Tag: Corn Snow

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Stowe, VT 06MAY2023

A black and white image of the Presidential Range with snow taken in May from Mt. Mansfield in Vermont
An image of the North Slope trail with some skiers hiking up for May turns at Stowe Mountain Resort on Mt. Mansfield in Vermont
Snow in the North Slope area was still nearly continuous today, but there are a couple of breaks down by the base

Unlike the previous couple of weekends, there were no real concerns about the weather for skiing this weekend – both days have been looking quite reasonable without any major bouts of precipitation expected.  Today looked great with clear skies all morning, so I eventually headed back out to Mt. Mansfield for some turns.

I was torn between skinning and hiking for the ascent.  There appeared to be nearly continuous snow through various routes on The Nose side of the resort, but there were also plenty of areas in which the snow had melted out and dry ground was present.  Because there were some breaks in the snowpack near the base area on Lower North Slope anyway, and since I’d been skinning for the past couple of weeks, I decided to set myself up for hiking on the ascent.

To generally stay on dry ground, I kept my ascent on trails to the south of the main North Slope/Lord route, and it made the route a bit less steep.  There was still a lot of snow around, so I’d often find myself skirting the snow line on various trails, and I ended up mixing it up with some hiking on the snow as well.

I set my goal on ascending until I found a major break in the continuous snowpack, but I couldn’t really spot any obvious ones from the route I took, and I eventually topped out by the Octagon/Fourrunner Quad Summit.  The views of the Presidential Range were impressive, and it’s obvious that there have been recent snows in the elevations above tree line.

On my descent of the main North Slope/Lord route, I did discover that there’s a fairly large break of about 50 feet or so in the continuous cover on North Slope, but I just couldn’t see it from where I ascended.  Coverage is pretty much continuous aside from that break, and the couple of breaks in snowpack down by the base.

I saw a mix of people who were both skinning and hiking while I was out, and if I was to do it again, I think I’d bring along my skins so that I had them with me.  The snowpack is strong enough in a number of areas such that there are long stretches where skinning is the more practical and efficient approach, and having the flexibility to swap back and forth between skinning and hiking would be a nice option to have for a smooth ascent.  The skiing is still quite good with some great corn snow, and it will probably be around for a few more weeks unless we get some really warm spells.

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Stowe, VT 29APR2023

An image of the Main Street trail on Spruce Peak showing some of the late April snow available at Stowe Mountain Ski Resort in Vermont
An image of the base area of Spruce Peak at Stowe Mountain Resort with some of the lower ski slopes in the foreground.
Snow still covers many of the slopes of Spruce Peak, providing some excellent spring turns.

Similar to last weekend, Saturday seemed like the better weather day for skiing this weekend, so today I headed to Stowe for some turns on the spring snow.  I visited the Gondola terrain last time, so for this outing I decided to get in some skiing on Spruce Peak while the south-facing terrain is still offering some reasonable descents.

Starting from the MMSC parking lot, I had to hike for roughly 5 to 10 minutes before I was able to start skinning, and then I eventually made my way over to Main Street for the rest of the ascent.  Main Street coverage is nearly continuous over most of its course except for the very bottom down near the base of the Sensation Quad, and up in the flats near the top.  So, I topped out a bit shy of 3,000’ on the ascent vs. continuing on to the summit station of the Sensation Quad.  I was definitely happy to stop where I did though, because southerly winds were absolutely howling ahead of the approaching storm.  Main Street faces directly south with lots of exposure, so winds were sustained up in the 30 to 40 MPH range near the 3,000’ mark.  I actually pulled into the forest to remove my skins and gear up for the descent, and that gave me a break from the constant buffeting of the strong winds and helped avoid the likely frustration of things flapping around and flying away.

