Bolton Valley, VT 22NOV2023

A black and white image of Ty Telemark skiing in powder from a pre-Thanksgiving snowstorm while ski touring in the Wilderness area at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
An image of Ty Telemark skiing in some fresh snow from a pre-Thanksgiving snowstorm up at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont
Ty was free this morning and joined me for some ski touring in the fresh powder up at Bolton Valley.

The mountain snowpack that had been building up over the first half of the month melted back somewhat in the middle elevations at the end of last week, but this latest winter storm seemed to have the potential to replenish it. As of this morning, we’d picked up roughly 4 inches of new snow composed of 0.6 inches of liquid at the house, so the local mountains should have added enough new snow to set the table for more low-angle touring in the powder. Bolton Valley was reporting 3 to 4 inches of new snow overnight, and 5 inches in the past 48 hours. Assuming a similar density of snow to what fell at our house, plus whatever snow was in place before, it definitely felt like it was worth a visit. I didn’t expect the snow quality to be outstanding enough to suggest that E or the boys should join me, so I expected it to be a solo tour.  As I was about halfway through preparing my gear, Ty woke up and let me know that he was actually interested in getting in some turns before work, so that meant I’d have some company!

An image of snow sliding off a car as temperatures warm in the Village area at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
Some of today’s snow sliding off the windshield of a car as temperatures warm in the Bolton Valley Village

In the Winooski Valley at the base of the Bolton Valley Access Road, we found 1 to 2 inches of new snow from this most recent storm, and up in the Village, total depths were 4 to 5 inches. Temperatures this morning were around the freezing mark, with a mix of wintry precipitation types as we set out on our tour. We found that snow depths increased a bit with elevation, hitting 5 to 6 inches around 2,500’ and 6 to 7 inches where we topped out around 2,700’.

The powder skiing was decent, with snow that was relatively dense but not sloppy or soggy on the upper half of our tour. The density did increase a bit more as we descended back toward the base around 2,000’, but the snow still hadn’t progressed to that spring-style sticky stuff. I had freshly waxed up my skis in the morning, and that did appear to help give me an slightly easier time than Ty, who hadn’t waxed.

An image of a snowman and snow on some rooves of condominiums after a pre-Thanksgiving snowstorm in the Village area at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
Folks had clearly been out having fun with all the new snow in the Bolton Valley Village

While today’s powder was decent, the snow I found while out ski touring last week was definitely superior. I think that last week there was a touch more base, the snow overall was a bit deeper, and most importantly, the snow was notably drier. All those factors came together to set that skiing above the quality of what we found out there today. This dense snow that we just received does have the water content to set up a more substantial base though, and it’s really going to be great with some additional rounds of snow on top. The models do suggest that there are some events in the pipeline over the next week, so we’ll see what the mountains get from those.

Bolton Valley, VT 14NOV2023

An image showing fresh snow atop some cars in one of the Village parking lots at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont after a mid-November snowfall
An image of the snow conditions on the the Lower Turnpike trail after some early November snowfall at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
A view of the natural snow conditions at about 2,500′ on Lower Turnpike today.

Sometimes Mother Nature just lets you know that it’s time to get out to ski, and apparently today was one of those days. I was just about the head down to the basement for another pre-season leg workout… but somehow my head transitioned to thinking that we might just have hit that threshold where it was time to actually get out and ski. Perhaps it was time to move on from pre-season to… season. I’m sure it was partly due to the flakes that were falling just outside the window, but Powderfreak’s winter vibe Stowe pictures from Saturday definitely played a role in getting me motivated. We’ve had numerous rounds of snow thus far over the first half of November, and if Powderfreak’s photos were what the slopes looked like before this most recent storm, there had to be enough out there at this point for some low-angle turns.

The cloud ceiling seemed to be around 1,500’ to 2,000’ this morning, so I really couldn’t get a good view of the snow coverage up at Bolton Valley via their Main Base Webcam.  What I could see on the cam was that everything was white… extremely white. The snow coverage looked great, but the clouds were just too thick to get a good sense for what the snow depths were like beyond the areas where they’ve made a bunch of snow. This latest system did just drop another round of accumulation though, even down to the lower valleys, and the natural snow from all the storms we’ve had in the first half of the month has not been melting back in the higher elevations.

