Kids Archives - Page 23 of 34

July 1, 2013May 27, 2014

2012-2013 Ski Season Summary

An image of ski tracks in powder on the Spell Binder trail at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — A succession of storms led to fantastic ski conditions during the holidays for 2012-2013.

Our recently completed 2012-2013 Waterbury Winter Weather Summary, focused on how the snowfall and other aspects of winter transpired down at our house in the Winooski Valley, and now this report will focus on the skiing and snow in the higher elevations.

Snowfall: Compared to the snowfall-deficient 2011-2012 Ski Season, the 2012-2013 Ski Season was certainly a step up, but it was still generally below average for snowfall in the mountains of Northern Vermont. It was Bolton Valley that seemed to fare the worst of the northern resorts along the spine of the Green Mountains, perhaps due to their west slope location and this season’s dearth of upslope snow; they reported just 78.5% of their average snowfall. Heading northward, Stowe and Smugg’s fared a bit better at around 85% of average, and Jay Peak reported roughly average snowfall. Down at our house in the Winooski Valley, snowfall was 88.6% of average, so not too shabby by most accounts, but a bit below the mean like some of the local mountains. These past two seasons have actually been the first pair delivering back-to-back below average snowfall in our area since we started keeping track in 2006. Those numbers can be seen in both our Waterbury Winter Weather Summary Table, and the table of Bolton Valley annual snowfall below; this past season’s snowfall is highlighted in blue:

A table showing the average and seasonal snowfall at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont from 2006 to 2013. — Low snowfall last winter meant back to back seasons with below average snowfall at Bolton Valley.

One item of note this season was the lack of big storms targeting Northern New England – two of the largest storms to hit the Northeast dropped the bulk of their payloads south of Vermont while exiting stage right toward the Atlantic. The first of those, nicknamed “Nemo”, hit in the second week of February, and pounded Southern New England with up to 40 inches of snow. The Green Mountains were on the northern fringe of that storm, but still wound up with 1 to 1.5 feet of snow up and down the spine. The other storm of note was during the March 5^th – 8^th period, and it dropped another 30 inches on some Southern New England locations, but nothing way up north. There were some periods of snowfall to highlight up in Northern Vermont however. The second half of December alone dropped almost 50” of snow down at our house, significantly more in the mountains, and produced some fantastic skiing for the holidays and into early January. Another period of note was the second half of March into April. Cold temperatures in the latter part of the season helped preserve wintry conditions on the slopes, and we received some decent snowfall as well – the largest storm for the season in my valley records hit the area near the end of March, with 21.3” of snow down at the house, and multiple feet for the mountains. The mountain snowpack finally responded during that late season stretch as well, and that’s detailed a bit more in the snowpack section below. Snowfall continued right into mid April, and the season was capped off with almost two feet of fresh snow on Mt. Mansfield for Memorial Day weekend. That was a sweet way to end the powder skiing for the season.

Snowpack: Aside from the spikes associated with a couple of early season storms, the mountain snowpack was below average going into mid December. That changed quickly though, with the onset of all that new snow during the second half of the month. The above average snowpack achieved during the holidays didn’t actually stay that way during January’s warmth and lack of storms. After consolidation, the snowpack generally trundled along at or below average through February’s continuation of relatively low snowfall. From mid February to mid March, the snowpack sat there essentially stagnant for an entire month; to wit, on February 21^st, the snowpack was at 65”, and roughly a month later on March 18^th, it was still at 65”, without any notable consolidation of more than a few inches. The late season stretch from mid March to mid April represented a nice rebound for the mountains however, with some quick gains from the big Northern New England March storm getting it above average, and the snow depth staying at least modestly above during the period.

A graph of the 2012-2013 snowpack depth and long term average at the stake on Mt. Mansfield in Vermont — Two periods stood out this past season for above average snowfall: The holiday period and mid-March through the end of April.