Main Street offered up lots of those steep, buttery spring snow carves that is typically does, and I didn’t spot any major areas of undermined snow that were of any concern.  I was able to get down into the flats above the base of the Sensation Quad with just a couple short stretches of breaks in the snowpack.  Although not quite 100% continuous from the Sensation Quad summit because of the break in the upper flats, the area still offers up quite a good yield of skiable vertical for the investment of the ascent.  Taking in the views across to Mansfield gave me a nice look at the ski options throughout the resort, and there are still numerous ascent and descent routes for great touring.  The snow on Nosedive looks a little more burnt out than I would have expected, but the melt out is different every year, which is part of what makes it interesting.  North Slope and the surrounding trails in that area seem to have some great coverage, so there should be some good options around there for quite a while.

Near the end of my tour, rain shafts started to show up among the mountains to the south, and I was able to watch the peaks disappearing as the incoming storm moved into the area.  The first spits of rain started to hit just as I arrived at my car, so the timing of the storm was right on with what the forecast had indicated.  This past week has been seasonably cool, and it looks like that has helped to slow down the spring melt.  With the forecast looking relatively cool for the next week or so, that should help to preserve the snow and ski options as we head into May.

An image of peaks of the Green Mountains to the south of Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont disappearing as a storm moves into the area.
The mountains to the south of Spruce Peak begin to disappear as a storm movies into the area
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Stowe, VT 22APR2023

An image of the Gondolier trail from near the base of the Gondola during an April ski tour at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont
Looking up at the snow on Gondolier at the start of today’s ski tour at Stowe

Based on the forecast, today seemed like the better half of the weekend for turns, so I decided to head to Mt. Mansfield and make use of all the snow that’s still out there.  A look at the Stowe Mountain Cam this morning showed that coverage still looked continuous on the Gondola side of the resort, and since that area generally melts out faster than the terrain under The Nose, I decided to ski that while it was still in good shape.

An image looking out toward the Worcester Range with clouds at summit level viewed from the base of the Gondola at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont
Looking across the valley toward the Worcester Range at the clouds just rising up above the peaks.

Based on what I’d seen from the webcam and views from the valley, the cloud ceiling seemed to be sitting at around 3,200’ on Mansfield, so my plan was to continue my ascent until I hit the lowest cloud deck, or the snow became too firm at elevation, whichever came first.  Indeed, as the webcam view had indicated, coverage on Gondolier was pretty much continuous from top to bottom.  It turns out that there are a couple of small breaks of a few feet, but they’re nothing substantial that would ruin a top-to-bottom run.

It remained mostly cloudy today, and not especially warm with temperatures around 50 F, so I was initially worried about the snow being generally too stiff for quality turns.  It was a little tough to tell exactly how it was going to ski during the ascent, but the sky began to brighten a bit in the midafternoon period, and the cloud ceiling started to rise.  The ceiling rose all the way up to 3,600’, and then slowly continued to rise beyond that, so I opted to make a full ascent to the Gondola Summit Station.  The brightening skies probably provided that extra punch of solar radiation to ensure that the snow quality was decent at all elevations, so in the end, the whole descent provided some fantastic spring turns.

An image of the Nosedive trail on Mt. Mansfield as viewed from the Gondola Summit station during an April ski tour at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont
A view over toward Nosedive and the terrain under the Nose of Mt. Mansfield

I’d expect some decent gaps to open up on the Gondola terrain over the next week if the weather was going to be mild, but the snow there might actually hold out for a while.  The forecast suggests numerous snow chances over the next couple of weeks, so that could result in some accumulation and decent preservation as we head farther into the spring ski season.

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Bolton Valley, VT 09APR2023

An image showing a shadow of a skier on the Timberline Quad Chairlift at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
An image of skiers riding the Timberline Quad Chairlift at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
Spring temperatures have arrived, and the snow coverage is still in good shape even down at the Timberline elevations at Bolton

With systems like Winter Storm Uriel coming through the area, the weather and ski conditions had generally been staying on the wintry side of the spectrum, with no sustained periods of spring warmth.  Ty and Dylan were up at Bolton Valley on Friday for a session, and the word was that the conditions remained hard both on and off piste.  Yesterday was probably a bit warmer, but with valley temperatures topping out in the upper 30s F, that still wasn’t going to cut it with respect to softening the snow.

