Bolton Valley, VT 02JAN2021 (A.M.)

An image of the Mid Mountain Double Chair disappearing into the clouds on a snowy morning at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
An image of snow falling from Winter Storm John in the Village area at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
There was quite the wintry vibe at Bolton Valley this morning as snow continued from Winter Storm John.

With the influx of snow that the area has seen from Winter Storm John since yesterday, the snow conditions improved dramatically this weekend.  Based on the liquid equivalent we picked up here at the house, I bet the local mountains picked up something in the range of ¾” of liquid, which is a game-changer relative to where things were before.

On Saturday morning I decided to go for my first lift-served turns of the season at Bolton Valley.  Only the main mountain is open at this point, since coverage is still too thin down at the lower elevations of Timberline.  It was snowing steadily with some big flakes when I arrived at the mountain, and I found about 4 to 5 inches of new accumulation in the Village areas at 2,000’.  The snowfall tapered off to light snow during the midmorning period, but really picked up to some heavy inch/hr snowfall when I was leaving a bit before noon.  That was when the back side of the storm was coming through, and the wind jumped up a bit there, but prior to that the weather was fantastic with temperatures just a bit below freezing and no wind.  There was obviously some surface snow in place from previous systems because I was generally finding powder depths of 6-9” at the 2,400’ level.  Skiing was good, with enough snow to resurface low to moderate angle slopes, and listening to skiers and riders on that terrain you’d hear absolutely nothing.  On higher angle slopes you could still hear contact with the old base snow, so it was obvious that ¾” of liquid can only do so much with holiday levels of skier traffic.

The conditions had seen such an uptick relative to where they’ve been the past week that I had to head back up for a tour on Wilderness in the afternoon!

An image of some condominiums with snow falling from Winter Storm John at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
Another shot of the snow falling from Winter Storm John this morning when I was up in the Village area at Bolton Valley.

Bolton Valley, VT 24DEC2020

An image of Erica standing in the Bolton Valley Village circle area with some skis after a Telemark ski tour at the resort
An image of snow on the roof of one of the condominium complexes in the village at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
A view from the Bolton Valley Village today

Erica and I headed up to Bolton Valley this morning to potentially get in a bit more powder skiing ahead of today’s warming temperatures.  The real warmth wasn’t expected to come into the area until later in the day today, but it was already above freezing at the base elevations when we began our tour around 9:00 A.M. or so.

The Wilderness skin track was in great shape, but the snow on Lower Turnpike definitely looked like it had been worked in a bit more compared to what I saw on yesterday’s tour.  There were more people out touring in the area today, and we figured it was because so many more people had time off for Christmas Eve.

My initial plan was to tour up to near 3,000’ and get into some powder like yesterday, but E was looking for a shorter tour than that, and once we discovered that the powder was already getting somewhat wet, we just toured up to below the Cougar headwall as our apex.

Turns on the packed areas of Lower Turnpike were quite good, with just a touch of stickiness in spots.  I occasionally checked out the powder along the sides of the trail, but it was starting to get wet enough that the packed areas were generally the better experience.  Had I known that the rising temperatures had already affected the powder, I probably would have just brought midfats instead of my fat Tele skis.

An image of the exterior of the Mad Taco restaurant location at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont

We headed back to the car through the Village Circle, and were reminded again about the Mad Taco outpost right in the Village.  We’re definitely going to have to take advantage of the opportunity to get some of their food from the Bolton site – that’s the closest Mad Taco branch for us.

Our area is going to be in the warm sector for much of the next storm coming into the area today, but we’ve got more chances for snow during the holiday week.

Bolton Valley, VT 23DEC2020

An image of a snow-covered tree against a brilliantly blue sky in the background at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
An image of a ski track in powder snow after some small storms dropped 8 to 10 inches at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
This morning’s ski tour revealed some excellent ski conditions with up to 8-10″ of powder on the upper mountain in undisturbed areas.

Today turned out to be sort of a bit of a midwinter gem, which is pretty nice considering winter just started.  I hadn’t expected it to be quite so stunning, but with the recent snows, it was clearly a good day to head up to Bolton for a tour and check out how the powder had settled in.

In the morning, before any clouds rolled it, the sun and sky were simply brilliant.  And that’s the first thing I noticed when I got out of the car at the mountain.  And I couldn’t believe how hot the sun felt.  We’re up near 45 N latitude, and this time of year is just about as low a sun angle as we get, so all I can think is that I’m just not used to actually having the sun shining on my face.  I had a 23% VLT lens in my goggles, figuring that sure, it was sunny, but it’s late December way up here in the north.  Well, I could have easily gone with something sub-10% VLT; it was that bright.

“The powder definitely exceeded expectations today – I found settled depths of roughly 5-7” above the subsurface at 2,000’, and many spots with 8-10” up near 3,000’.”