Tree Skiing: One metric used as a rough guide for the start of off piste skiing in the Northern Green Mountains is the point at which the snow depth reaches 24” at the Mt. Mansfield stake. For those unfamiliar with how this metric was established, it’s described in some detail in the 2011-2012 ski season summary. With the incorporation of this season’s data, the mean date remains at December 12^th ± 19 days, with an average depth at the stake of 25.9 ± 2.7 inches. After the very slow start in 2011-2012, in which the 24” depth wasn’t attained until January 3^rd (more than a standard deviation later than the mean), this past season was notably earlier. The plot below shows the date at which 24” was obtained for each season since 1954, with 2011-2012 shown in red, and 2012-2013 shown in green:

A dot plot showing the date of attaining a snow depth of 24 inches at the stake on Mt. Mansfield in Vermont — Each star marks the date of attaining a snow depth of 24 inches at the Mt. Mansfield stake, covering all years since 1954. Although still a bit later than average, reaching a depth of 24 inches at the stake this past season (green star – Dec 22) occurred much earlier than the previous season (red star – Jan 3). The mean date for attaining a depth of 24″ is marked by the large vertical bar in the center of the plot, and the smaller bars indicate the range of one standard deviation above and below that mean.

This past season, the date (December 22^nd, Depth=28”, Green Star) was still later than average due in part to the slow first half of December, but unlike last season it was well within the 1 S.D. bars (thin vertical black lines). Note that the 24” mark is being used as an indicator of when the first forays into appropriate off piste/tree skiing terrain typically start in the Central and Northern Greens. In terms of empirical tree skiing observations, personal experience again lends some support to the use of 24” mark this season, as we began venturing into the trees the very next day on December 23^rd at Bolton Valley. It should be noted though, that while the 24” mark was attained on December 22^nd this season, the 40” mark was attained the very next day on December 23^rd. The 40-inch rule (i.e. reaching a depth of 40” at the stake), is used as an indicator of when most off piste/tree skiing around here is ready to go. Although I haven’t looked into the data, this season has got to represent one of the quickest ascents from 24” to 40” – it’s interesting to note however that after rising to 42” of depth on December 23^rd and 24^th, the snowpack settled back to 36” for a couple of days before rebounding to 45” on the 27^th.

Snow Quality: As an monitor of snow quality for the season, the chronological list of our ski outings has once again been compiled, with those days in which we were skiing powder indicated by a P, and those days in which powder skiing wasn’t available indicated by an X. The availability of powder suggests a fairly high level of snow quality, and the absence of powder generally indicates that temperatures rose above freezing at all elevations. Each listing below represents a link to the full report where images and more information from the outing can be obtained. Outings with an X may still be providing decent skiing such as wet snow, corn, etc. (or else skiing was typically avoided) but aside from the spring period, there’s going to be a price to pay in terms of snow quality associated with these episodes when temperatures eventually cool back down. The pattern of snow conditions in the Northern Green Mountains was fairly typical this past winter, with those days lacking powder skiing showing up in three distinct periods: 1) the early season with its usual temperature fluctuations, up through mid December before the weather pattern changed and the cold weather stabilized, 2) a thaw period in mid January, and 3) the period starting in mid March where spring weather began to make inroads. However, with the way the weather patterns this past spring continued to provide cool temperatures and snowfall, powder skiing generally dominated until mid April. Having analyzed the skiing in this way for the past three seasons, a surprising level of consistency is noted, with an overall average of close to four out of five days providing powder, despite notable differences in the demeanor of these recent ski seasons. The 2010-2011 season, which was above average in snowfall, provided powder on 78% of outings, the 2011-2012 season, which was well below average in many ways, revealed the same 78%, and most recently the 2012-2013 season, which was slightly below average in this area, produced a very similar 77% of outings with powder. The percentages don’t take into account differences in the number of outings each season, but with all three seasons falling into the range of 50 to 60 ski outings, differences in the sample sizes aren’t huge. The list of categorized ski outings with links to their full reports follows below:

The detailed month-by-month synopsis of the season is next:

October: It wasn’t an especially snowy October to kick off the season; we had five rounds of snow in the mountains, and the third one even dropped accumulations to the lowest mountain valleys, but none of the storms were huge dumps, and we had just a tenth of an inch of snowfall down at the house for the month. October’s first snowstorm started up on the 7^th, with snowfall being reported at the top of the Mt. Mansfield Toll Road in the afternoon, and by the next morning Powderfreak sent along his picture of 4” of accumulation at the top of the Stowe Gondola. I also got a shot of Mt. Mansfield later in the day with its first accumulation of the season. It didn’t seem like quite enough snow to tempt me out to ski, but the FIS boys hit the snow and provided a thorough report of the turns. The second storm delivered some accumulation on the 11^th, with a snow line up around the 3,000’ level and less than an inch of snow found up on Mt. Mansfield. The third storm was the one that finally touched the lower valleys with some minimal accumulations, but in terms of mountain accumulations, I don’t think it was anything more than junkboarding material. The 4^th (on the 14^th of the month) and 5^th (on the 16^th of the month) storms of October also appeared to be pretty minimal and generally flew under the radar in terms of discussion. So while it wasn’t a great October for natural snow skiing (with nothing like the back-to-back larger storms at the end of October during the previous season), some folks made some turns and there were several smaller rounds of snow to keep the peaks white.