An image showing part of the Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont viewed from the top of the Timberline Quad Chairlift
A view back toward the main mountain from the top of the Timberline area

Today showed more potential though, and I headed up to the mountain for an afternoon session that saw temperatures pushing well into the 40s F at 1,500’ at the Timberline Base.  That was definitely enough to soften the snow into pleasant spring conditions, especially on west-facing terrain with afternoon sun.  The boys were up at the main mountain with friends for some terrain park runs, and I thought about heading over to see them, but it was well into the afternoon so I just stuck around Timberline for a few Telemark laps.  Temperatures certainly cooled with elevation, but the snow was soft enough everywhere to produce great turns.  In some spots with direct sun, the snow was even getting a little sticky since it hadn’t gone over to 100% corn, but in general the snow quality was excellent.  Coverage is still quite good on piste even down to 1,500’, but there are a few bare spots opening up on natural snow terrain at those low elevations.

An image of Lake Champlain and the Adirondack Mountains of New York taken from the top of the Timberline Quad Chairlift at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
Looking out toward Lake Champlain and the Adirondacks today from the top of the Timberline area
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Bolton Valley, VT 08MAY2022

An image from the Winooski Valley in the Waterbury/Bolton are of Vermont in May, as spring leaves on trees begin to work their way up the mountainsides.
An image looking down the Spillway trail on a ski tour in May at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont
The snow on Spillway today as I get in some turns on steep spring corn at Bolton Valley

Today I headed to Bolton for turns, since it might be the last weekend for practical/productive touring there.  Based on what I saw on my last Bolton outing a couple weeks ago, I figured the lower mountain would be discontinuous at this point, but the amount of snow on Spillway was obviously going to last a while.  I decided to hike today vs. skinning, and I think that was the right call.  The bottom half of the mountain has some decent areas of snow, but it’s discontinuous enough with plenty of dry ground for walking, such that hiking is the more practical option.  Above Mid Mountain, one could skin up Spillway, but that’s really steep, and they’ve plowed Sherman’s Pass most of the way to the Vista Summit, so I used that for a lot of my ascent today.

An image of a high-elevation view out toward Lake Champlain and the Champlain Valley on a May ski tour at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
A high-elevation view out toward Lake Champlain and the Champlain Valley on today’s tour at Bolton Valley

The snow on Spillway is still continuous, and it was skiing great.  There must have been some productive freeze/thaw cycles recently, because it was the best corn snow I’ve skied during this April/May period.  Spillway is quite steep, so you get some of those nice fall-way turns, which are so much fun in good snow.  At Mid Mountain on my way up I met a couple that was on their way down.  They said that “Spillway was about as frosty as it’s been in a while”, and they weren’t kidding.

It’s fun traveling around the area right now and taking in the views as spring begins to make its presence known.  You can see that greenery is appearing in the lower mountain valleys, and it’s just starting to make its slow creep up the mountainsides.

An image from the Winooski Valley in the Waterbury/Bolton are of Vermont in May, as spring leaves on trees begin to work their way up the mountainsides.
You can see that greenery is appearing in the lower mountain valleys, and it’s just starting to make its slow creep up the mountainsides.
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Stowe, VT 01MAY2022

An image showing some of the Mount Mansfield ski trails from near the summit of Spruce Peak at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont
An image of the Main Street trail on a May ski outing at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont
A view of some of the spring snow on Main Street today during my ski tour

While Friday turned out to be a bit too cool and breezy to really soften up the slopes around here, and yesterday didn’t seem much better, today saw more warmth and sunshine as the forecast had suggested.  Mother Nature really wasn’t messing around, with temperatures moving up into the 60s F, a cloudless sky, and the disappearance of those persistent winds.