The powder definitely exceeded expectations today – I found settled depths of roughly 5-7” above the subsurface at 2,000’, and many spots with 8-10” up near 3,000’.  I initially couldn’t figure out where all of it had come from, but then I realized that since the 4-5” from Winter Storm Gail, it’s just continued to snow with these past couple of smaller systems.

An image of someone pushing a stroller on snow with a ski on the front wheel at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
Out for a snow stroll around the base area

The Wilderness skin track was in excellent shape, and it almost looked like the resort had groomed the adjoining Turnpike trail because it was so smoothly packed.  It’s possible that it was just very nicely packed by skier traffic, but for folks looking for groomed turns in the Wilderness area, it’s good to go.

Off the main route though, there was tons of untracked powder available, and it was definitely right-side-up, midwinter quality stuff.  That synoptic snow from Winter Storm Gail, topped off with the drier snow from these last couple of systems has really put together a quality surface.  Low-angle stuff is good to go, and even moderate-angle slopes are nice if the snow is protected from the wind and there hasn’t been any skier traffic.  Above those angles though, the snowpack is definitely not ready yet; the base is just not deep enough.

An image of the exterior of the Mad Taco restaurant location at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
We can’t wait to try out the Mad Taco outpost that they’ve added to Bolton Valley this season!

It’s going to be interesting to see how things play out for this next week.  This next storm looks to consolidate the base, and there are a couple of potential systems behind it that could make some nice conditions atop that if they came to fruition on the snowy side of things.

Bolton Valley, VT 17DEC2020

An image showing the logo for the Outdoor Gear Exchange store on a roof-top ski box of a nearby car while skiing at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont
An image showing an evergreen with a bit of the snow picked up at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont from Winter Storm Gail
An evergreen captures a bit of the snow picked up today at Bolton Valley from Winter Storm Gail

The weather models have been showing a potentially substantial east coast snowstorm system for probably a week.  For much of the time, it looked like more of a Mid-Atlantic event, and I hadn’t really been paying any attention to it, but then Phin stopped in the Northern New England Winter Thread at American Weather Forums and gave us a heads up that we shouldn’t be sleeping on this storm, even up in the north.  Ultimately, Winter Storm Gail did have its greatest impacts north of the Mid-Atlantic Region, with parts of Upstate New York and central New England getting in on an incredible band of snow.  There were numerous reports across that band of storm totals exceeding 40 inches, and reports of as much as four feet of snow in parts of New Hampshire.

Up here in Northern Vermont, I hadn’t been expecting to ski this storm at all, but as the models revealed a more northward trend in guidance, it looked like we were going to get something out of it.  Indeed, by midday I’d recorded over four inches of snow, and nearly half an inch of liquid equivalent from it.  Snowfall with a half inch of liquid definitely has enough substance to get some floatation above the base, so I figured it was worth a quick tour to see how conditions were faring up at Bolton.  They’ve got the extra elevation to potentially enhance the snowfall even more, but they’re also a few miles farther to the northwest of our site, and the farther north and west one went with this system the more the accumulations quickly drop off.  Once up at the mountain, accumulations I found at 2,000’ in the Village were 4-5”, so roughly the same as what we picked up here at the house.

That was more than enough to make the powder skiing quite nice on low angle terrain though – on my 115 mm fat skis the turns were smooth and bottomless with the snow that had just fallen.  We still haven’t had a big, 1”+ liquid equivalent storm affect the Northern Greens yet this season, so base snow is still pretty meager.  There were a few inches of base snow left at 2,000’, with some variability and patchiness, but it’s still probably too inconsistent for steeper pitches or areas down around 1,500’.  We’ve got a couple smaller round of snow in the forecast over the next couple of days though, so those should help bolster that overall snow in the higher elevations.  Temperatures are expected to be single digits and even below zero F in the coming days, so snowmaking should be taking off as well to enhance the manmade base in areas of the resort.

Bolton Valley, VT 12DEC2020

A scene with a couple pairs of skis on a ski rack and some snowy rocks in the background at the main base area at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
An image of some skiers ascending the skin track on the Turnpike trail at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
A few folks on the Turnpike skin track today as we were out enjoying the pleasant ski conditions at Wilderness

The midweek system that brought nearly a foot of snow to the mountains had produced some excellent turns on Thursday, so I decided to head back up to the mountain today with E for a quick tour in the Wilderness area.  Warmer weather is expected to move into the area over the next couple of days, so this morning seemed like the best time to get in on the remaining powder before it consolidated too much.