November: Snowfall for the month of November turned out to be a bit below average down at our location in the valley, but we did have five storms that delivered accumulations all the way to the valley floor. It was a decent month for snowfall in the mountains, with Stowe reporting 35” in November. That’s not outrageous by any means, but it was a noticeable increase from the previous November. It was actually the first month with below average temperatures in Burlington in 20 months, and the corresponding mountain temperatures allowed Stowe to make a tremendous amount of snow. The rounds of November snows produced some modest powder that got me out early in the month on the 4^th, and mid month on the 15^th, but the best skiing was right at the month’s end. A storm overnight on the 29^th dropped a foot of fresh fluff on the Northern Greens and then cleared out for some great turns by dawn patrol time. That new snow on top of previous rounds of accumulation delivered some fantastic bottomless powder skiing that held up even on steep terrain like Stowe’s National trail.

December: The great powder conditions from the end of November storm carried right over into the beginning of December, with some excellent skiing on the 1^st of the month. That was really the highlight of the first half of December however, as snow was hard to come by through the 16^th; we had just 2.2” of snow at the house during that period. It was as if a switch was flipped for the second half of the month though, with winter roaring back in to deliver almost 50” of snow for us in the valley. Some of the more significant storms during that stretch were on the 21^st, with up to 20” of accumulation, the 26^th, with over two feet, and the 29^th, with another foot plus thrown in for good measure, so naturally the skiing during the holiday period was blissfully powdery. Even on days between the more substantial storms, a new half foot of snow could pop up. It was just day after day after day of powder, with even a little night added to the mix. The only detractor from that stretch was that the snowpack wasn’t initially up to the depths to allow people to enjoy that powder on all terrain. The natural base depths did make some quick and significant gains during the period though, with the 24” threshold depth at the Mt. Mansfield Stake being attained on the 22^nd, and the 40” mark reached on the following day as described above in the section on tree skiing. Our first notable forays into the off piste were on the 23^rd at Bolton Valley, which wasn’t surprising with almost all of Stowe’s terrain getting opened by that point. The off piste was quickly going… off, and things just went up from there. That storm on the 26^th had a somewhat uncommon east wind, which filled in the Bolton Valley headwall areas for some fantastic coverage. Despite the relative scarcity of snowfall in the first half of the month, by the end of December, Stowe was at a respectable 102” of snow on the season.

January: December’s snows and excellent ski conditions continued into the beginning of January, with four modest storms hitting the Northern Greens during the first week. In the higher elevations, the largest of those storms came in on January 4^th and affected the northernmost resorts hardest, with a foot at Jay Peak. Even with somewhat lower totals at resorts to the south, the skiing remained quite good because of all the powder that had been building up over the previous three weeks – we found over a foot of powder lurking in the trees at Bolton Valley on the 5^th. More snow came in that night to produce a nice day at Stowe on the 6^th, and after the final snowfall event in the series, the snowpack at the Mt. Mansfield Stake stood at 51 inches on the 7^th. The stormy stretch ended after that, and warm temperatures brought spring-like ski conditions until mid month. Fortunately, the base depths that had built up over the previous three weeks meant that there was a lot of good, soft skiing. Winter was back by mid month, with small systems that brought a return to some powder conditions. The fourth week of January featured arctic cold, which unfortunately meant little snowfall, but at least the temperatures preserved the powder. Finally at the end of the month we got a modest half foot storm to bring back some fresh powder, but January as a whole was quite low on snowfall – down at the house it was by far the least snowy January in my weather records.

