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Bolton Valley, VT 06MAR2011

An image of snowy evergreen branches
Snow was quickly turning the area into a wintry scene both up on the mountain and down in the valley.

E and her co-director decided to cancel ski program at Stowe today due to so many parents being concerned about the large incoming storm, so I popped up to Bolton Valley for a bit this afternoon to see how some of the new snow was taking hold.  The conditions were actually quite nice, as the new snow is dense and it seems to be bonding to the old snow as it cools down.  I skied Hard Luck, which is fairly steep, and although I was certainly touching down on the old snow at times, even that was reasonably pliable and the new dense stuff was providing quite a ride even on pitches in the 30-degree range.  I followed up with Beech Seal, smiling the whole way as I ripped fresh snow down the deserted slopes.  I didn’t get any images of the new snow from up on the mountain, but I grabbed a shot out back at the house when I was making my weather observations at 4:30 P.M., and the snowy branches were representative of how the trees were starting to look up on the mountain.  For all the details, check out the full report from up at Bolton today.

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Cochran’s Ski Area, VT 05MAR2011

Image of the trails at Cochran's ski area
Looking at some of Cochran's terrain from the base

We were around in Stowe for a bit today but in the afternoon we made our way over to Cochran’s Ski Area in Richmond to check out their 50th anniversary celebration.  They had 1961 throwback ticket pricing, so tickets were just 25¢ per person.  Everyone in the family went with their Telemark skis, and the boys had fun working on their turns.  Cochran’s is 9 miles down the Winooski Valley from our location, and the base elevation is fairly low.  At only 500 feet, it’s at the same elevation as our house.  Being down in the lower elevations, I’m not sure where temperatures were at in the high country today, but at Cochran’s and in the other lower elevation valleys they were in the 40s F.  We only skied on piste, but the snow was a good soft consistency, certainly somewhat spring-like, and it offered great carving.  To read the rest of the text and see all the pictures, go to the Cochran’s Ski Area report from today.

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Stowe, VT 27FEB2011

Image of Dylan skiing powder at Stowe
Dylan getting buried in powder in the trees around Freddie's Chute

We were up at Stowe today for our usual Sunday session, and since it’s the tail end of vacation week, many people were absent.  Our group had just Ty, Jack, and Dylan, but we also had Mike Cannon as one of the group’s coaches, and with his immense knowledge of Spruce and Mansfield he brought us to plenty of great shots.  Not too surprisingly, we found conditions to be much like Bolton’s, with untouched areas typically yielding between 12 to 18 inches of powder thanks to our recent storm.  We skied glade after glade with Mike, and the steepest and highest traffic areas are certainly down to the firm base leftover from those couple of warm days a bit over a week ago.  However, outside of those spots it was easy to find areas with either untracked or soft chowder.  To read the full text and see all the pictures, check out the full Stowe report from today.

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Bolton Valley, VT 26FEB2011

Image of Dylan skiing powder
Dylan blasting the powder in Doug's Solitude

After earning turns and skiing with Stephen and Johannes in the early morning, I headed back to the house for a bit after that session, picked up E and the boys, and we caught up with Stephen and Johannes later in the morning to hit the powder for the rest of the day.  We had some light snow and sunshowers in the later morning and early afternoon from yet another small weather system that was pushing through, and then more sunshine as the afternoon wore on.  We got into plenty of that famous Vermont fluff, and all the boys seemed to have a good time.  Click through to see all the picture and read the full report from today at Bolton.

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Bolton Valley, VT (Timberline) 26FEB2011

Image of Stephen skiing on Spell Binder
Stephen getting some earned turns on Spell Binder

I headed up for an early, pre lift-service session at Bolton this morning with Stephen and Johannes.  We ascended Twice as Nice and hit Spell Binder for first tracks.  On the headwall the snow was a little tricky due to some mid-storm skier traffic yesterday, as well as the wind that had picked up in the evening.

The skiing was still decent, even if not entirely bottomless on the headwall.  Once we were lower down and out of the wind, the snow quality took a big jump up and anything untracked was just what one would expect.  It wasn’t the lightest of the light in terms of Northern Vermont Champlain Powder™, but my analyses from yesterday indicated 5-6% H2O at our place down in the valley, and I’d say it easily skied like that as long as the wind hadn’t gotten to it.  Click through to read the full report from today.

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Bolton Valley, VT 25FEB2011

Image of Dylan skiing powder
Dylan blasting down Tattle Tale

It was back on Wednesday when our current winter storm started coming into focus, but at that point the snow totals were still somewhat in question.  However, by the yesterday/today timeframe it was looking like the local mountains could see a good foot of snow, so prospects for getting some powder on the slopes were promising.  It actually hadn’t even started snowing when I left the house this morning around 6:45 A.M., but by the time I left Burlington sometime after 11:00 A.M. they’d picked up about 4 inches, and here at the house I found 6.3 inches at noontime.  That meant that the snow was coming down at over an inch an hour in the valley, so up on the mountain they were likely getting blasted.

