A view of the snowpack and the skin track as I make my way up into the Gotham City area during today’s ski tour
Today was another chance to take advantage of the new snow from Winter Storm Ronnie, and I had time in the morning to head up to the mountain for some turns. Based on the incredible numbers of visitors yesterday, I figured that untracked lines would be few and far between on the lift served terrain, so I decided to hit the Bolton Valley Nordic & Backcountry Network for a ski tour and get some exercise.
The morning weather was very similar to what we’d been gifted yesterday – sunny, with little wind and temperatures a bit below freezing. I didn’t have time to head all the way up to Bryant Cabin, but I was able to go for a nice loop up the Bryant Trail, onto Coyote, and then up to Gotham City on my tour. With the number of visitors yesterday, I thought that even the backcountry terrain might be heavily tracked up, but that wasn’t the case – there had been a moderate amount of activity, and plenty of untracked lines remained.
There was excellent powder to be found, and I’d say it was just as good as yesterday – if it was protected from the sun. Even with temperatures generally below freezing yesterday, the clear and sunny skies with that late March sun angle were too much for the snow. I suspect the situation was somewhat better if you went high enough in elevation, but least in the 2,000’ to 2,500’ elevation band where I was skiing, areas that had seen direct sun had a substantial sun crust. The effect of the sun was potent enough that it absolutely wrecked the powder skiing in those exposed areas, and it was such a thick and semi-breakable crust in places that the skiing was extremely challenging there. Thankfully, if you skied shaded snow, the powder was in beautiful shape, so I certainly stuck to those lines as much as possible. We’ll likely be warming up at all elevations this week with some spring-like weather, but we may have another substantial storm cycle coming in next week to bring back more spring powder skiing.
A Google Earth map with GPS tracking data from today’s ski tour on the Bolton Valley Nordic & Backcountry Network
Carving some tracks in glades on the Nordic & Backcountry Network during this afternoon’s ski tour
The system that’s been affecting our area over the past day or so really started to crank up yesterday evening, delivering some periods of heavy snowfall up in the 1”/hr. range with large flakes. By this morning we’d picked up about a half foot of snow from the system here at our site in the valley, so that obviously called for a check on the Bolton Valley snow report, and I wasn’t surprised to learn that they were reporting 10 inches of accumulation.
I was busy in the morning, but I was able to head up to the resort in the afternoon for some turns. The precipitation was snow all the way down to the valley floors, but afternoon temperatures were in the 30s F, so it wasn’t really accumulating until up in the resort elevations where the temperatures were below freezing. Being a Tuesday, the Wilderness Chair wasn’t running, so I was torn between touring on Wilderness or in the Bryant Trail area. When I arrived up in the Village to find that people were parking even in the lower tiers of the main lot, it was obvious that a lot of folks were interested in getting out for afternoon and evening turns on the lift-served terrain, so I figured the Backcountry Network was the best bet.
A copy of Bolton Valley’s Nordic & Backcountry trail map which lists the trails and many of the official glades
Just as I was heading out toward the Bryant Trail on my tour, I saw a group of 6 to 8 skiers returning from a tour of their own, and one of the guys spoke to me as he passed. He said, “Have fun, it’s amazing out there!” That’s probably a good omen at the start of a tour, and of course, his words were 100% on point.
The scene off Heavenly Highway as I get ready to start my descent on this afternoon’s ski tour
Ascending the Bryant Trail, it was immediately obvious that the powder was in fantastic shape. The only blemishes I could really detect were a couple of areas with a bit of sun crust that must have been in very exposed spots. Other than that, it was hard to find any fault with the quality of the powder or its ability to cover the subsurface. The snow is midwinter dry, but indeed as Powderfreak mentioned in the Northern New England thread at the American Weather Forums, there’s enough substance to it to provide a nice resurfacing. I toured up to about 2,800’ on Heavenly Highway, and here are the depths of new, settled powder that I measured above the old base:
2,000’: 7-9”
2,400’: 8-10”
2,800’: 10-12”
Fresh snow adorning the evergreens created fantastic views during this afternoon’s backcountry ski tour. The Bolton Valley area picked up more than a foot of snow from our most recent winter storm.