February: The month of February rolled in with a tempered return to the type of dry, arctic pattern that we’d encountered in that fourth week of January, but fortunately there was at least a bit more moisture and temperatures weren’t quite as cold. There wasn’t much new snow for the first weekend of the month, but at least the skiing was decent. Of the three storms that came in that following midweek, the second one brought from a half foot to nearly a foot of powder at some of the Northern Vermont resorts, so the skiing improved. Just in time for the next weekend, the “Nemo” storm hit the Northeast, and while it was largely a miss for Northern Vermont relative to areas to the south that got up to 40” of snow, the mountains still picked up more than a foot of powder to provide some excellent turns. Nemo was followed by a storm named “Orko”, which came in at the beginning of the following week with 1 to 1.5 feet for some of the local resorts. Beyond that storm, mid February was fairly dry, but powder conditions persisted, and on the 19^th a more sizeable storm hit the area with snow totals of 1 to 2 feet plus for the Northern Vermont resorts. The month finished off with a few more storms, with a half foot storm and a 1 to 1.5-foot storm being the more notable ones. Although the month as a whole was actually rather lean on snowfall (only an inch from being the least snowy February in my records at the house), as it typical, the consistent availability of powder rolled right on into March as seen in the categorized list of ski outings above.

March: The first half of March wasn’t especially snowy, with just one notable storm in the ½ to 1-foot range for the mountains; the big storm that affected southern parts of New England with up to 30 inches of snow in the March 5^th-8^th period was literally a non-event in Northern New England. Of course even with some warmer temperatures in the second week, decent powder remained in the higher elevations, and soft snow made for fun turns on piste. Around mid month though, the skiing started to get even better as the snowfall picked back up with back to back modest storms and 72-hour snow totals topping out around 16 inches on the 16^th. Thanks to the ability of the Central and Northern Greens to reel in snow, conditions moved well beyond the dust on crust that many areas to the south were likely encountering. That was the start of an excellent stretch of winter that was second only to the snowy December period, with our largest valley storm of the season arriving on March 19^th and delivering 7-day snow totals of 2 to 4 feet in the mountains. At Stowe they were calling it “Powder Week” and the deep turns just kept on coming. The increase in mountain snowpack during the period was notable in that it finally moved solidly above average and stayed there Simply put, even lift-served powder skiing was endemic on piste during that second half of March until a brief warm-up during the last couple of days of the month.

April: Despite the somewhat slow increases in the snowpack during the heart of the winter, the gains made during the latter half of March meant that the snowpack was at least modestly above average heading into April, and it quickly reached a peak of 87 inches at the Mt. Mansfield Stake when the first storm of the month dropped a foot of snow at Stowe on April 2^nd. I was up at Bolton Valley that day for a ski tour, and I got to witness some impressive snowfall rates as the storm crashed into the higher elevations. The alpine terrain above tree line on Mt. Mansfield was in good shape, consistently providing excellent outings during that first part of the month. Cool temperatures with additional snow meant that the snowpack stayed at an above average level right through the month, and another storm on the 12^th saw Ty and I enjoying close to a foot of dense powder out in the Bypass Chutes at Stowe on the 13^th. The skiing gradually transitioned to full on spring conditions after that weekend as the active pattern waned, and an impressively long stretch of clear weather moved in and stuck around well into May.

May: For most of May, there wasn’t much to talk about in terms of new powder, especially with the extended period of incredibly clear weather that carried over from the end of April and lasted a fortnight, finally ending on the 10^th of the month. There was some mighty fine spring skiing right through that period with all the sun and warm weather, even if it did cause the snowpack to decrease a bit faster than it otherwise might have. The tranquil period of warm weather allowed the Mt. Washington Auto Road to open on the 10^th of the month as well (definitely on the early side), but since unsettled weather had just returned at that point, we didn’t get to make our spring pilgrimage to the snowfields until the 18^th. To really cap the month off well, Northern New England and the Adirondacks were rewarded with a Nor’easter over Memorial Day Weekend, which delivered roughly 3 feet of powder to Whiteface and nearly 2 feet to Mt. Mansfield. Excellent powder turns were made while the valleys were almost fully leafed out for the spring. We didn’t actually head out for any June turns beyond that, but the skiing over Memorial Day Weekend had been so good that it hardly mattered – it was just a few short months until the snows of fall would be returning.