E and the boys didn’t have school, so around 1:00 P.M. once we were sure that the powder was building, we headed up to Bolton to get in some storm day skiing.   When we first arrived at Timberline, the snowfall was moderate and the flakes were fairly small, but flake size and snowfall intensity were picking up.  We started off with some Spell Binder, and the boys were clearly enjoying the powder with the enthusiastic comments coming out of them such as Ty’ “Beautiful Beauty”, and Dylan’s “That’s Talking Powder”; they were certainly original if not extremely descriptive.  I did my first depth check on the new snow about halfway down Spell Binder, where the tally was 11 inches.  For more pictures and the full story, click through to the full report from today at Bolton Valley.

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Bolton Valley Nordic & Backcountry, VT 21FEB2011

Image of Ty skinning on the Bryant Trail
Ty skins up the Bryant Trail and checks out the powder

Temperatures warmed up above freezing at all elevations in Northern Vermont at the end of last week, so we waited for the powder to build up over the long weekend before finally heading out this afternoon for turns.  We had three small systems that dropped snow over the holiday weekend; down at the house we picked up 3.7 inches of snow in the form of 0.21 inches of liquid, and Bolton was reporting 5 inches of snow in the higher elevations.  The new powder at the house had settled down to about 2 to 3 inches over the old base, so we knew there would be at least that much up on the mountain.  Temperatures wound up being colder than we thought, but the powder was nice – we found 3 to 4 inches of settled powder in the lower village portion of the network at around 2,000’, and up at the Bryant Cabin elevation (~2,700’) the depths of new snow were 4 to 5 inches.  It turned out to be plenty of fluff for the low and moderate angle pitches, so many nice powder turns were had, and it was also the first time that the boys had skinned all the way up to the cabin.  Dylan had some binding issues near the bottom of the run, so I had to help him through and he got quite a ride.  Read about the entire adventure in the full backcountry trip report from today.

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Stowe, VT 13FEB2011

Image of Ty skiing in the trees at Stowe
Ty playing around in the powder in the trees off Freddie's Chute

Today we were back at Stowe Mountain Resort for our weekly BJAMS  ski program day.  There was some light to moderate snow during the day for a short time, but nothing in terms of accumulation that established any powder on the trails.  Conditions were still excellent, with packed powder on piste and powder off piste, and while the most popular off piste places had seen enough traffic that they featured packed or tracked snow, untracked powder was easy to find.  We played around in the trees on Spruce Peak and had a good time, even if the powder was a bit old.  The snowpack is well past that stage where the off piste is sufficiently covered, and after finally getting in on a couple of synoptic storms, things are now at the stage where brush is becoming so buried that most hardwood areas between trails, even those that don’t receive trimming attention, have opened up enough for turns.  We were finding that aside from zones with tight evergreens etc., you’d just poke your head in the trees and go.  Click through to get to the full report from Stowe today.

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Bolton Valley, VT 12FEB2011

Image of Dylan dropping a cliff into the powder
Dylan drops in on "Dylan's Drop-Off" in the KP Glades area today at Bolton Valley

It hasn’t been an extremely snowy week, but we did have at least a modest storm in the Tuesday timeframe that dropped 3.6 inches of snow at the house and close to a foot of snow on Bolton Valley.  Still, that was back on Tuesday, and things would be getting somewhat tracked up by the weekend, so our plan was to head up to Bolton’s backcountry network with the boys to get in some easy access powder.  That idea changed quickly though, when we got a call from James, who was planning to head up to Bolton with Tom and Amy.  We still found plenty of powder on terrain serviced by the lifts, and it even snowed and squalled at times to keep surfaces fresh, so a good time was had by all.  For all the details and pictures, click through to the full report from Bolton Valley today.

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Stowe, VT 06FEB2011

Image of Ty skiing at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont
Ty making good use of his wider skis as he hits steep powder above Green Acres

We were at Stowe all day today and got to experience the skiing associated with last night’s thundersnow event.  The snow was certainly dense, very much like Cascade Concrete/Sierra Cement etc., and one typically sunk down into the powder only a few inches when skiing it, but there didn’t appear to be any detrimental effects from whatever mixed precipitation fell.  While not the top of the line snow for fluffy powder skiing, we picked up 7.6 inches of snow down at the house comprised of 0.99 inches of liquid, and the Bolton Valley through Jay Peak area picked up about a foot, so it was a good shot of moisture to add to the base.  There was also a touch of wind crust in exposed areas, but in general the skiing was awesome and it was a nice day for some reasonably fat boards as Ty demonstrated.  Thanks to the hearty snow, coverage on steep terrain was really nice, so the boys had several runs in the Green Acreas area.  To read more about the day and see all the pictures, click through to the full report from today at Stowe.