The powder skiing was fantastic, with a very good right-side-up deposition, and bottomless turns aside from the occasional touch of the subsurface in a few spots. Temperatures were probably in the upper 20s F, so it was very comfortable. I’d describe the powder as “fast”, because it just was. I hadn’t waxed my skis or anything, but either the structure of the crystals, or the temperature close to freezing, just seemed to produce less resistance than usual. This was great for turns, but it was a little frustrating in any rolling terrain where I’d be traversing slightly uphill to another line. I would have loved a bit of stickiness in the snow for those section, but it was super slick, and you had to earn every step you took without skins. Most glades had only a couple of tracks in them, even Big Blue, which is very popular, so I took a run through that area and had 100% untracked powder turns throughout the descent.
A Google Earth map with GPS tracking date from today’s ski tour on the Bolton Valley Nordic & Backcountry Network
I see that with today’s additional snowfall, the resort is now reporting 13 inches in the past 48 hours. The next system in the queue is right on our doorstep this evening though, so we’ll see if this one can bring us anything like what the last one did.
The glow of afternoon sun hits the mountains as I set off past some of the Bolton Valley Village condominiums onto the Nordic & Backcountry Network for a ski tour.
I was fairly busy today, but I did have a chance to get out for a sunset ski tour up on the Bolton Valley Nordic and Backcountry Network. I’d say powder depths were roughly similar to what I found on yesterday’s tour, with perhaps a touch of settling. The powder in the backcountry just seems to get better each day though as the lower layers of the surface powder settle and bond to the subsurface. This is one of the more impressive progressions I’ve seen in the improvement of the powder skiing over time, and as I was gearing up for my tour, I heard other skiers talking about it as well.
I didn’t have a ton of time before dinner, so I did a quick loop up Bryant to Coyote and on to Gotham City with a descent of Gun Sight and subsequent glades. As mentioned, the powder was simply fantastic, and by the time I was descending the sun had gone down and I was skiing by the light of the moon (with headlamp assistance at times). There are still plenty of untracked lines throughout the lesser used glades, although you have to work a bit more to get untracked lines in the more popular glades since it’s now been a couple of days since the last substantial snowfall.
Finishing up my tour in the dark with a view toward the Bolton Valley Village and the ski trails lit up for night skiing
Since it’s a big vacation week, the night skiing was going full tilt when I got back to my car, and it seems like the resort is getting some solid visitation. For those who are on school vacation this week, they certainly got a doozy in terms of both snow conditions and weather.
A Google Earth map with GPS tracking data from this afternoon’s sunset tour on the Bolton Valley Nordic and Backcountry Network
Leaving some tracks in the powder while dropping down out terrain near the Devil’s Drop area on today’s backcountry ski tour
I was too busy to get out for turns yesterday, but I had some time this afternoon and was able to head up to Bolton. Thanks to the arctic front that came through overnight, they picked up another 4-6” of snow, bringing their recent totals to 16” in the last 48 hours and 36” in the past week.
I was definitely interested in checking out the new snow, but between still being in the President’s Day holiday period, temperatures a bit on the chilly side, and the typical consistency of the subsurface I’ve observed in areas with skier traffic, touring on the Nordic and Backcountry Network seemed like the best option. Based on my experience out there today though, issues with the subsurface snow quality are rapidly disappearing. While we’re not typically looking for the champagne powder on the slopes to settle, it eventually does, and in this case the compaction of the lower levels of the surface snow is really starting to pay dividends with respect to the overall quality of the skiing. When we first began to get these latest rounds of fluff, it was just dry powder atop the old firm base. There was no bonding between the old and new snow, and if you weren’t in bottomless snow, you were hitting a very hard subsurface. Whether due to the new overnight snow, the settling of the lower layers in the surface snow, or more likely a combination of both, I noticed a dramatic change in that surface/subsurface interface today. There’s a substantial, denser layer of snow above the subsurface now, and contact with the old subsurface is far less frequent. Even when it comes to very dry powder, if you get enough of it, you will eventually get to the level of a resurfacing, and apparently, snorkel-deep levels of champagne are enough.
In any event, powder turns were absolutely fantastic out there today. With the lower levels of the powder getting crushed into denser snow, in undisturbed areas you’ve got a right-side-up snowpack that is reaching very high quality. The powder is so good that it’s now supporting great turns on low-angle, mid-angle, and even high-angle terrain. The addition of the new snow combined with settling seems to have held powder depths in the range of what I found on Saturday, with probably 12+” at 2,000’ and 17-18” around 3,000’. I’m amazed that the powder still works for low angle terrain with how deep it is, but it’s so dry in the upper layers that it just does – at least on 115 mm fat skis.
