice sculpture contest with some impressively spindly legs!

After a good powder session in the Toll House trees (and even trails) we headed back to the Spruce Peak Village in time to make the hot chocolate and s’mores session. They’ve got it right alongside the new ice rink, and it’s a great setting. I took a tour around the rink and surrounding structures and they’ve got some really nice spots for gatherings and events, including a barn-like building at the south end of the rink with a huge fireplace. After our break I took one more run with the kids on Sunny Spruce where we went to some of our favorite powder stashes off the west end of the mountain, and the snow was still holding up well. I’m still impressed at how eminently skiable most of the trees are despite the low snowpack. More snow will obviously continue to open more lines but with the moderate to even semi-steep terrain that we were able to ski today, it’s hard to complain.

January 18, 2016January 19, 2016

Stowe, VT 18JAN2016

An image of breakfast cooking on a griddle at the Great Room Grill at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont

An image of Erica skiing some deep snow in the Nosedive Glades at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont — Mother Nature has been dropping a lot of snow on Mansfield as of late, and the powder continues to build up.

We’re in the midst of a fairly snowy stretch here in the Northern Greens, and thanks to the MLK holiday, E and the boys and I were able to head to Stowe for some skiing today. They’d reported up to 4 inches of new snow overnight, and it was still coming down when we arrived at the mountain in the morning. The continued snow was a welcomed sight, but unfortunately there was also an absolutely brutal wind out there today that came along with it. We parked in the Mansfield lot and made our way to the Over Easy as quickly as possible to get out of the wind and over to the Spruce Peak Base Area.

We had some breakfast at the Great Room Grill while we waited for Jack and Norris, who were the reason that Ty and Dylan were so excited for the day. They were going to head off as a foursome on their own, similar to what they’d done last season. It’s hard to beat hanging with your buddies with total freedom on the slopes. That meant that E and I would get to spend some time skiing alone together, which we haven’t done in quite some time.

“Right on one of the cat tracks I checked with my pole and found a healthy 22 inches of snow above the base. It wasn’t all from the current storm, but boy where you found undisturbed snow it was very deep and bottomless.”

The boys headed on their way up Spruce Peak, and E and I were off to Mansfield to ride the Gondola. It seemed like the way to go with those ferocious winds, and everyone at the resort seemed to have the same idea so there was quite a queue. Winds were actually fairly minimal up at the Cliff House itself thanks to its position below the ridge, but I knew that in general the trees would be the place to go to seek protection. We headed toward the Nosedive Glades and found impressive amounts of powder out there. Right on one of the cat tracks I checked with my pole and found a healthy 22 inches of snow above the base. It wasn’t all from the current storm, but boy where you found undisturbed snow it was very deep and bottomless. We didn’t return to the Gondola due to the queue, but headed over to the Mountain Triple Chair and Fourrunner Quad, which were deserted. We found some excellent snow in the Chapel Glades/Birch Glades area; base depths are easily sufficient for those glades. The powder in undisturbed areas was typically in the range of a foot there, being lower on the mountain. We were warmed up enough after that run that we braved the winds on the Fourrunner Quad, and went back into the Nosedive Glades from the other side because the snow had been so good in there.

An image showing 22 inches of snow in the Nosedive Glades at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont — Deep snow in the Nosedive Glades

We warmed up at the Midway Lodge near the fireplace, and then made another Gondola run to hit some of the terrain in that area since the lift queue had disappeared. We checked out Waterfall and Switchback and found some pretty nice snow. I dipped into a few glades to check them out, and there are some lines that flow, but most need just another storm or two. The boys had called from the Octagon with plans to meet back at the Great Room Grill for lunch, and they made it back well ahead of us and snuck in a bit more skiing on Spruce Peak while they waited.

An image of snowy evergreens in the Nosedive Glades at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont — Tons of snow clinging to the evergreens in the Nosedive Glades

By the time we’d finished lunch it was after 3:00 P.M., but the boys were interested in checking out some of the lines that E and I had skied with the great snow in the Nosedive Glades. Traffic had been pretty light in the afternoon, and with continued snow falling the conditions were excellent. We even sampled a few more glades on the lower mountain on that run; it’s still hit or miss with the current base depths, but there are certainly some decent shots available. On piste conditions were generally a mix of great new snow with a reasonably soft base in areas of low traffic, but firm in areas that had seen typical levels of holiday weekend skiers. Things should only be getting better over the next couple of days with the continued snow; Winter Weather Advisories are already up for the upslope region of the Northern Greens for the snow coming into the area tomorrow.

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