A view of the Village Circle area at Bolton Valley today as temperature begin to edge above the freezing mark and the snow settles
With warming temperatures in the forecast today, I figured the slopes would be softening up, so it felt like a good day for some lift-served skiing. Temperatures were still well below freezing this morning though, so I was unsure how quickly surfaces would soften, and I decided to sharpen the edges on my mid-fat Telemark skis. Last time I really seemed to need edges earlier this month, I found them sorely lacking, so it felt like it was time. I can’t recall the last time I sharpened the edges of those skis, but it has to have been at least a couple of years
Out on the slopes I found an interesting mix of conditions. We’ve had some mountain temperature inversions in place recently, so I actually found some of the softest conditions up high near the summits, while groomed slopes with manmade snow were notably firmer on the lower mountain. While there was nothing that was outrageously icy, it was nice to have the extra sharpness to my edges on the manmade snow.
One exciting thing I saw in the Bolton Valley Snow Report this morning was that resort had finally opened up the Cobrass area, which included Cobrass and nearby trails like Preacher, Devil’s Playground, and Cobrass Woods. Today being my first chance to check out the conditions in that area, I headed right down Cobrass for my first run. Being up near the summit where the warmer temperatures of the inversion had been around for a bit, I found that the snow on Cobrass had already softened up nicely. The skier’s right of the steep upper section had excellent soft snow that had been built up by skier traffic. It was so good that I went right back to it on my next run. I also hit Alta Vista off the Vista Summit, and it was nice, but it didn’t offer up quite as much soft snow as Cobrass.
Fun snow shapes were starting to appear today as the recent snow softens and begins to move around.
We’re moving out of the quiet period of weather that we’ve had over the past several days in a more active regime. The system moving into the area over the next couple of days doesn’t look like it will provide any snow, but the one behind it should give the local mountains their next shot at substantial accumulation, with the potential for upslope snow on the back side.
Erica on Sprig O’ Pine as we enjoy some of Bolton’s great Christmas Eve ski conditions thanks to 8 inches of snow from our most recent Alberta Clipper system
As of their early morning snow report, Bolton Valley had received 8 inches of accumulation from the clipper that began affecting the area yesterday evening, so I headed up for some morning turns with my wife and our younger son. We’re not fully into the holiday week yet, so visitation at the resort was still fairly modest – around the time of the opening of the early lifts, folks were parking in the second and third tiers of the main Village parking areas.
I’d say we found about 8 inches of new snow at most elevations, so that’s right on track with the snow report. The powder was dry, midweight snow – my snow analyses for the storm up to that point came in at 7 to 8 % H2O. Total liquid equivalent from the system stands at 0.42 inches at our site in the valley, so that’s very much in line with the forecasts, and the mountain was probably somewhere in the range of a ½ inch of liquid equivalent. While not enough for a massive resurfacing, it did a decent job of resetting the surfaces atop subsurfaces that are already of decent quality from the past couple of systems.
After a couple days of below average temperatures, we’ve warmed back up into the 20s F now, and with light snow falling and no wind, the weather was fantastic out on the slopes today. We started off with a run on the Vista Quad, and Alta Vista had nice powder and chowder available – it was enough to be bottomless in untouched areas on moderate slope angles. Our timing was perfect for catching the opening of the Wilderness Lift, so we did a couple runs there, then finished off with more runs off Vista and Snowflake. The resort even hit Spillway hard with snowmaking and it’s good to go – my wife and I didn’t ski it, but my son and his friend did and said it was fine for manmade snow.
Conditions on the slopes are certainly good, but the natural snow trails could still use more cover, and the resort will need that to expand terrain into areas where they aren’t making snow. They haven’t yet opened Timberline, most of the Snowflake area, or the Cobrass area, so there’s a lot of terrain still to be made available.
Solidly heavy snowfall at the Bolton Valley base area elevations today gave way to very heavy snowfall coming down at over 2 inches per hour in the summit areas
In Bolton Valley’s lift rotation schedule, today was the first time the Wilderness Chair would be running since the weekend, so it was a good place to be to get in on all the snow that’s fallen in the past couple of days. So, after ski touring yesterday, today seemed like a good opportunity for some lift-served turns with Wilderness thrown in.