The snowy scene on the Bryant Trail today as I approach Bryant Cabin
With the powder hitting the depth for even high-angle terrain, I opted for exploring some steeper lines today. On my tour, I started up Heavenly Highway and set in a skin track out toward Devil’s Drop to get in some turns there, and also put in a track to get me out to some of the steeper terrain above North Slope. All the terrain out there is really good right now.
A Google Earth map with GPS tracking data from today’s ski tour on the Bolton Valley Nordic and Backcountry Network
The clouds pulled away today to leave us with a brilliant, sunny, midwinter afternoon. Anyone out there touring in the backcountry was definitely getting a top 10-20% day, and the snow quality should stay great with these cold temperatures, so tomorrow should be just as good. As a bonus, I was surprised to see that despite the holiday weekend, traffic on the Nordic and Backcountry Network has actually been fairly light the past couple of days – I’d say 75% of the glades I saw had in the range of zero to three tracks in them when I was out this afternoon.
Taking in the view of Mt. Mansfield while in Burlington today – the Northern Greens are simply loaded with fresh snow thanks to round after round of snowfall in recent days.
Ty launches into some fresh powder off a jump in the Moose Glen area.
With the off piste conditions being so much better than what’s available on the trails right now, Ty and I had plans to take a ski tour up to Stowe View today and hit some of the Moose Glen terrain at Bolton Valley. I was just up there a couple of weeks ago, and there are many acres of high elevation glades that I’d expect to have fantastic snow with the way the spine has recently been getting round after round of heavy snowfall.
It was dumping huge flakes at the house when we left this morning, and 1”/hr. snows in the valley turned to 1-2”/hr. snows as we ascended the Bolton Valley Access Road. The snow was falling so hard and fast that the access road was absolutely covered. Even down by the Catamount Trail parking area before the big S-curve below Timberline, vehicles were already lined up due to some cars not being able to get enough traction on the grade. I’m not sure where they were in the plowing cycle for the road because there wasn’t a plow around that we saw, but with the rate the snow was falling, it almost wouldn’t have mattered. Cars were turning around to descend, and some were evening having to back down in the downhill lane because they couldn’t turn around. Descending cars were moving at an absolute crawl to avoid sliding, and some still struggled with sliding just due to the crown of the road. After about 15 minutes we made it up to the base of the S-curve and started the ascent there, and I saw that a line of cars were stopped about halfway down from the top of the grade. That’s one of the steepest parts of the access road, and you don’t want to have to restart there from a dead stop if you can help it.
Traffic was at a total standstill on the steep parts of the Bolton Valley Access Road this morning due to heavy snowfall that made the road too slick for most vehicles.
I could see that the whole situation was going to be trouble, and there was no immediate sign of the next plow, so we made the split second decision to turn around and simply park at the Catamount Trail parking area about 100 yards below us. We were going to be ski touring anyway, so we figured we’d just start our tour from there instead. It does add a couple of extra miles to the route, but we had the time, and it was far better than sitting in traffic and risking an accident on the road. And as bad as the driving was at that point, the snow simply continued to pound down and make the road worse. While gearing up for our tour at the car, we met another couple of guys who had decided on the same plan. They weren’t too familiar with the resort, but I assured them that the Nordic and Backcountry Trail Network connected right up to the Nordic Center and Village, and from that point they could head wherever they wanted on the network.
Heavy snowfall envelopes us near the start of today’s ski tour as we pass a cabin near the parking area for the Catamount Trail.
The ascent to the Village was beautiful along the Nordic trails, and the very heavy snowfall was with us for the first mile or so before it tapered down at least a bit. I’d actually never skied that full connection before, so it was great to be able to experience the route. We didn’t need to stop in at the Nordic Center, so we simply cut right up to the Bryant Trail along with a couple of women who were out on a similar tour. From there, it was just the usual route on up to Stowe View with some water and snack breaks. Ty hadn’t had any breakfast, so with the extra distance, he quickly made use of the snack he’d brought, and I dove heavily into the reserves in my pack to get him additional calories. It was about 4.5 miles and over 2,000’ vertical up to Stowe View by that route, so that’s roughly double the vertical and triple the distance relative to a typical tour to that area starting in the Village. That increase definitely required more calories.
Ty slices through another powder turn as we make our way through the Branches glade area of Bolton’s Nordic and Backcountry Network during part of today’s ski tour.