So what about the overall feel for the quality of the ski season in Northern Vermont? Well, much like the snowfall numbers suggest, it feels like it came in a bit below average, even if not horribly so. The mountain snowpack (as gauged by what was seen at the stake on Mt. Mansfield) had its ups and downs, and on balance it probably gets rated in a similar manner to what the slightly subpar snowfall would suggest. Being frequent Bolton Valley skiers and living down below the mountain in the Winooski Valley, our perspective might be skewed a bit downward with the resort receiving just 78.5% of their average snowfall. Having the north miss out somewhat on a couple of big regional storms, while watching a horrid valley snowpack (see the 2012-2013 Winter Weather Summary for details) that kept ski routes to the lower valley bottoms essentially off the table, certainly didn’t win the season any extra points. It seems that 2012-2013 ultimately sits in the lower half of ski seasons and won’t be remembered as anything epic, but it also appeared to hold onto a decent level of powder availability (77%) based on our experiences, and that means there was still a pretty decent amount of good skiing. The fact that even the poor 2011-2012 Ski Season was able to hold onto a powder percentage in that range is also reassuring in that regard, suggesting that there is indeed a certainly level of reliability that can be expected in these seasons where snowfall/snowpack is below average.

June 15, 2013November 23, 2013

2012-2013 Bolton Valley Photo Gallery

We’re pleased to announce the completion of our Bolton Valley Photo Gallery for the 2012-2013 ski season. This year’s gallery is our largest to date, with over 270 images documenting this season’s ski adventures indoors and out, in the front, side, and backcountry, under blue skies and flake-dumping maelstroms at Vermont’s Bolton Valley Ski Resort. Continue on to the thumbnail images below and browse away! Detailed reports are associated with every photograph in the gallery, so if you find a scene that sparks your interest, simply hover over the thumbnail image to get the date, and head to the archives on the right side of the page to read the full report. We’ve also got similarly extensive galleries from the past several ski seasons, representing nearly 1,600 photographs from around Bolton Valley, and these can all be found at our J&E Productions Photo Galleries Page. We’ll also have our full 2012-2013 Ski Season Summary coming out later this summer, so stay tuned for that update as well.

May 18, 2013May 23, 2013

Mt. Washington, NH 18MAY2013

An image of Erica skiing the eastern snowfields on Mt. Washington — Mt. Washington delivering the goods today

Using the Auto Road to gain access to Mt. Washington’s East Snowfields is a convenient way to get to some fantastic spring skiing, but a number of factors need to align for an optimal outing to come together. First, the road has to open. One never knows exactly when that’s going to happen, since it depends on how much snow has to be removed, how fast it’s melting, how much road maintenance needs to be done, how often bad weather delays work, etc. Then, even once the road is open, weather can still play a factor. Although some folks might be inclined to head up into the alpine regardless of the forecast, I think most folks would agree that a calm, warm, clear spring day (or at least as close as you can get to that ideal) is the way to go. Those types of days can be rare on Mt. Washington, but they certainly happen, and they typically occur more frequently the farther one gets into late spring. While time might be on your side with regard to weather, it’s generally not on your side when it comes to snowpack. With each passing day of warmth, the snowpack melts a little more, and ski options diminish. Unlike when you get an iceland camper rental over there, the snow isn’t lasting quite so long these days over here. And, even if the stars align to create that perfect combination of access, weather and snowpack on the mountain, there’s everything else in life that has the potential to get in the way of letting you jump at the opportunity. Once in a while, things just don’t come together before the snow melts, but somehow, even with all those obstacles, we usually manage to get over to New Hampshire for some spring camping and skiing with the boys, and this year was no exception.

“We had the snowfield
to ourselves the entire
afternoon…”

For two weeks from the end of April through to the second week of May, we saw an incredible stretch of clear, warm spring weather with absolutely no measurable precipitation at our house in Waterbury. This period produced some great spring skiing, but the warmth and sun also accelerated the snowmelt to a rate that was a bit faster than usual. This period was great in terms of progress on clearing snow from the Mt. Washington Auto Road however, and it was open to the summit as of last weekend. The weather was unsettled for that first weekend though, so we opted to head down to the South Shore area and visit Erica’s mom for Mother’s Day, and keep our eyes peeled for a good weather window. After a couple more days of unsettled weather, the clear regime returned this week, and prospects for an Auto Road trip were looking excellent. This morning, the forecast called for decent weather with temperatures in the 40s F, and the morning shot from the Ravines Cam revealed crystal clear skies. It also showed that the east side ski options below the Mt. Washington summit are still quite plentiful, with many additional snowfields available along with the main one.