It was snowing all the way down to the valleys this morning, but not necessarily accumulating too efficiently in the lower elevations. Up above 2,000’ in the Village though, snow was accumulating easily. Snowfall was moderate and steady in roughly the ½” to 1”/hr. range when I first arrived, but by the time I’d made my first run and worked my way over to Wilderness, it had picked up substantially to somewhere in the 2”/hr. range. It was the type of snowfall that covers you in white flakes in mere moments if you aren’t moving around on the lift enough to shake it off.
Even areas that had been groomed were taking on additional snow and had seen a solid resurfacing from all the recent snows.
As might be expected with substantial snow falling day after day, the ski conditions are excellent out there right now. There’s still firm snow that you can find on piste in high traffic areas and steeper slopes, but just head off to untracked or lightly tracked areas, and you won’t really be interacting at all with the old base. I found that even well-groomed areas could be really nice – my first run down Alta Vista was on the groomed surface, but it hadn’t seen much skier traffic at all, and there had been at least another couple of inches of snow since it was groomed, so the turns were all silky smooth with no noise anywhere. Off piste I found about a foot of powder up in the 3,000’ range, and slightly less down around 2,000’, but there’s enough liquid equivalent in all the new snow now that it will support bottomless turns throughout that elevation range.
Wilderness was skiing really well thanks to the especially low skier traffic in recent days, and they had Bolton Outlaw open, which I hadn’t skied in quite a while. It’s steep enough and has probably seen enough traffic from ski touring that I was still contacting the old base, but I was able to cut over to the steep terrain of the Wilderness Liftline Headwall, and that was nearly untracked and yielded excellent turns. The Wilderness Chair stopped three times in fairly short order when I was nearing the Wilderness Summit on one of my runs, and I thought that it might be due to wind issues, but the lift operator at the base let me know that it was just issues with people loading – apparently they were still working out the shape of the loading ramp there. All that new snow can bring about complications that I never would have thought of.
Evergreens around the mountain today bore the fruits of continued rounds of recent snowfall.
The snowpack in the Northern Greens is in good shape – the depth at the Mt. Mansfield Stake passed 80 inches today, so these recent storms have helped it cruise right above average for this time of year. There’s still more snow in the forecast right through the weekend, so it wouldn’t be surprising if the snowpack depth increased further in the coming days.
The rounds of snow just keep rolling through the area, and the Snow Squall Warning put out by the National Weather Service Office in Burlington is just what you’d expect as the heavy snow hits the western slopes of the Northern Greens
Carving out some sweeping powder turns under the Wilderness Chair in this morning’s fresh snow
This morning I was seeing reports of 2 to 5 inches of new snow for the resorts of the Central and Northern Greens. Snow levels were high; thus, the accumulations were likely to be dense, but that would mean the liquid equivalent could be there for some decent resurfacing of the slopes. I wasn’t sure how much resurfacing would be needed, but the past couple of days have had some spring-like warmth and sun at times, and I haven’t been up to the hill during that period, so there would be plenty for me to discover about the state of the snowpack.
Heading up to Bolton, light rain in the valley didn’t change over to snow until just below 2,000’, so indeed snow levels were relatively high as expected. With the anticipated snow levels, I’d planned to ski out of the main base area, and the elevation of the snow line confirmed that I likely wouldn’t be heading down to the Timberline elevations for my outing.
Gazing up toward the Wilderness Summit obscured in the clouds
The resort only indicated a couple inches of new accumulation in their early morning report, but that was either early and/or from the base elevations, because I found more than that up high. I started off with an Alta Vista run, and I’m not sure when it was groomed, but I’d say 2 to 3 inches of dense powder atop the groomed surface would be a good description of what I found there. Turns there in the untracked snow above the groomed surface were ~75% bottomless on 86 mm mid-fats, so I was occasionally touching down to the firmer surface below, but overall, it was quite a pleasant and surfy experience. Off piste, things were a bit different. At the Wilderness Summit above 3,000’ I measured what seemed to be 5 to 6 inches of new snow, but it was a little challenging to get exact numbers. In many areas off piste, especially up high, the new dense snow has simply bonded into the underlying snowpack, and you can’t find an interface. I can’t say exactly at what elevation that changes, but it’s most pronounced up high where the snowpack has seen fewer, or less intense freeze-thaw processes over the past couple of days. Off piste turns were especially good up in those high elevation areas, but in general I found that everywhere off piste except for the very lowest areas of the main mountain delivered consistent bottomless turns thanks to the dense snow.
The freezing line seem to sit right around 2,200’ for most of the morning while I was there, and that was because the snow got sticky for the last 100’ of vertical on my runs. As midday approached, the freezing line seemed like it began to rise because on my last run I’d say the stickiness of the snow started to appear about 200’ above the base.