We skied various parts of the Moose Glen glade areas as planned, and the powder was simply fantastic. Even down at 1,200’ there was a solid 12” of settled powder, and up around 3,000’ it was typically in the 17-18” range. It was champagne light, so it actually worked well on a variety of different slope angles. As long as you had first tracks, even steeper terrain was in play for bottomless turns. We had a long, long run, with glade after glade of powder, down through areas like White Rabbit and Branches, and eventually we reached the Village where we could take a quick break and plan our next move.
We were on contact with Dylan, who had parked at Timberline and we decided that instead of heading back to the car via the Nordic and Backcountry Network, we’d complete our tour using the alpine trails. We got a lift assist off the Vista Quad, and made our way from Cobrass to Maria’s where there were still plenty of untracked lines to ski. Lower Tattle Tale was also still really good along the edges where we found untracked snow.
Another round of very heavy snowfall was pounding the resort today as we were finishing up our ski tour near the Timberline Base area – Mother Nature has really been on a roll with the snowfall in the Northern Greens over the past couple of days.
We found Dylan at the Timberline Base Lodge and caught up over some El Gato burritos. We’d planned to ski down to our car at the Catamount Trail parking area if necessary, but we just caught a ride with Dylan and it made for pleasant finish to a tour that was almost 10 miles in total and brought us literally from one end of the resort to the other using the Nordic, backcountry, and alpine trail networks. It was a great way to make use of all the recent snows and great powder conditions that have developed.
The map of today’s ski tour on the Bolton Valley Nordic and Backcountry Network with GPS tracking data on a Google Earth map
A view of some of the evergreens as I glide my way through some of the terrain below Moose Glen on Bolton Valley’s Backcountry Network
Today was gorgeous, but we’re definitely in a dry spell with respect to winter weather events. Relative to the usual frequency of winter storm in the Northern Greens at this time of year, the period we’re in right now feels like being in the middle of a desert. The little clipper system that came through at the end of the week would typically be just a blip in the storm parade, but in this case it was a much appreciated mini oasis for this stretch of winter. I wasn’t sure if I was going to ski at all this weekend, let alone get out for two sessions, but the way the new snow set up the low angle terrain for powder turns wound up creating some respectable conditions. And then of course there was today’s perfect midwinter weather with clear blue skies and temperatures pushing into the upper 20s F – that really sealed the deal to get out for another ski tour.
On yesterday’s tour I hit a good collection of low angle terrain and explored some new spots that don’t typically lend themselves to great turns in deeper powder. Whereas yesterday I’d topped out around 2,800’ on Heavenly Highway, today I pushed out a bit father out toward Stowe View and topped out around 3,200’. Even up at that altitude, I wasn’t detecting any notable increases in new snow depths, so the general 2 to 3 inches that I’d encountered yesterday was still the rule.
Recent accumulations of on a railing in the Bolton Valley Backcountry Tent area at around 2,750′
My target terrain for today was some of the lower angle slopes in the Moose Glen/White Rabbit area. I hadn’t been up there in a while, and it turns out there was a lot of terrain that was steeper than I’d remembered, especially in the initial parts of the descent dropping down from Stowe View and Moose Glen. Although that terrain was a bit steep for today’s conditions, the visit did serve as a reminder to get out there when the powder is a bit deeper, because the terrain is quite expansive. I eventually got into more of the lower angle terrain that I’d remembered, and that offered some nice powder turns with similar consistency to what I’d experienced yesterday. Overall I’d say yesterday’s tour had a slightly higher yield in terms of catching smooth, bottomless turns on the right terrain, but today being Sunday, it did mean another full day of visitors getting out there in the snow. Even on the backcountry network, traffic eventually tracks up the snow, and with these conditions, you really needed untracked snow for the best turns. Just one pass through the snow by another skier makes a big difference with these lighter accumulations.
A Google Earth map overlaid with GPS tracking data from today’s ski tour on the Bolton Valley Nordic and Backcountry Network
One neat thing I did see today while heading up Birch Loop was a skier returning from out on the Catamount Trail heading toward Bryant Cabin. There’s a bit of rolling terrain there that isn’t optimal for having skins either on or off, and what he did was to have a skin on one ski but not the other. When he was skiing, he was one-footing it on the ski with no skin for maximum glide, and then he could use the other ski with the skin on it for better grip going uphill. I thought that was a pretty slick compromise for that sort of rolling terrain. Being on Telemark gear, I typically just go without skins on rolling terrain since herring boning on the uphill sections is simpler with the light gear, but that guy’s technique could be a nice way to go on a heavier setup like alpine touring gear.