Even without a real-time view, it felt like the snow from this latest storm should have pushed the snowpack to the point where it was ready for some touring on low-angle slopes, so I decided to pop up to the mountain this morning on my way to Burlington. With this latest storm, the snow never really seemed to accumulate much to the west of our area in the lower elevations, so there were only a few traces of snow in Bolton Flats and at the base of the Bolton Valley Access Road. Accumulations gradually increased as I headed up in elevation though, and here’s a rough summary of the snow depth profile I encountered this morning:

340’: T

1,000’: T-1”

1,200’: T-2”

1,500’: 1-2”

2,000’: 2-3”

2,250’: 3-5”

2,500’: 4-6”

An image of a pickup truck covered in snow from a mid-November storm at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
A truck in one of the Village parking lots displays a bit of the snow that fell from this recent November storm

As the summary shows, the depths increased slowly at first, and it wasn’t until somewhere in the 1,200’ to 1,500’ elevation range where snow coverage became continuous. Assessing the depths in the Bolton Valley Village parking lots at around 2,000’, I wasn’t initially sure if I was going to end up ski touring or just going for a hike, but I threw my skis on my pack because it looked like touring would be good to go as long as the base snow was substantial enough. Snow depths increased notably above the 2,000’ mark, and a few minutes into my ascent, it was obvious that I was going to be able to ski on the descent. I had my climbing skins in my pack, but never put them on my skis because the hiking was easy enough, certainly easy enough that I didn’t want to add the extra transition time that putting on the skins would throw into the tour. If one does want to skin on the ascent though, there’s plenty of base to do it.

Indeed it’s the sufficient base snow that sealed the deal in terms of the skiing. Below these recent couple of inches, there’s a good amount of consolidated snow at varying degrees of depth. I only had time to tour up to about 2,500’, but the depths did look like they were continuing to improve above that point. It’s best to seek out low-angle, nicely maintained, grassy terrain at this point, but with that, you’re good to go for some very nice powder turns. I saw a couple of older ski tracks on my tour, but nothing from this morning, and that was helpful – untouched snow provided the very best powder turns, so staying away from any footprints or other snow traffic is the best bet. In the untouched snow, turns were bottomless, and I was only on 86 mm skis. The top half of my tour definitely offered the deepest snow and most ability to play around in the powder, but it was still decent all the way back down to the main base around 2,000’. In the lower couple hundred feet of vertical though, you just had to be more selective in sticking to the untouched snow for the smoothest turns. Rock skis or regular skis are both options if you know the terrain you’re going to be on. I didn’t have rock skis, but only made a hard touch or two to objects below the subsurface. Touching below the subsurface is pretty inconsequential on grassy, low-angle terrain, and thankfully, Bolton’s Wilderness area has plenty of those types of slopes.

While we haven’t had any huge winter storms yet this season, all throughout the mountains and mountain valleys there’s been a nice winter vibe. With these typical November rounds of snow, accumulations have been melting back in the valleys, but in the mountains they’ve been building up to the point that people are definitely getting out to enjoy it. Just as I was finishing up my ski tour, I spotted someone who was out for a Nordic ski around the Village, and I bet it was someone who lives right up there at Bolton Valley. I saw them passing above me while they skied the access road, and I quickly fired off a bunch of shots before they disappeared into the clouds.  And while the combination of thick, low clouds and mid-November sun angle made for some notably low-light conditions today, it really just helped to give the outing that November/December early season mystique.

An image of a Nordic skier disappearing into the clouds while out on a mid-November tour of the Village area at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
A Nordic skier out for a Village tour disappears into the low clouds that enveloped the mountains today.

First Vermont snows for the 2023-2024 winter season

An image from the famed snow stake on Mt. Mansfield in Vermont showing some of the first accumulating snow of the 2023-2024 winter season.

Today we got our first taste of the coming winter in the Northern Green Mountains. While Mt. Washington in New Hampshire has had a number of rounds of snow thus far in the autumn, and there were some reports of possible frozen precipitation in far northern Vermont a week or two ago, today saw the first notable accumulating snow on Mt. Mansfield. As of midafternoon today, Powderfreak reported that the snow level was down to ~2,500’, and he sent in an image of a half inch of accumulation at 3,000’ as of 3:30 P.M. By early evening he provided a few more pictures and indicated that the snow level had dropped below 2,000’. Up at the Mt. Mansfield Stake at roughly 3,700’, the report was that there was about an inch of accumulation over a third of an inch of ice. A check of mountain webcams around the area revealed that just about all the mountains were seeing flakes with accumulation, but those views will have to do for now.  Unfortunately, it’s been far too cloudy to get any nice shots of the snowy peaks from afar, but hopefully we’ll get to see them appear in a day or two.