An image of the Chin of Mt. Mansfield in Vermont as viewed from the Moscow area
The Mt. Mansfield Chin poking up in the background from the Moscow area

There was no question about whether or not the snow was going to soften up today, so I decided to head to Stowe for some afternoon turns.  I hadn’t been to the general Stowe area in a while, but the usual views of Mansfield started to appear as I headed through Waterbury Center, and the alpine terrain was certainly lit up in the May sunshine.

I’d hoped that the south-facing terrain of Spruce Peak still had enough coverage to provide some nice uninterrupted turns, and indeed as I approached the resort I could see that the Main Street area and surrounding trails still had nearly continuous snow down the base of the Sensation Quad.

With the route I took on the lower part of the mountain, I ended up hiking about 1/3 of the ascent, and then skinning the final 2/3.  I was initially questioning my decision to bring skins as I navigated the lower slopes, but once I hit the point where I started skinning, it was definitely the right choice in terms of efficiency; the upper slopes of Main Street have so much snow that it would take more effort to find dry areas for easier hiking.

In terms of the skiing, it was far superior to what I had experienced on Friday.  The warmth and sun took care of getting the spring snow into something that was definitely worthy of turns.  It wasn’t perfect, because there were still some sticky areas from recent snows on terrain that hadn’t seen the sun and/or skier traffic, but those were generally avoidable by skiing the sunnier sides of the trails.

With such a gorgeous day, I was surprised that I didn’t see a single other skier out there during my entire tour on Spruce.  I did see two other cars when I first arrived at the MMSC Clubhouse parking lot, but they were just hikers.  I saw them finishing up their hikes while I was ascending, and the entire parking lot was empty when I got back to my car.  Everyone must have been skiing over at Mansfield!

An image of a single car in the parking lot of the Mount Mansfield Ski Club during a May ski outing at Stowe Mountain Ski Resort in Vermont
The Mount Mansfield Ski Club parking lot where I parked today was just about empty.
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Bolton Valley, VT 29APR2022

An image showing a view westward toward The Champlain Valley, Lake Champlain, and the Adirondack Mountains of New York during a spring ski tour at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
An image of the Sherman's Pass trail area near the end of the ski season at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
A view of Sherman’s Pass out on my ski tour at Bolton Valley today – snow coverage is still decent with a few breaks here and there.

As it’s been for the past few days, it was quite windy today in the Champlain Valley, but with partly cloudy skies providing some sun, and the temperatures getting into the 50s F, it seemed like there might be enough warmth to make the slopes worth a visit.  That thought was tempered somewhat as I headed into the mountains on the way home; the skies became notably cloudier, and the temperatures felt several degrees cooler, even at valley level.  At that point I was definitely questioning if there was sufficient warmth at elevation for softening the snow, but it still felt like it was worth the quick trip up to Bolton for some turns.

On the way up the Bolton Valley Access Road, first signs of old snow snowpack were at ~1,400’, and first signs of the new snow left from our most recent storm appeared in the 1,800’ – 1,900’ elevation range.  I’d contemplated skiing at Timberline if the snowpack was continuous enough, but it’s too broken up down at those elevations to be worth it.

As expected up at the main mountain, there’s still plenty of snow for top-to-bottom turns on the main routes like Beech Seal and Spillway.  Sherman’s Pass seems close to continuous, but there’s at least a break or two in the snowpack there.  While the quantity of the snow is looking quite good, we’re still going to need some more warmth and temperature cycling to get the snowpack to some quality corn.  Even with Bolton’s western exposure and afternoon sun, a lot of terrain still needs some rounds of softening.  The combination of temperatures, which I guess were somewhere in the 40s F, and the cooling breeze that we’ve had the past few days, just isn’t enough to really soften the snowpack.  Granted, I was out on the mountain in the later afternoon period when the sun angle is getting lower and temperatures are starting to drop off, but it was obvious that only areas in direct sun had seen much cycling of the snow to get to appropriate quality corn, and even those areas still need work.  Heck, most of terrain above 2,000’ that was not in the direct sun, still had snow from our most recent storm earlier this week.  I toured up to about 2,500’, but didn’t push above that elevation that because it was only getting cooler and windier as I ascended, and the quality of the snow just didn’t seem to be worth it.