A copy of Bolton Valley’s Nordic & Backcountry trail map which lists the trails and many of the official glades
The snowpack out there is midwinter deep and ready for prime time as soon as we get another decent storm – let’s hope something pops up before mid-month so we don’t have to spend another ten days in this veritable snowfall desert.
After a consistent run of storm cycles throughout January, we’re in a relatively slow period of snowfall right now. We haven’t had a substantial storm in several days, and it looks like it will be at least a few more until our next one, so this is likely our best immediate window of fresh snow. With that in mind, it seemed like a good day to get our for some turns, so I headed up to Bolton Valley for some touring on the backcountry network.
Rime adorns the top of an evergreen, which was a frequent sight throughout my ski tour today.
Starting from the Village at around 2,000’, I skinned up past Bryant Cabin to roughly 2,800’ on Heavenly Highway. The new snow depths were very much as advertised, with 2 to 3 inches of powder throughout that entire elevation range. There really wasn’t much increase in the snowfall totals at those elevations where I was touring, but the totals definitely started to tail off below 2,000’. I can’t say exactly how much fell at 1,500’, but it was noticeably less, and once you got below 1,000’ there was no new snow. At some point in the past several days there’s also been some riming in the mountains; you can see the rime on the trees at various elevations throughout the resort.
With the available snow I stuck to low-angle glades for as much of my descent as possible, and as noted, the new powder had some substance to it so the turns would up being quite decent. On mid-fats I was probably getting 25-50% bottomless turns on terrain with the appropriate pitch. And even when touching down, the turns were still feeling very good because the subsurface has some pliability – it’s certainly dense, but nothing like the sheet of ice that would result from a big rainstorm followed by a refreeze. The base snow is soft enough that you can punch down into the snowpack if you’re not on a floatation device like skis or snowshoes, and I saw numerous signs of this happening where snowboarders or hikers were traversing areas in boots.
Thanks to our recent clipper system, there was enough new powder to make for great skiing on many of the lower angle glades and similar terrain areas of the Bolton valley Nordic and Backcountry Network
For the last part of my tour on the backcountry network I worked my way along Gardiner’s Lane and made good use of the low-angle terrain there. In many areas I was able to explore lines that you often can’t hit because the powder is too deep to sustain good momentum, but they were great today, so I experienced a lot of new sections of the network that I often breeze past.
A copy of Bolton Valley’s Nordic & Backcountry trail map which lists the trails and many of the official glades
I connected onto the alpine trails at Lower Turnpike for the last part of my tour, and let’s just say, if you didn’t get out for lift-served turns around here today, you’re really not missing anything. Lower Turnpike typically maintains some of the highest quality snow on the alpine trails because of relatively low skier traffic, modest pitch, and good protection from the wind. Even there, the surface was firm unless I was able to get into the untracked powder off to the sides, and if the snow is firm on Lower Turnpike you know it’s going to be very rough elsewhere. I don’t actually have to imagine what the conditions were like on the main trails though, because some friends sent us video of their son snowboarding today, and the sound of his board on the snow was excruciating. That’s probably going to be a common situation until the next substantial storm comes into the area or it gets very warm, so we’ll be looking for Mother Nature to get another good winter storm system through here as soon as possible.
A Google Earth map overlaid with GPS tracking data from today’s ski tour on the Bolton Valley Nordic and Backcountry Network
The quality of the powder out on the mountain today was excellent – even south-facing Alchemist had soft, fluffy conditions.
I hadn’t been out for any turns since last Sunday when I toured in the Nebraska Valley, so I was eager to see what the mountains had to offer yesterday once the arctic cold departed. At the end of my tour last weekend, temperatures had risen above freezing in the lower elevations, and then we had those potent winds with the arctic front, both of which could have been insults to the quality of the snow surfaces.
Some of the snow formations out there in the forest today that were left behind by recent upslope snows.