An image from the famed snow stake on Mt. Mansfield in Vermont showing some of the first accumulating snow of the 2023-2024 winter season.
A shot of the famed Mt. Mansfield stake from today featuring the season’s first accumulating snow.

So, Oct 22 will go down as the date for our first accumulating Mt. Mansfield snow for the winter of 2023-2024, and we can now add it to the books and see how it compares to the averages. The stats for first accumulating snowfall of the season on Mt. Mansfield are below for comparison – today’s date of Oct 22 is later than the mean date of Oct 11, but well within 1 S.D., so quite normal in that regard. Assuming a normal distribution, about 25% of seasons will have later first snowfall dates than this one.

The dates of first accumulating Mt. Mansfield snow for some recent seasons are shown below as well, so this season sits later than the past few, but ahead of most of that stretch in the mid-2010s, which was a surprising run of later October dates.

Date of first accumulating Mt. Mansfield snow:

Mean:  10/11
Median:  10/10
Mode:  10/17
S.D.: 15 days
N:  67
Most Recent:  10/22
Most Recent Days Deviation:  +11
Most Recent # of S.D. Deviation:  +0.732
Most Recent S.D. % Lower:  76.8%
Earliest 8/28/1986
Latest   11/17/1985

Date of first accumulating Mt. Mansfield snow by season:

2008: Oct 3
2009: Sep 30
2010: Oct 7
2011: Oct 30
2012: Oct 8
2013: Oct 24
2014: Oct 26
2015: Oct 17
2016: Oct 26
2017: Oct 27
2018: Oct 13
2019: Oct 18
2020: Oct 17
2021: Oct 18
2022: Oct 8
2023: Oct 22

Bolton Valley Nordic & Backcountry, VT 20DEC2022

An image showing recent December snow covering tree branches and structures in the Bryant Cabin area of the Nordic and Backcountry Network at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont
An image of Ty Telemark skiing powder from Winter Storm Diaz in some of the glades on the Backcountry Network at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
Ty out in some of Bolton’s Backcountry Network glades today enjoying the powder from Winter Storm Diaz and the additional rounds since then

It’s continued to snow over the past couple of days, and we’ve had another 3 to 4 inches of snow down here at the house that’s come in with an average density of around 4% H2O.  The back end of Winter Storm Diaz had already topped off the snowpack with some dry upslope, so we expected that these additional rounds of snow should just represent more quality stuff that’s topping off the upper layers of powder that are already present.  Ty and I headed out for a tour this afternoon that took us a bit above Bryant Cabin, and we skied a good variety of different glades that really solidified just how good the skiing was.  The shallowest slopes are still a bit slow with the depth of the powder, but very nice if you want a gentler pace that lets you work in and out among tighter trees.  As we’d already experienced back on Saturday at Wilderness though, the steep and moderate slopes are skiing great.

An image of some of the snow accumulations up around 2,800 feet in elevation on December 20th, 2022 on the Nordic and Backcountry Network at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in VermontIt’s amazing how one storm simply brought the backcountry conditions from very early season stuff that I hadn’t even contemplated skiing, to something that skis like a top notch midwinter snowpack.  And it’s not as if this last storm cycle was a 3 to 4 foot monster.  The snowpack we were skiing today is only in the range of about 20 inches, but apparently it’s just laid down so well that it does the job.  I’m sure there are steep slopes out there with lots of big obstacles that are nowhere near ready, but the typical glades we skied on the Bolton Valley Backcountry Network today were in great shape.

A Google Earth map with GPS tracking data from a ski tour on December 20th, 2022 on the Nordic and Backcountry Network at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont
A Google Earth map with GPS tracking data from today’s ski tour out on the Bolton Valley Nordic and Backcountry Network.

Bolton Valley Nordic & Backcountry, VT 18DEC2022

An image showing snow on one of the buildings near the start of the Nordic and Backcountry Network with a covering of fresh snow at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
Things were looking nice and snowy as I passed the old ticket booth near the start of my tour today on the Nordic & Backcountry Network at Bolton Valley

After discovering such impressive snow coverage when touring at Wilderness yesterday, today I actually headed out onto the Bolton Valley Backcountry Network.  Part of the afternoon was spent clearing out a tree that had come down in our yard during Winter Storm Diaz, and after that was done I had just enough time to hit the backcountry network for a quick exploratory tour.  I wasn’t absolutely sure what to expect, but I was going to be touring entirely above 2,000’, and unless the conditions over at Wilderness were a fluke or something due to aspect, the adjoining backcountry was likely in similar shape.  The backcountry snow report didn’t even have any notifications about poor coverage or closures, it just indicated that coverage was variable.