A view of the trail map sign and some recent snow accumulations up at the Vista Summit this morning
It was really quiet at the resort this morning, being a random March Friday without a major publicized snowstorm, but I did ride the Vista Quad with a guy who had come up from Northampton, Massachusetts. He’s an Indy Pass owner, his home mountain is Berkshire East, and with Bolton Valley being on the Indy Pass as well, it was a perfect fit for a trip. He said it’s been a rough season down there at Berkshire East, at least in terms of natural snow. Thankfully, they were able to get by fine on snowmaking terrain, but he was blown away by the natural snowpack at Bolton. From about Mid Mountain on up during our lift ride, when the surroundings really started to get white, he could not stop talking about all the snow. He said he really needed this trip for his overall state of mind because it’s been so long since he’s seen snow around his area, and from looking at the Berkshire East Webcams, I can see what he means. He’s really lamenting that fact that he thinks this is only going to continue to get worse with climate change. With the way the last couple of seasons have gone regarding snowfall down in Southern New England, I can understand why it’s so depressing. He’s a passionate backcountry skier as well, and I definitely wanted to ask if he’d considered the idea of relocating to somewhere like NNE or the Rockies etc. with more reliable snowfall, but I didn’t get a chance to go there before our lift ride ended.
Looking ahead on the weather models, it seems like we’ll have snow chances right on through to the end of the month and beyond. That’s typically par for the course during March and April, but getting snow becomes fickler toward the end of the season, and sometimes the supply of new snow just shuts off due to above average temperatures.
A couple of skiers trudge up toward the Vista Quad amidst the very heavy snowfall delivered by our most recent Alberta Clipper system.
The clipper that began affecting the area yesterday evening was definitely potent – by the time I headed up to the mountain early this morning, we’d already picked up 7 inches of new snow at the house. I couldn’t really get a sense for accumulations heading up the Bolton Valley Access Road, but up in the Bolton Valley Village elevations around 2000’ I was measuring 8 inches of new snow. That was definitely a transient number though, because it was snowing at a rate of at least an inch per hour. Visibility was so low in the heavy snowfall that you could only see a distance of about a dozen chairs on the Mid Mountain Lift – beyond that the lift simply disappeared.
A snowcat returning to the operations area as I set off on my morning ski tour from the based of Wilderness
I started off my session with a quick tour up to about 2,500’ using the Wilderness Uphill Route. Powder depths didn’t seem to increase drastically with elevation, as I measured about 9 inches at the 2,500’ level. Being a weekday morning, it was very quiet and I don’t recall seeing another soul until a lone rider appeared as he descended the Wilderness Liftline off in the distance. The Vista Quad had started loading, and the appearance of the rider meant that people were starting their first descents. It was a good sign that it was time for me to descend as well. I descended on Lower Turnpike, which hadn’t seen much skier traffic, so there were plenty of fresh turns to be had. I’d brought my 115 mm fat skis, and they were definitely the right tool for the terrain, keeping me surfing at a nice pace on the lower angle slopes. My analyses from down at the house indicated that we’d picked up about a third of an inch of liquid at that point, and assuming something similar for the mountain, that meant the powder was somewhere in the 3 to 4% H2O range. It offered little resistance with respect to slowing my descent, and fat skis were more than enough to keep the turns bottomless.
A view of the Miso Kome hut as I return from my morning ski tour and the heavy snowfall continued to hit the resortStephen and Johannes head up through the snowfall to meet me at the base of the Vista Quad
After my descent I caught up on texting with my colleague Stephen about getting together for some turns. He and his son were just finishing suiting up in the lodge and they met up with me near the base of the main mountain lifts a few minutes later. We rode the Vista Quad and hit Alta Vista followed by Fanny Hill. The subsurface out there is really firm due to the extended period we recently went through without much snowfall. Aside from the areas of powder along the trail edges, Alta Vista was really firm. Fanny Hill was much better – after the initial steep chute area, the rest of the trail was out of the wind and had seen little skier traffic. It had a mid-angle pitch that skied perfectly for bottomless turns in the available powder. I couldn’t stay too long at the mountain, but from what I was able to sample, that mid-angle terrain was great. You really wanted to be getting fresh tracks though for quality turns – there just wasn’t enough liquid equivalent down at that point to really hold up to multiple skiers before you’d be contacting the base. A third of an inch of liquid can’t go too far in that regard, but thankfully it was midweek, so there were plenty of opportunities for untracked snow.