Today my plan was to keep my skiing fairly simple and close to home, and I decided to tour on the Bolton Valley Nordic and Backcountry Network. I figured I’d tour up to Bryant Cabin, check out the snow quality, and decide from there if I was going to go any farther. I was brining minimal camera gear for this outing, so I borrowed Dylan’s backcountry ski pack instead of using my larger one, and I opted for mid-fat Teles instead of going with full fats. I was definitely feeling light and fast with that setup, and hit Bryant Cabin in under 30 minutes, so I felt that I easily had time to extend my tour. In addition, the quality of the snow was far better than I’d expected. We haven’t had a major storm cycle since Winter Storm Kassandra about a week ago, so I didn’t really expect the powder to be very fresh. Those concerns were sidelined right at the start of my tour though – I did numerous depth checks on my ascent, and even down at 2,000’, the surface snow was 15-20” deep above the base. Whatever warming had taken place last weekend was clearly below the 2,000’ elevation range. I’d heard secondhand that the freezing level was somewhere down around the Timberline Base (1,500’), and I guess it never rose much higher than that. The other concern about the snow had been the effects of the wind, but any drifting and wind crusts were few and far between on the terrain I covered up to Bryant Cabin and beyond. I ran into many areas where the trees were just caked and choked with upslope snow clinging to every branch at various crazy angles, and snow doesn’t stay like that when it’s been hit by heavy winds.
Finding the snow quality so impressive, I actually decided to continue my tour all the way up to the top of the Catamount Trail Glades around 3,000’ and the powder just kept getting deeper. Estimates of surface snow depths that I found on my tour were as follows:
2,000’: 15-20”
2,500’: ~20”
3,000’: 20-25”
The evergreens were loaded with snow from recent storms, making for quite a winter wonderland out on the Bolton Valley Nordic and Backcountry Network today.
Untracked areas up in the Catamount Trail Glades were two feet of bottomless powder, and you could easily be fooled into thinking we’d just had a major storm cycle in the past couple of days, not a week ago. For the rest of my descent I headed down past Bryant Cabin along Gardiner’s Lane and North Slope, and finished off with a connect to Wilderness via Alchemist. The conditions on Alchemist were perhaps the biggest testament to the quality of the snow, because that area has a hard-core southerly exposure, and things have to be prime to get real quality powder turns there. I’d say that today I encountered some of the best conditions I’ve ever seen on Alchemist, so the snow over the past week or so has been extremely well preserved.
A Google Earth map with GPS tracking data of today’s ski tour on the Bolton Valley Nordic and Backcountry Network.
It was hard to get a sense for the total snowpack depth while I was out on my tour because it’s getting too deep to probe easily, but the Mansfield snowpack at the stake is at 42”, so the snowpack depth is probably just a bit less than that as you drop to around 3,000’. While that Mansfield snowpack is a foot below average, we’re getting to the point in the season where being below average is less and less relevant in terms of off piste coverage and skiing quality. We’re past that 40” mark at the stake, and all the terrain I encountered yesterday was game on, regardless of pitch or obstacles. I ran the snowpack liquid analysis this morning down at our site in the valley for CoCoRaHS, and there’s 3 inches of liquid equivalent in our snow. The local mountains probably have double that amount at elevation, so it’s easy to see why the off piste skiing is so good. If you have 6 inches of liquid equivalent under your feet, that’s going to take care of a lot of terrain, even relatively steep terrain.
Overall, today was fantastic, both in terms of the temperatures and in terms of the snowpack/snow quality. Temperatures were in the 25-30 F range when I hit the mountain in the afternoon, which was perfect for comfortable skiing while retaining those soft, midwinter snow surfaces.
The recent upslope snows were seen covering and clinging to everything today while I was out on a backcountry ski tour at Bolton Valley.
The consistent snows and temperatures we’ve had over the past several days had me pretty certain that the snow quality was there for lift-served skiing today, but the arctic hounds coming in on those northwest winds led me to go touring instead. When I saw projected highs in the single digits F for Bolton Valley today, there was no way I wanted to sit still on the lifts in the wind vs. generating my own heat down in the protection of the forest.
I got up to the Village around midday, and temperatures were indeed in the mid-single digits F as the forecast had suggested. Between all the backcountry touring and Nordic folks that I saw, there were plenty of people out on the lower trails, but farther out into the higher trails by the Bryant Cabin, I saw probably a handful of groups. Overall, you could tell by the vibe that people felt it was great weather for these types of activities.
Snowy scenes were everywhere today around the Bolton Valley Village.