An image of the Presidential Range in New Hampshire from the west — Presidential view

We were on our way to the mountain by mid morning, and views from the west side were already encouraging as we approached the Presidentials. When the west side still has skiable snow, you know the east side is going to have plenty of options. Steep lines with decent snow were even visible on the north side of the range as we passed by on Route 2, and on the ascent of the Auto Road we could see various snowfields in the peaks towering above the Great Gulf. In the proximity of the Auto Road itself, the first signs of snow were at roughly the 3,500′ elevation. As for the East Snowfields, the setup today was a lot like we encountered during our 2010 trip, in that the broad strip of snowfields was present off to the north of the main East Snowfield. A look at the availability of snow in 2010 shows an interesting distribution of snow – that strip of snowfields off to the north was very prominent, and the main East Snowfield was surprisingly small. The current snowpack is definitely different from what we had available on our 2011 and 2012 trips, where the skiing was essentially down to just the main snowfield.

“The snowfield held
beautifully flat and
pristine corn snow…”

With the lower snowfields in action, we decided to go with the approach applied in our 2010 trip, which is to use the parking area below the 7-mile post on the road, instead of the parking area at the top of the snowfields. Using this technique, one can tour out along the more northerly snowfields as far as they want, even hitting the main East Snowfield if they’d like. Then, to finish the tour, instead of having to hike back up to the parking area atop the East Snowfield, one can essentially traverse back along the base of the snowfields with minimal additional ascent. Along the way, you can make descents in the other snowfields as well, which often have untouched snow. They’re used much less than the main East Snowfield and we’ve typically found that we have them to ourselves with untouched corn snow. At the end of our 2010 trip, we also discovered a very efficient use of the mountain’s hiking trail network for this type of tour. We’ve started traversing on the Nelson Crag Trail before, but, it turns out that simply descending straight down from the lower parking area on the Huntington Ravine Trail drops you right onto the northern edge of the snowfields, so you can use the trail to get you right to the snow. You can’t really see the snow from above, so it’s not obvious unless you know what you’re doing, but as long as those northerly extensions of the snowfield are present, it’s a really sweet and efficient approach. Even though the distribution of the snow in the snowfields area is different each spring, it’s nice to be developing a knowledge of what works well for getting to the snow. We’re definitely starting to dial in a good understanding of how to best approach what we see on the Ravines Cam in terms of touring the snowfields. This year our goal was to tour out toward the main East Snowfield as described above, with the potential to ski there, but it would depend on how good the skiing was that found along the way, as well as time, and of course the boy’s attitude and morale, which can be extremely flighty on these outings.

As expected, taking the Huntington Ravine Trail got us to the snow in just a few minutes of hiking from the car, and Ty and Dylan were ready to just stop right there and start skiing. E and I explained to them that what they saw was just the tip of the iceberg in terms of snow, and that we would be traversing southward for some longer lines. The snowfield there was only about 50 vertical feet or so, but typically the priority for the boys is to minimize the amount of hiking they have to do in whatever way they can. The boys did have a bit more challenge this year, since they were both carrying their own skis on their packs for the first time. Fortunately, they had both decided to use their Telemark skis, also a first for them, so it’s nice that their Teles are lighter than their alpines. This also meant that they could simply wear their Telemark boots and hike like me and Erica in ours, since they are very flexible and have rubber soles. This meant we didn’t have any alpine boots to carry, although Tele boots still aren’t quite as easy for hiking as standard hiking boots, so that was a bit of a bump in challenge for the boys. For E, this trip was also a chance to carry her skis on the Dakine Women’s Pro II 26L ski pack that she got for Christmas. Although she used it on some backcountry outings this winter, we were always skinning, so there was no need to carry her skis on her back. This was her first opportunity to really put it to the test with skis on it, and she was very impressed. I wouldn’t have thought about it, except that she commented on how it didn’t even feel like she had skis on her back – that’s always good sign when it comes to a ski pack. She also mentioned how the diagonal carry is so superior to the A-frame style carry in terms hitting the backs of the skis with your legs. I’ve always been very impressed with the diagonal carry on my Dakine Sequence ski/photo pack, so I’m glad E is getting to make use of that system. Dakine definitely knows how to set up a ski carry system. The one issue I did notice with E’s pack is that since it has a helmet carrying system (very cook and I wish I had one) it gets a bit tight when the skis are on there in diagonal carry as well. Overall the skis and helmet were nice and snug there though, and E had no complaints. Our only lament heading outbound on the tour was that with our skis angled down to the right, it meant that they occasionally touched the rocks because of the direction of the side slope on our southward traverse. It was only an occasional inconvenience though, and I joked that we could always traverse around the entire Mt. Washington summit cone in the other direction if we really wanted to avoid that issue ;).