So while spring snow conditions weren’t quite there today, the recent snows and good preservation we’ve been seeing do bode well as we head into the next several weeks of the season.  Tomorrow’s forecast around here seems sort of similar to today’s, so I wouldn’t expect primo ski conditions, but Sunday is supposed to kick things up a notch with temperatures around 60 F and more sun.  That might be enough to get some of that south-facing terrain into good shape.

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Bolton Valley, VT 03APR2022

An image showing the trails of Whiteface Mountain in New York viewed from the Wilderness are of Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
An image of the mid station area for the Wilderness Double Chairlift after an early April snowstorm at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
A view of some of the drifted snow at the Wilderness Mid Station while I was out on today’s ski tour at Bolton Valley

After skiing yesterday’s fresh powder out on the hill, I hadn’t really planned to ski today, since the forecast called for gray skies and temperatures heading above the freezing mark.  We were thinking we might have left one of our water bottles up around 2,800’ on Wilderness during yesterday’s ski tour though, so that was incentive enough to get me out for another go.  If in doubt, it’s generally good to get out and get some exercise anyway.

I made my way up to Bolton Valley around midday, and whereas temperatures yesterday were in the upper 20s F when we’d arrived, today they were in the upper 30s F.  Some of the new Friday/Saturday snow had definitely melted back, and that effect decreased with increasing elevation, but the freezing line was still somewhere above the 3,000’ mark.  So, I never encountered any snow yesterday that had been fully preserved below freezing.  With that said, the snow skied really well.  On the upper mountain, the new snow had seen little settling, and untracked areas skied like dense powder vs. any sort of mush.  At all elevations, even where the snow was transitioning due to the above freezing temperatures, it seemed to be doing it in a subtle way.  It wasn’t sticky, just dense, and perhaps that slow change was due to the cold overnight temperatures and the overcast keeping away dramatic warming from direct sunlight.  In thinner areas where the new snow had melted back, the skiing typically transitioned right to the underlying corn snow, and that skied really well.  It was sort of strange to move from areas of dense powder skiing, right to spring corn snow, but somehow it worked.

An image of a roof with snow in the Bolton Valley Village after and early April snowstorm hit Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
A scene from the Bolton Valley Village showing some of the recent snow while I was up at the resort today.

In any event, the water bottle ended up being right where we thought it was, so that part of the tour was quite successful!  I of course used the opportunity of being up at the resort to grab another Spicy Tuna onigiri from the Miso Toh Kome stand, and I brought some onigiri home for the boys as well.

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Bolton Valley, VT 20MAR2022

An image from the top station of the Mid Mountain Double Chairlift with snow piled up on a March day at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
An image of the Spillway trail rising into the clouds while riding the Vista Quad Chairlift at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
A view of Spillway today from the Vista Quad. Clouds were raising and lowering on the upper half of the mountain this afternoon before snow started falling at the ridgeline elevations.

The forecast this weekend seemed generally on the dreary side, but I did want to get out for some turns and exercise, and early this afternoon seemed like a decent window.  The colder air and snow were expected to move into the area later in the afternoon, so midday offered the chance at spring snow that wouldn’t have tightened up, and it would be ahead of any rain that might fall on the lower elevations of the mountain.