Being a weekend, there were a good number of people out on the hill, and we saw several groups using the Wilderness skin track and enjoying the nice weather.  We toured up to around the Cougar area, and enjoyed a nice descent on Lower Turnpike.  Much of the trail was skier-packed snow after a couple days of ski traffic, but it was a really nice packed surface with soft snow and temperatures in the lower 30s F.  There was even powder remaining around on the sides of the trail that I was able to hop into for some floaty turns.  The power was getting a little thick with warming temperatures, but it was definitely serviceable.  There were certainly a few thin spots here and there, and one had to pick their spots for traversing the water bars, but obstacles were minimal enough that avoiding them could easily be worked into the flow of your turns for an enjoyable down mountain ride.

Bolton Valley, VT 10DEC2020

An image of the village circle area at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont after a small December snowstorm
An image of fresh snow with some buried ski tracks from a small December snowstorm at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
One of the beautiful scenes from Bolton Valley this morning, showing a few old ski tracks on Lower Turnpike

Yesterday, an upper-level disturbance/Alberta Clipper-style system began to affect our area, and as of this morning, Bolton Valley was reporting 4-8” of new snow in the past 24 hours, and 10” in the last 48 hours.  Although we haven’t had too much base snow yet this season, those accumulations, as well as the view on the Bolton Valley Main Base Webcam, suggested that there was enough snow out there for a tour.

Temperatures up in the Bolton Valley Village were in the upper 20s F, and I generally found 7-10” inches of snow from the Village elevations upward.  There’s decent substance to the snow (i.e. it’s not just fluff), but as expected, there’s really not too much base below that snow from what I saw.  I just don’t think there was any dense snow, or rain-affected snow that had a chance to consolidate below these most recent accumulations.  The snow quality is good though; the snowpack I encountered was right-side up with some medium weight density snow below fluffier powder on top.

Here are the snow depths I observed from the bottom of the Bolton Valley Access Road and up above the Bolton Valley Village:

340’:  2”
1,000’:  3-4”
1,500’:  4-5”
2,000’:  7”
2,500’:  8-9”
2,700’:  9-10”

Roughly 2,700’ was as high as my tour took me today, so I can’t provide observations above that level, but snow depths probably would have increased a bit more with elevation.

An image of fresh snow on an evergreen bough after a December snowstorm at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
Some of the recent snow on a spruce bough

I’m surprised to see a depth of only 8” at the Mt. Mansfield Stake at 3,700’ as of the most recent report, but I’m not sure when that depth was last updated.  Based on the amount of liquid equivalent that seemed to be in the snow, and the sub-freezing temperatures up there, this would likely be the start of the winter snowpack unless we get a really warm/wet, long-duration event.  Consolidating the snow that’s there right now and/or adding some water to it would certainly help form a base.  We certainly want to get in a decent synoptic winter storm to substantiate the base, but the mountains have got at least a minimal start with this system.  I’m not sure if the snow we have in the valleys around here is quite enough to mark the start the season’s snowpack, but it’s possible.  We’ll see what the next couple of weeks bring as we head into the busy holiday season.

Bolton Valley, VT 03NOV2020

An image of snow on a Jack-o'-lantern from an early November snowstorm in Waterbury, Vermont
An image of a bike trail sign at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont while out on a ski tour at the mountain during an early November snowstorm
Views of autumn clashing with winter while I was out on a ski tour at Bolton Valley today

Last week we had an early season storm that dropped some snow up here in Northern New England, and some notable amounts down in Southern New England.  Looking beyond that event, there was a signal for some snow in the Northern Greens developing by Thursday, that signal continued to grow on Friday, and by Saturday, the National Weather Service in Burlington was calling for a foot of snow in the local peaks.

It was hard to tell if we were going to see one extended storm during the Sunday through Tuesday, or a couple of discrete systems, but by Sunday afternoon, snow had started in the mountainsThe precipitation started as rain down here in the valley, with fairly high snow levels, but we had changed to snow at our house by yesterday morning.  E told me that the snow had started around 5:10 A.M., and the snowfall at our house continued at roughly an inch per hour all morning.

The snow tapered off in the afternoon, and then in the evening, the second system came into the area.  That storm delivered another several inches overnight, and in the morning, I head up to Bolton for a ski tour.

In terms of the ski conditions it was certainly a fairly typical early season affair, and I’d say waiting for that second storm to put down the extra snow was the way to go.  I opted to tour up at the main base, and there were clearly at least a couple more inches of settled depth up there (~2,000’) vs. what I found at the Timberline Base (~1,500’).

I could tell from the get go as I was ascending the Lower turnpike skin track and watching other skiers descend there, that the density of the snow was going to call for more moderate angle terrain vs. low angle terrain.  The snow was fairly medium weight powder, which was of course good with respect to providing some base for skiing.  There was obviously no existing snowpack below these storms, so if these recent snow had been 2-4% H2O champagne, there would have been a lot of dicey contact with the ground.  But, this medium weight snow was dense enough that there was just too much resistance for low angle terrain – skiers and riders had to straight line their way down and/or use old tracks to keep moving on those angles.