Winter Storm Heather blasted into the are this morning, with up to 8 inches of new snow already down by midafternoon to set up some great powder skiing at Bolton Valley
It wasn’t even snowing this morning when Ty and I headed off to Burlington for an early appointment, so we knew we’d be giving Mother Nature some time to get rolling and freshen up the slopes. The snow from Winter Storm Heather started up a couple hours later, and by midafternoon we decided to head up to Bolton Valley for some turns.
We were happy to see that the Timberline Quad was running, so were able to park and start our session right there. Snow was simply pouring down at that point, and my initial measurements revealed storm totals of 4-5” at 2,500’ and 6-8” at 3,000’.
Thanks to the arrival of Winter Storm Heather, snow was simply pouring down out of the ski at 1 to 2 inches per hour when we arrived at the Timberline Base today, and it just kept going like that all through the afternoon and into the evening.The tree skiing was excellent today with constant refills of fresh powder thanks to heavy snowfall from Winter Storm Heather.
The snow was light and dry (my past couple of liquid analyses from down here in the valley averaged right around 4% H2O), so it was very high quality powder. With such cold smoke snow, you weren’t getting bottomless turns on steep terrain, but you could on low and moderate angle terrain, and the turns were great even if you were contacting the subsurface.
It was pounding 1-2”/hour snow the entire time we were on the mountain, so one could easily tack on another couple inches or so to the storm totals by closing time, and it even kept snowing into the evening.
Ty drops a knee as he dives into some of the Bolton Valley powder delivered by the start of Winter Storm Ember today.
January snowfall is rolling along now with the appearance of our first major weather system of the month, and thus our first big event of the new year. Winter Storm Ember began to affect the area last night, and Bolton Valley was indicating that an additional 3 to 4 inches of new had fallen as of their early morning report. E and I headed up with Ty a couple hours later to catch the opening of the lifts, and there was probably another inch or two down by that point because it was snowing at a decent clip. Even more notable though was the wind – it was easterly and quite strong, and it was hitting you right in the face while riding the Vista Quad. Combined with temperatures in the teens F, our storm gear was definitely earning its keep and was highly appreciated.
Based on my analyses from the house, the mountain had seen probably about a half inch of liquid equivalent by that point. Combined with the several small storms we’ve had over the past week as we’ve kicked off January, it was a decent contribution to resurfacing, but certainly not at the point where patrol could simply drop the ropes on all the natural snow terrain. The snow was enough to open up certain natural snow areas like the Enchanted Forest, but at that point of the storm there just wasn’t enough liquid equivalent down to get the steepest terrain going. There was plenty of terrain open to enjoy the fresh powder though, and we knew additional trails would open as the storm continued to deliver more snow.
Ty catching some air in the Hide Away terrain park area today as we enjoy the fresh snow from Winter Storm EmberSome midmorning accumulations on the Village snowcat as Winter Storm Ember starts to deliver fresh powder to the slopes of Bolton Valley
In the late morning Ty had to head off to work, but Dylan son and his college friends who are staying over for a mini ski vacation were headed up for some runs, so we got to ski with them. The fierce winds from the morning had abated to essentially nothing, so that made the lift rides much more comfortable. A depth check I made around noontime in undisturbed snow at about mid-mountain elevation revealed 9 inches of surface snow, which was probably the combination of what had fallen from this storm on top of the lighter amounts from our other recent storms.
After we left in the early afternoon, I heard that they began to open some steep terrain like Schuss, so the storm was definitely having an impact on replenishing coverage in areas that needed it. The resort was reporting 9 inches of new snow as of closing bell, but with the way it’s been snowing around here this evening, I’m sure they’ll have picked up more by tomorrow morning.
Dylan sailing his way through a 360 during today’s session with the family up at Bolton Valley. Our most recent spring snowstorm brought excellent conditions for both powder skiing and hitting the terrain parks.
We haven’t seen much snow here in the Northern Greens since last weekend, and from what I’ve heard, the conditions on the slopes haven’t been all that remarkable. A more substantial winter storm started to affect the area yesterday however, and it seemed to hold some promise with respect to putting down several inches of snow in the mountains.