Indeed I found some nice spring conditions today at Bolton Valley, all the way up above 3,000’.  There’s a lot of good corn snow out there, but some trails have those still slick areas of denser snow and ice underneath that you have to watch out for.  It wasn’t warm enough (generally in the 30s to near 40 F at 2,000’+ where I skied on the main mountain today) to really soften those densest spots, so the best skiing involved working your way around those areas and using the available corn snow.  Some trails (like Alta Vista and Hard Luck) had more corn snow available and fewer slick spots, while others (like Spillway and Beech Seal) had more of those icy/dense spots to work around.

The good news is that all that dense snow is going to last quite a while as we head into the spring.  Most natural snow trails had some coverage issues, so skiing was generally on routes with manmade snow today.  There’s still a lot of natural snow in the elevation range of the main mountain though (the snowpack depth at the Mt. Mansfield Stake is around 40 inches), so a lot of terrain would be in play with natural base for any large storm cycles that come through in the next few weeks.

An image of a resort employee on a snowmobile in the Mid Mountain area of Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
A Bolton Valley employee on his snowmobile today at Mid Mountain in front of a closed Glades trail

When I first got to the mountain this afternoon, the cloud ceiling was up and down in the 2,500’ – 3,000’ range and there wasn’t any precipitation.  On my last run though, it was snowing up at ridgeline level, and by the time I was leaving, the frozen precipitation was just starting to make it down to the Village elevations.  The snow level must be well below 2,000 now though, because I can see that the precipitation is all snow on Bolton’s main base area webcam.

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Bolton Valley, VT 06MAR2022

An image of Dylan performing a jump on his skis in soft spring snow on the Showtime trail at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
An image of Dylan carving on his skis in soft spring snow on the Showtime trail under the Timberline Quad Chairlift at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
Dylan laying out a carve on Showtime in today’s soft spring snow at Bolton Valley

I hadn’t planned to ski today, thinking it was just going to be a rainy one, but the sky cleared out in the afternoon to produce a beautiful, warm, early spring day.  Seeing that, Dylan and I popped up to the mountain for some runs.  In a classic reversal of Saturday, this was a situation where the terrain with manmade snow provided the superior skiing.  Manmade snow is dense enough that it generally transitions quickly to an appropriate spring snow surface, while the natural snow initially gets sticky with warm temperatures and requires some freeze/thaw cycles before it really primes up.  Trail pitch mattered today as well, and low angle terrain was the toughest in terms of movement.  We talked to a couple of guys in the parking lot who said that the flat terrain was brutally slow.

An image of Dylan jumping on his skis on the Showtime Trail under the Timberline Quad Chairlift at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
Dylan was enjoying the soft spring conditions today by hitting the jumps just about any time he found them.

“…we just spent the rest or the time lapping the good snow on the Showtime trail under the Timberline Quad. The snow was great for railing carves and generally having a fun springtime ski session.”

We spent our whole session today at Timberline, and Bolton Valley had recently put down a bunch of manmade snow under the quad that provided great turns in the warm temperatures.  We did venture off to flatter terrain on one run per Dylan’s request, just to see what it was like.  Thankfully, we didn’t actually find that conditions on the flats as bad as the guys we’d talked to in the parking lot, and I’ve definitely seen it worse.  I was on Teles, which can be brutal with respect to the effort required to keep fore-aft balance and prevent yourself from going over the handlebars all the time on really sticky snow, but I found that today was at least reasonable compared to some days we’ve been out in the past.

The difficulty in traveling on flat terrain was still made abundantly clear after that run, and we just spent the rest or the time lapping the good snow on the Showtime trail under the Timberline Quad.  The snow was great for railing carves and generally having a fun springtime ski session.  Also, there was hardly anyone at the resort, probably because they had assumed it was going to be a dreary day like we’d thought.  When we arrived in the early afternoon, there were just three cars in the upper Timberline lot.

An image of a few cars on a spring day in the uppermost parking lot at the Timberline area of Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
We assume everyone thought that today was going to be dreary, because there was hardly anyone with us in the upper parking lot at Timberline