An image of a snow shower down in the Champlain Valley taken from the top of Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont
Viewing a snow squall in the Champlain Valley from the top of Bolton Valley.

Here’s the settled snow depth profile I observed during my tour:

340’: 4”

1,000’: 4-6”

1,500’: 6-8”

2,000’: 8-10”

2,500’: 10-12”

3,000’: 12”+

Terrain in the medium to low-angle range was required for solid turns, and that meant that it was a balancing act between choosing terrain that had enough pitch for turns, but not too much pitch that you were going to be outskiing the available snow depth.  There was also the factor of finding relatively protected terrain – that first storm especially, had some ridiculous winds, and scouring of the exposed slopes was rampant.

An image of snow accumulations in the Village area of Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont after an early November snowstorm
Down in the Bolton Valley Village today

So, good knowledge of the local terrain was important, but once you found the appropriate setup there were some nice midwinter powder turns to be had.  There was as always that exercise of not going too steep, aggressive, or rocky to outperform the available snow, so of course having knowledge of those grassier options was important in providing the best ski experience.

It was a solid first day out at the mountain, and it looks like we’ve got some warmth coming in the next week or so before we have any additional chances for snow.

One more round of October snow for Vermont

An image of Mt. Mansfield in Vermont taken from the Burlington area in late October showing some valley foliage and snow in the mountain peaks from a recent storm
An image of Mt. Mansfield in Vermont taken from the Burlington area in late October showing some valley foliage and snow in the mountain peaks from a recent storm
An image of Mt. Mansfield today taken from my office at UVM showing signs from the recent storm and fall foliage still hanging on in the valley.

The local mountains picked up some more snow in what looks to be our final snowfall event for the month of October.  Down here in the valley at our house, I found a few flakes on my snow measurement board yesterday evening, but no measurable accumulation.  This storm was more notable down in Southern New England where there were totals up around 7 inches in the Worcester, Mass area.

Powderfreak got a beautiful picture of the slopes of Stowe Mountain Resort today, which he posted in the Northern New England thread at the American Weather Forums.  I grabbed a shot of Mt. Mansfield from the other side of the range when I was in my office today because it was so great to see the snow starting to come back to the peaks.

Snow for the valleys in northern Vermont

An image of October snow on a picnic table in Waterbury, Vermont
An image of October snow on a picnic table in Waterbury, Vermont
I woke up this morning to find snow accumulating on grassy and elevated surfaces like this picnic table on our deck. It’s the first accumulation we’ve seen in the valley this season!

I woke up this morning to find snow on the grass and elevated surfaces at our house, most notably our picnic table out back on the deck.  This was the first snow I’ve seen at our house this season, and although our weather forecast did suggest there was some potential for accumulation, you never quite know how it’s going to play out in marginal situations like this one.

In any event, the snow stuck even down here at 500’, so it should have easily accumulated in the higher elevations.  I measured 0.6” on the boards at observations time, and it did look like it could have melted some since the point at which most of it fell.

This is about a week on the late side for average occurrence of first frozen precipitation here at our house, but just a day off for the average date of first accumulating snow, so it’s very typical in that regard.

Details from the 6:00 A.M. Waterbury observations:

New Snow: 0.6 inches

New Liquid: 0.09 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 6.7

Snow Density: 15.0% H2O

Temperature: 34.0 F

Sky: Light Rain/Snow (1-2 mm flakes)

Snow at the stake: 0.5 inches

Accumulating snow for the mountains of Vermont

An image of the Mt. Mansfield Chin in Vermont with some early season October snow
An image of foliage in the Newport, VT area along Lake Memphremagog with the mountain Owl's Head visible off in Canada.
Foliage in the Newport, VT area along Lake Memphremagog with the mountain Owl’s Head visible off in Canada.

A low pressure system moving along the coast of New England brought a chance for some accumulating snow to Vermont starting last night, and white could be seen in the peaks this morning.  The snow line over here in Vermont seemed to be around 2,500’, with a very sharp elevation cutoffAccumulations were 3-4” up around 4,000’ on Mt Mansfield, and similar atop Jay Peak.  I heard reports of some frozen precipitation up high earlier this season, but this was the first notable accumulation around here.  Off to the east over in New Hampshire and Maine, the snow line was much lower, and accumulations were even more substantial.  Some accumulations in northern New Hampshire were over a foot.

An image of the Mt. Mansfield Chin in Vermont with some early season October snow
The Mt. Mansfield Chin today with some early season October snow

While in many areas around the state, the leaves have mostly fallen and it’s looking like stick season, there are still a lot of beautiful scenes with fall foliage.  We were up in Newport today for a soccer game, and the views of foliage along Lake Memphremagog were beautiful.