I was still planning to be conservative in my initial explorations, and my time was limited with dusk approaching, so I opted for a quick tour with a descent of the Telemark Practice Slope.  On my ascent though, it was immediately obvious how good the coverage was in the surrounding glades, and with just a few tracks here and there in the relatively deep powder, it was too good to pass up.  I ended up skiing some of the glades to the skier’s right of the Telemark Practice Slope, and they skied beautifully.  I was initially not expecting such a sublime ride, since we’d really needed at least black diamond pitches yesterday to avoid getting bogged down, but there must have been a bit more settling of the snowpack, and the addition of the upslope fluff that’s been falling was really just icing on the cake that added a little cushioning with minimal resistance.  The resulting snowpack came together to provide just the right speed for the glades, and it was obvious at that point that a lot more of the gentle and moderate terrain is going to be in play for some excellent powder turns.

A Google Earth map of a backcountry ski tour on December 18th, 2022 with GPS tracking data on the Nordic and Backcountry Network at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont
The GPS track of today’s quick tour on the Bolton Valley Nordic & Backcountry Network mapped onto Google Earth

Bolton Valley, VT 17DEC2022

An image of Ty skiing fresh powder on from Winter Storm Diaz on the Bolton Outlaw Trail at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
An image of Ty skiing powder on the upper slopes of Wilderness after Winter Storm Diaz at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
Ty Shredding some of today’s fresh powder on the upper slopes of the Peggy Dow’s run at Bolton Valley. Winter Storm Diaz dropped a good 16 inches of fresh snow on the upper slopes of Bolton, and the wind direction was perfect to avoid the scouring often seen on the upper pitches of Wilderness.

Since Winter Storm Diaz dropped another good shot of snow overnight, our plan yesterday was to head up to Bolton for more lift-served skiing.  Making a final check on the snow report before heading up though, I discovered that the resort had lost power like a lot of other spots around the area.  With that news, and the announcement that the Wilderness Uphill Route was open, we switched our plans over to ski touring at Wilderness.  When we got to the resort, power was back on and the lifts were running, but since we’d already taken the time to gear up for it, we stuck with the ski touring plan since it held the potential for a lot more untracked snow anyway.

A snowy chair after Winter Storm Diaz at the base area of Bolton Valley Ski Resort in VermontWith the existing base snow from ahead of the storm not entirely consolidated, it was tough to get a sense for how much new snow the resort had picked up specifically from this cycle.  But, we were able to get total snowpack depths, and with repeated measurements by both Ty and me, we came in with total settled depths of 16” at 2,000’ and 20” around 3,000’  The resort updated their storm accumulations and reported 12” new at 2,000’ and 16” new at 3,000’, so that fit perfectly with what our measurements were suggesting.

The skin track  Wilderness Uphill Route was nicely set from previous traffic, and there were actually two tracks that let us skin side-by-side for easier conversation.  Traffic on Lower Turnpike had been moderate, and we counted about 20 descent tracks.  I wasn’t sure if we were going to go all the way to the Wilderness Summit depending on how scoured the upper elevations were, but with a lot of the flow with this event coming from the east, there was essentially zero drifting even at the highest elevations, so that set up some potentially great skiing on the upper slopes.

An image of Ty sitting on a bench with snow at the Wilderness Summit at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
Ty enjoys a snowy seat this afternoon at the Wilderness Summit

The snow from this storm cycle certain fell right-side-up, and there was a lot of substance to the lower layers, but it skied DEEP.  We quickly discovered that even on 115 mm fat skis, low and moderate angle pitches just didn’t cut it.  You had to hit black diamond pitches or higher, and once you did, the powder skiing really rocked.  We hit the steepest pitches we could find, like the upper slopes of Peggy Dow’s and the Cougar Headwall, and even when we tried to test the limits of the snowpack by attempting to get down to the ground on turns, you just couldn’t.  We picked up about 1.30” of liquid equivalent from this storm down at our site in the valley, so the mountain must have had at least 1.50” of liquid atop the previous base.  I’m not quite sure how this storm brought the slopes to an almost midwinter feel in terms of substance and coverage, but the combination of liquid equivalent, right-side-up snow, and whatever existing base there was, just hit the sweet spot to make that happen.