While the storm had only dropped an inch or two of snow down here at our house in the valley as of this morning, that snow contained almost a half inch of liquid equivalent, and with the temperatures being marginal in the lower elevations, it was easy to see that the accumulations were going to be elevation-dependent. The Bolton Valley snow report was only indicating a few inches of new snow as of this morning, but that was enough to at least get us to head up to the hill and check out the conditions. It seemed like a toss-up with respect to whether or not the snow would really be enough to kick the conditions into high gear, but there had to be more than a half inch of liquid equivalent from the storm at elevation, and that’s certainly enough for a decent resurfacing of the slopes.
We parked at Timberline, and right from the start, we were encouraged by what we saw. There were 2 to 4 inches of dense accumulation even at those lowest elevations, and as we rode the Timberline Quad and watched and listened to the skiers below, their relatively quiet turns suggested that the new snow had bonded well to the subsurface. Our plan was to head up to the main mountain, get a good assessment of the conditions at all elevations, and then take it from there. Up at 2,500’ when we got off at the Timberline Summit, it was immediately obvious that the conditions were going to be good. The new snow had clearly put down a resurfacing that was incorporated well into the grooming and created a soft, quiet surface that let you cut right into it with your carves. We next took a trip up the Vista Quad, and the conditions above 3,000’ were even better. The sides of Alta Vista yielded excellent turns, and my depth checks were coming in with 6 to 7 inches of new snow.
We were treated to wintry scenes and great snow all around the resort today compliments of our latest winter storm.
We’d met up with some colleagues from work and their families, and our group spent much of the afternoon roaming around the main mountain, venturing from Vista to Wilderness, with a lot of time spent on Snowflake. The boys were having some great fun on the jumps in the terrain park, and with the usual low traffic of Snowflake, the trails held plenty of untracked lines. When we were over on Wilderness, just about everyone hit the Wilderness Woods and had some great turns, and those of us inclined to hit the trees off Snowflake were treated to run after run of untracked powder through some very nice lines.
We spent a lot of time today catching up on some powder skiing in the trees today, and the conditions were excellent thanks to this most recent winter storm.
We finished off our day with a long run down from the Vista Summit to the Timberline Base, and based on that run it was very evident that the main mountain was the place to be today for the best powder and groomed surfaces. The snow below 2,000’ was still decent, but as we’d seen, the accumulations were a bit less, and the powder a bit denser. Up on the main mountain was definitely where the best snow was located, and skier traffic was quite light. It’s March after all, and since this wasn’t an obvious slam dunk storm cycle, I’m sure there were many folks that opted not to make the trip to the mountain for conditions that probably could have gone either way.
With the dense snow put down by out most recent winter storm, it looks like much of Bolton Valley’s terrain would be set to open with the help of one more wintry system.
I hadn’t been up to the mountain since that fantastic period of skiing from mid-December through the holidays; no major winter storms had come through the area since Winter Storm Elliot, and the skiing just hadn’t seemed good enough to pull me away from other things. That changed with this most recent storm though – Bolton’s snow report from this morning indicated that they’d picked up half foot of new snow in the past couple of days. Although the storm did contain mixed precipitation, it delivered 1.33” of liquid equivalent down here at our site in the valley, with most of that as snow/frozen. Assuming the local mountains exceeded that as they usually do, that’s a storm cycle that has all the makings of a solid resurfacing/base building event.
“…I gave the typical on piste conditions a rating of 2 on a 0 to 10 scale, but I have pretty high snow quality standards…”
With this latest storm, Bolton Valley indicated that the Wilderness Uphill Route was officially open again, which is a good sign that there had been a substantial addition to the snowpack. My observations from today while I was out touring definitely reinforced that notion. With the effects of this most recent storm, the base snow is actually so dense that I couldn’t do any depth checks, but I’d say you’re looking at probably a foot of base depth at the 2,000’ level. If the snow density is that same as what I’ve cored down here at our site in the valley, that would have about 2 inches of liquid equivalent in it. Since the snowpack is just too dense to do any easy depth readings, I don’t have an estimate for the increases of snowpack depth with elevation. The Mt. Mansfield Stake up at 3,700’ is indicating a snowpack depth of 20 inches as of today though, so I’d assume you’re looking at something in that range once you’re up at the local summit elevations above 3,000’.
