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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.

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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.

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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
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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.

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First Round of October 2022 Snow for Vermont’s Green Mountains

Since our first snows of the season back in September, we’ve moved on into a new month and another window for early season snowfall.  This time the snow chances are associated with a series of small disturbances that started moving into the area last night and are expected to continue through the weekend.

The first notifications I saw of accumulation appeared this morning in the Northern New England Cold Season thread on the American Weather Forums – Powderfreak indicated that it was snowing all the way down to 1,500’ at the base of Stowe Mountain Resort, and flakes were even spotted as low as 1,000’ around The Matterhorn.  Powderfreak posted some images from both the top and bottom of the Stowe Gondola that showed the fresh snow.  As the snow and clouds pulled away a bit more by midday, he posted a beautiful snowliage image of some of Mount Mansfield’s slopes.

The temperatures stayed cold enough throughout the day that new snow continued to hang around on the ground, with the snow line rising to around 2,400’ in the midafternoon period.  Powderfreak sent along some additional nice views from his afternoon hike on the slopes of Mansfield, and he commented on how it was nice to be back out with the crunch of snow underfoot.

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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 19APR2022

An image of fresh snow from an April snowstorm in the Timberline area parking lots at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
Our most recent April snowstorm brought some solid accumulations even down to the base of Timberline at 1,500′.

I wasn’t able to get out for a ski tour this morning, but I did have enough time to head out to Bolton later in the afternoon and check out what this most recent storm had to offer.  As we know, a great feature of the March through June portion of the ski season is the long lasting daylight, and that makes late afternoon and even evening ski sessions very practical.

It kept snowing right through the day today, but it did warm up enough to melt back the earlier snow a bit, especially the lower one went in elevation.  There was still a solid coating of snow in place even in the late afternoon at the base of the Bolton Valley Access Road, and here’s the storm accumulations profile I found at that point:

340’: T-1”
1,000’: 1-2”
1,500’: 3-4”
2,000’: 7-8”
2,500’: 8-10”
3,000’: 10-12”

This storm was unquestionably another solid resurfacing of the snowpack at elevation.  The mountains must have had at least an inch and a half of liquid equivalent as snow, and combined with the density of that snow, it was enough to resurface slopes of just about any angle, right up to the steepest of the steep.  The density of the snow meant that it covered, and stayed stuck to, just about every slope out there.  It’s easy for snow to be too dense to enable quality turns though, and this storm didn’t just flirt with that line, it flew way past it.  Even the folks out in the west coast ranges that routinely deal with Sierra Cement and Cascade Concrete would have cried after dealing with this stuff.

An image of new snow from an April snowstorm at the base area of Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
Some of the dense accumulations of new snow at the main base area today

There are times when you’re ski touring, and you can’t quite tell what the quality of the turns is going to be like until you really rip off the skins and start your descent; this was not one of those times.  Right from the start of my tour, I could tell that the skiing was going to be disastrous.  On the lower half of the mountain from say 2,000’ on up to ~2,500’, the snow was super dense, with a bit of melting going on to increase the density just a bit more for good measure.  I held out a little hope that the quality of the snow in the higher elevations would improve, as it often does with lower temperatures producing drier snow that skis better.  “Ha”, not this time.  As I continued to ascend, the snow conditions only got worse.  The snow went from something that was super dense and a bit wet, that you really didn’t sink into much… to an even worse version of that.  As temperatures dipped below freezing on the upper mountain, the top couple of inches of snow has become a solid mass that produced the most horrible, upside-down snowpack you could imagine.  The skiing was challenging, dangerous, disgusting, and everything in between.

An image of snow from an April snowstorm curling off a roof at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
Spring snow doing what it does out at the resort today

So the snowfall from this storm was indeed a great resurfacing, and a solid addition to the mountain snowpack, but it would have taken another good half foot or so of drier snow to really get the immediate quality of the ski surfaces up to snuff in the Bolton Valley area.  It was snowing while I was out there today, with some nice steady snow at times, but there was probably only another inch or two of additional snow above the dense stuff, so not enough to really bring up the snow quality to something more respectable.

Every spring snowstorm is different though, and that’s part of the fun of experiencing them, and we’ll just have to see what the next one does.

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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.