An image of Ty Telemark skiing in deep powder from Winter Storm Diaz on the Bolton Outlaw Trail at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
Ty dropping into some powdery Telemark turns on Bolton Outlaw

When we were about halfway through our first descent and only had moderate and lower angle terrain below us, I suggested we stop the descent there and hit the Wilderness Summit again to try Bolton Outlaw for our next descent.  Bolton Outlaw is quite steep with a lot of obstacles, and it often gets scoured and/or skied enough to make coverage an issue, but from what we’d seen of it, and what we’d experience with the skiing up to that point, it seemed like it might be just the ticket.  And it was – it had just the pitch we needed, and coverage was too good to be true.  Each time I’d come over a rise and over a ledge I’d expect to hear a rock, or a log, or something under my skis… but that just didn’t happen.  We’re of course talking touring levels of skier traffic here, but whether you were skiing packed or untracked snow, you just didn’t break through to whatever was below.  It’s still hard to figure out how the coverage got so good without a real consolidated base below, but I’d put it right up there with some of the best runs we’ve had on Bolton Outlaw during any part of the season.

Bolton Valley, VT 16DEC2022

An image Ty schussing through some of the fresh powder during Winter Storm Diaz near Mid Mountain on Sherman's Pass at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
An image of the village circle with fresh snow and snowfall in mid-December during Winter Storm Diaz at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
A snowy day in the Bolton Valley Village with some nice soft turns thanks to the ongoing accumulations from Winter Storm Diaz

I decided to wait until the afternoon to head up to Bolton today, figuring I’d let the snow depths continue to build up through the morning thanks to Winter Storm Diaz, but Dylan and his friends hit the mountain around opening time.  They stayed until midday, and said that they enjoyed some nice soft conditions.  When we asked which way to lean in terms of ski width, the word was to go on the wider side. 

An image of snow accumulating from Winter Storm Diaz in the Village area at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
Building accumulations from Winter Storm Diaz in the Bolton Valley Village this afternoon

Ty and I headed up toward midafternoon, and temperatures were right around freezing down in the valley with the snow accumulations on the dense side, but temperatures dropped right down into the 20s F in the Bolton Valley Village.  The Bolton Valley Access Road was just wet in the lower elevations, with easy driving up to about 1,500’, and above that point it was snow covered.

With only so much terrain open, the main center portions of the runs had a bit of the new snow, but there was enough traffic that you were generally skiing on the base snow.  The sides and lower traffic areas of the trails held plenty of soft snow though – places where the snow had either been untouched or pushed there by skiers would definitely get you off the subsurface.  The snow was of course much drier than what we were getting down in the valley.  We were quickly reminded it was a storm day in mid-December when the night skiing lights started coming on not too far after 3:00 P.M., and it was getting dark enough that it was nice to have the lighting assist at that point.

An image of Ty skiing powder on Spillway Lane during Winter Storm Diaz at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
Ty dives into some of the powder on Spillway lane this afternoon as we ski some of the new snow from Winter Storm Diaz

I didn’t really make any attempts at officially measuring the new snow, but Ty and I both estimated the accumulations at the mountain as of this afternoon were somewhere in the 6-12” range.  I’m surprised to see the mountain coming in with a report of 4-6” new, since we’d already had 6 to 7” down at the house by this afternoon, so I’d say that’s a conservative snow report based on what we encountered.  While we were up there the snowfall rate was close to an inch per hour based on what we found on our car, but nothing outrageous in terms of what the mountains can get for snowfall intensity.  The snowfall was definitely more intense up there than down the valley at our place, as the afternoon period had lighter snowfall than the morning.

Bolton Valley, VT 26NOV2022

An image of snowboards leaning on a rack in the sun outside the main base lodge on a November ski day at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
An image of the Wentworth Condos in the village area behind the base of the Snowflake Chairlift on a November ski day at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
Afternoon light hitting the Wentworth Condos beyond the base of the Snowflake Chair

Temperatures were expected to warm above freezing today, so I was thinking of heading up to the mountain in the afternoon to catch some turns in soft snow.  Dylan and his friends headed up to Bolton Valley in the morning, and said that things were indeed softening up by the time they’re returned in the early afternoon.