A view of the Wilderness Chair while out on today’s ski tour
In terms of the skiing, I wasn’t really expecting much real powder with how dense the snowfall was from this past storm; my tour was really a chance to get out for some exercise and see how the off piste snowpack and snow surfaces were looking. I only found about an inch or so of lighter snow above the base, and that was pretty consistent at all elevations in the 2,000’ to 3,000’ range. Snow coverage of the natural terrain is actually quite good though with that impressively dense base, and Lower Turnpike with a good amount of skier-packed areas has great wall-to-wall coverage. Steeper terrain with ledges, obstacles, and wind scouring/drifting is not as consistent in its coverage, but the base snow is just so dense that most of the natural terrain is going to be good to go with the next decent storm. The best snow quality I found was actually in natural snow areas that had been skier packed, since areas of undisturbed/unpacked snow still held the potential to punch through the uppermost layers of the base. On my descent I definitely employed a mix of alpine and Telemark turns, and the safety of alpine turns with that full width of surface area for both skis in the center was the way to go when navigating snow that hadn’t been packed by skiers.
I stuck around for some lift-served skiing since I’d seen that Alta Vista had been opened, and I think it had seen some of the more recent snowmaking, because it had some of the best conditions I found. The best snow by far was what people had pushed to the side, but the main surface was better than elsewhere. Most of the on piste surfaces were typical of what you’d expect for manmade snow that had seen lift-served skier traffic, so really nothing to note in terms of quality. When I got home and Dylan asked me about the conditions, I gave the typical on piste conditions a rating of 2 on a 0 to 10 scale, but I have pretty high snow quality standards, so he knows where a value of 2 would stand. Even without any big storms over the past couple of weeks, the resort has been expanding their terrain with runs like Spillway, and they were blowing snow on Hard Luck as well. The recent snow was substantial enough that even some natural snow terrain had been opened. Surprisingly, they don’t have to lower areas of Wilderness open yet to lift-served access, which is pretty typical under these conditions, but they would need to groom it first, so that may take some extra time.
Even if the snow quality isn’t there yet in terms of typical Northern Greens surfaces, it was definitely nice to get back on the slopes after the break. We had light snow falling during the morning with some blue skies, and some nice snow/rime on the trees. With that base in place, terrain is likely to expand heavily if these next couple of potential systems in the coming week deliver any substantial snow.
Another beautiful rime-covered tree with the clock tower in the background at the Bolton Valley Village Circle
Ty was out with us for some Telemark skiing today, and reported that he was making some of his best Tele turns that he could recall!
With the snow from this latest storm, E and I headed up to Bolton for a session today with Ty, who’s back from school on spring break. We got to the mountain reasonably early, with some concern about how the powder was going to hold up as the day warmed, but even as of midday that wasn’t a concern at elevation. It was probably in the 20s F when we arrived, and combined with the breeze, it was chilly. It was excellent touring weather, and the powder stayed cold and dry. Even at midday, the higher elevation snow was dry, although snow in the mid to lower elevations in directly sunlight was starting to be affected by the sun.
The mountain was reporting 4 inches of new snow, but I’d say that was a fairly conservative report – I was finding 5-6” new at the 2,000’ elevation, and as much as 8” up above 3,000’. We started our session with a tour at Wilderness up to ~2,800’ or so. Wilderness is 100% natural snow, so the decent amount of base in many spots was impressive, but the usual windswept or sunny spots were lean on coverage. Those areas of lean coverage were fine for grassy and/or low angle slopes, but you wouldn’t have wanted to tackle anything steep that didn’t have existing base.
I’d say the very best snow we encountered yesterday was on Alta Vista – the ridgeline and skier’s right of the headwall were windswept as usual, but the protected left side of the headwall held some nice, semi-packed snow. Below that though was the real gold mine. They had groomed the skier’s left of the trail, but the skier’s right held about 8 inches of chowder that was mostly bottomless, and we couldn’t believe how good the skiing was there. We were wishing they hadn’t groomed anywhere if it could have meant the snow would have been like that. The Vista Quad was on wind hold until about midday though, so we were up on Alta Vista not too long after the lift started running, and I think that helped set up the incredible snow quality there.
We found some great areas of midwinter snow out the mountain today in areas of the main mountain where good base was still in place.
It was great to catch a day of skiing with Ty while he was back. Although he’s got plenty of breaks between Thanksgiving, the long holiday break, sinter break, and spring break, you still never know when schedules and good snow might line up. Ty said today was probably his best Telemark day ever in terms of comfort level and confidence with his turns, so that was exciting to hear. He’s still learning and improving, even at this age. He also finally got to visit the Miso Toh Kome stand for the first time, and he’s a total sushi fiend, so he loved it. I’ve been sending him pictures every time I’ve gotten food from there over the past few weeks to build it up… and maybe give him a bit of a hard time about missing out as well!