The additional 4 inches of fresh champagne that the resort had just picked up really served to top off the already crazy levels of fluff that covered everything. I saw some great images of the recent snows as soon as I arrived in the Village, so before gearing up for my tour, I took a quick walk around the Village and grabbed some scenic shots. Once I started my tour and got into the forest, the amount of snow on all surfaces was just amazing – it was caked so heavily on the trees that you were surrounded by it on all sides. Starting up the Bryant Trail was like walking into some sort of white cathedral.
I made depth measurements of the snowpack during my tour, and I found generally 26-27” around the 2,000’ level, and many spots that are getting dangerously close to 40” up near 3,000’. That’s pretty consistent with what the Mt. Mansfield Stake is showing. The powder skiing was great, although we could still use another storm or two just to push the snowpack depth past that 40” benchmark.
A Google Earth map showing GPS tracking data from today’s tour on the Bolton Valley Nordic and Backcountry Network
At the start of my tour off Heavenly Highway I was on some steep, 30+-degree slopes, and I was setting off sloughs that definitely spoke to the relative snowpack instability from the continuous day after day after day of snows without consolidation. I was perfectly safe where I was the very dense forest, but I immediately though about how I wouldn’t want to be exposed in spots like the ravines of the Presidentials. So I guess it wasn’t entirely surprising when I discovered posts in the American Weather New England Skiing Thread about slides in Tuckerman.
Roughly a half foot of powder greeted me at the Bryant Cabin as I passed through the area on today’s ski tour on the Bolton Valley Nordic and Backcountry Network
Last night’s storm marked the fourth bout of snow we’ve had since our warm system leading up to the weekend. Although none of these recent snowfall events have been very large, the rounds and rounds of snow from these smaller systems have piled up, and today seemed like a great opportunity to check on how the holiday week powder has been building.
With Bolton Valley reporting 7 inches of new snow during the period, I decided that a backcountry day was in order. Knowing the way snow accumulates on their Nordic and Backcountry Network, I figured there were be plenty of fresh powder for the low to moderate-angle terrain. Today was actually the first day this season that I’ve headed out onto the Backcountry Network. With all the snow we’ve had, the backcountry terrain has been ready for skiing since well back in November, but there’s been so much good skiing in bounds that I’ve just been touring there.
“Once I got on trail, I made some depth checks around the 2,000’ elevation and found 5 to 6 inches of settled powder atop the old base.”
I arrived at the resort around noontime and parked in the lower Nordic Center lot – it was just about filling up while I put on my gear, and the parking attendants were getting ready to start the shuttle bus for Timberline parking. That’s good news for the resort in terms of holiday visitors. Once I got on trail, I made some depth checks around the 2,000’ elevation and found 5 to 6 inches of settled powder atop the old base. The depth of the powder didn’t really increase substantially with elevation, and I found roughly 6 inches at 2,700’ by the Bryant Cabin.
I was greeted by a fresh couple inches of light powder when I parked my car in the lower Nordic Center parking lot today.
“The snow had been quite nice, with probably 70-80% bottomless turns on my 115 mm skis, so I strapped the skins back on and headed up for another descent.”
From what I’d seen, there was plenty of snow for the tour I’d planned, which involved some new terrain and some area I’d not visited in quite a while. I started my descent in the trees below the Bryant Cabin (Bryant Woods) and worked my way though there until I reached JJ’s. Then I crossed the Bryant Trail and hung close to it for a few hundred feet until I got into the lines on the west side (Possum Woods). None of that terrain has much in the way of actual manicured glades, but the natural tree spacing is just fine for its pitch, and today’s conditions, featuring about a half foot of delicate Champlain Powder™ fluff, were exactly what you needed for it. Lower down, I merged onto Cup Runneth Over and various trees in that area until I got to the lower loops of World Cup.
The snow had been quite nice, with probably 70-80% bottomless turns on my 115 mm skis, so I strapped the skins back on and headed up for another descent. This time I went for a run in the Coyote area and made my way back toward the Village to hit the deli. At the Village Deli I discovered something excellent – they are back to making custom made sandwiches! I immediately texted E and the boys and Stephen the good news, and got myself a maple latte and some sandwiches to take home.
The GPS tracking data from today’s ski tour at Bolton Valley overlayed onto Google Earth
We’ve got a more substantial system coming into the area tonight. It’s supposed to pass to our west, so we’re expecting some warmth, but this one’s expected to have more snow and much less rain than the last one, so we could get some bolstering of the snowpack out of it.