Since Ty wasn’t working today, he decided to join me for some skiing, and based on the limited terrain that was open, I recommended that he bring his Telemark gear so that he could get in some practice.  With only the Mid Mountain and Snowflake Chairs running along with the Mighty Mite, there were actually some lift queues, but we still had a fun session getting in a few fun runs on the available terrain.  We didn’t encounter much in the way of soft snow though.  I’m not sure if we’d just missed the window of softening, but looking at just how low that sun was with its November sun angle, it made me wonder how much softening could actually occur – even on a sunny day like today.  The only softened snow we actually found was on the south facing terrain near the top of Bear Run.

Ty had a good time working on his Telemark turns, and he commented that what he needed to work on was smoothing out his transitions from one turn to another.  I told him that’s exactly what Mom and I had discovered when we first started Telemark skiing.  The transition from one Telemark stance to the next is much more challenging than a typical alpine turn, because it’s a longer duration, a longer distance, and there’s a lot more body movement to do.  But, once you get a smooth transition down, your Telemark turns can really flow and you can have a lot of fun with it.  It’s still a tremendous workout compared to alpine skiing, and that’s part of the allure if one goal of your outing is to get in some exercise.

Bolton Valley, VT 25NOV2022

An image of the Mid Mountain Lift disappearing into low clouds on a November day at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
An image of the summit station of the Snowflake Lift on a November ski day at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
Soft snow and low clouds at the summit station of the Snowflake Lift today

After some initial frozen precipitation at our house this morning, we’d had on and off rain in the valley heading into the afternoon.  It had been steady at times, but nothing too heavy.  I got a bit worried though when I encountered a couple of downpours while driving through Bolton Flats, because the thought of skiing in the pouring rain wasn’t all that enticing.  I was happy to see that the rain changed over to snow around 1,500’ at the Timberline Base, so that alleviated the concerns about having to potentially be out on the mountain in a downpour.  The drive up the Bolton Valley Access Road definitely gave its usual introduction to the local temperature profile – the temperatures ticked right down at a steady pace and dropped from the lower 40s F in the valley to the lower 30s F by the time I hit the base village.

An image looking down the Sprig O' Pine trail from the top of the Snowflake Lift on a November ski day at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
A look down the Sprig O’ Pine trail during today’s ski outing

I was getting concerned that the snow surfaces were going to be quickly tightening up as colder air moved in, but the lower mountain seemed to be just enough around the freezing mark that the snow remained soft.  I could tell it wouldn’t be too long before the surfaces would be getting firm though – the wind had really picked up as the back side of the storm system was pushing through, and the Mid Mountain Chair appeared to close early because of it.

An image by the village circle with some November snows at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
In the Bolton Valley Village today with some of the November snows

Bolton Valley, VT 16NOV2022

An image of ski tracks in fresh powder snow from a winter storm in November at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
An image of a car rooftop cargo box amidst a November snowstorm up at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
With the recent shift to colder temperatures in the area, ’tis the season for cargo boxes and snowfall up at Bolton Valley.

Our first widespread winter storm of the season came into the area this morning, and I had a chance to stop by Bolton Valley this afternoon to check out the snow.

Here’s the snow depth profile I found in the midafternoon timeframe:

340’: 2-3”
1,000’: 3”
1,500’: 4”
2,000’: 6-7”
2,500’: 7
3,000’: 8-9”

The settled snow depths depended heavily on the underlying surface – grassy areas that insulated the snow from the ground tended to have a couple more inches of depth, so it really seemed like there was some consolidation/melting due to warm ground.

An image of snow falling during a November snowstorm  at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
Snow falling in the Bolton Valley Village this afternoon

Even at 2,000’ in the Bolton Valley Village area it edged above freezing this afternoon, and it was somewhere in the 2,700’ elevation range where temperatures finally dropped below the freezing mark.  The snow above the point was much less consolidated, so the snow below that elevation is actually better set up to serve as a base.  Liquid equivalent thus far at our house for this storm is 0.70”, so the mountain should be somewhere in that range or higher.

The most notable jump in accumulations was between 1,500’ and 2,000’, and perhaps somewhere between there was when consolidation jumped a lot due to the temperatures.  The increase in depth was really quite slow above 2,000’, and it was hard to see much of a change until I hit the freezing line around 2,700’ – the depth got a bump there because above that point it was still quite dry and hadn’t seen any consolidation.

An image of snow accumulations on a van during  a November snowstorm  at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
Afternoon accumulations of snow in the Bolton Valley Village area today

The freezing line was dropping as the afternoon wore on, and backside snows had started up rather vigorously when I was heading home.  That snowfall appeared to be confined to the higher elevations around here though, because I haven’t seen any back side snows yet down here at our house.