An image of Jay carrying his skis on his pack on one of the snowfields on the east side of Mt. Washington in New Hampshire — Time to hit the snow!

After only about ten minutes of southward traversing, we came to a substantial snowfield of about 250′ vertical or so, and we decided to do some skiing. We hit the snowfield about midway up, so I set in a boot ladder to the top. The snowfield held beautifully flat and pristine corn snow, aside from a couple of very faint tracks from a previous skier or two that must have been there quite a while ago. The snowfield was continuous, but did have a choke point about midway down along the left, so one had to take that route.

It was good that we’d reached at least an initial snowfield, because the boys were already getting grumpy. They really wanted to get on with the camping. They’d been planning that aspect of the trip for a long time, looking on sites like campingfunzone.com for handy tips and tricks which they were now dying to try out, so while they enjoy being out on the snow, getting them to thoroughly relish all aspects of earned turns is always a challenge. They got out their flashlights for hiking when it got dark, and loved the setup and maintaining the fire, and other tasks like that. Some days they enjoy the experience, or at least substantial parts of it, but other times it’s essentially putting up with Mom and Dad dragging them around to these snowy spots. We’ve learned that it’s good to have a “carrot” aspect of the trip as well, whether it’s a stop in a the Bryant Cabin on a Bolton Valley Backcountry Network outing or the swimming pool after, a chance to eat out somewhere once we’re done, or in this case, a chance to do some camping. We relayed to them that they were sitting on their own private snowfield with great temperatures, no wind, no bugs, beautiful snow, and even some sunshine. These aren’t things that you can get every day, but in their minds they were already off the mountain and down by the tent and campfire.

An image of Jay Telemark skiing on the East Snowfields of Mt. Washington in New Hampshire in May — Getting after some of that smooth corn snow today

At the top of the snowfield, I hung out for a while and enjoyed the scene, while the boys did a bit of sliding on the snowfield, and E made the first descent. Her turns looked good, and it was amazing how fast she dropped that vertical. It seemed like she was down toward the flats of the Alpine Garden area in an instant, and she looked so far away. I skied a run next, and then we eventually got the boys to make some turns, even though they were being somewhat lazy and reluctant. They both put together some nice Telemark turns, even though the pitch of the snowfield was quite steep. E and I both made some additional turns, with me finishing off a run on the lower right of the snowfield while E shot some pictures. We had the snowfield to ourselves the entire afternoon, so even though it was only about half the vertical of what was available on the main East Snowfield, it was such good skiing that we never even continued over there. The boys were a bit too sour for that anyway, and really wanted to get on to the camping. We could hear that occasional shout from people on the main snowfield though, and I’m sure there were some great times going on over there.

An image of Dylan Telemark skiing in May on the East Snowfields of Mt. Washington in New Hampshire — Dylan out there carving some turns on the Telemark skis

The return traverse to the car was pretty quick, and E and I helped out the boys by each carrying a pair of their skis. For the extra set of skis, we went with a vertical carry, and E seemed to still be impressed with the stability and ease of her pack, even with the second set of skis on it. I made the lowest traverse, so that meant a few minutes of hiking back up the Huntington Ravine Trail at the end, but I was eager to test that out. It was nice to walk on an established trail, since the going was a big quicker than across the random jumbles of rocks that give the Rock Pile its name. While we were loading up the gear at the parking area, we had some inquiries about where we’d been skiing, and one guy was very intrigued to know that you could access the snowfield from that lower parking lot. He said he’d like to try it out in the future.

“…but in their minds
they were already off
the mountain and down
by the tent and campfire.”

Each year we like to try out a new campground on our visit to the snowfields, and this year I decided that we’d head south to Glen, New Hampshire. I’d found a couple of potential campgrounds there. The first was the Green Meadow Camping Area, but when we stopped in and found out that they weren’t opening until next weekend, we headed to the Glen Ellis Family Campground a couple of miles down the road. I’d put it as the second choice because it was a bit more expensive, but once we got there you could immediately tell why. The grounds are immaculate, and the building that functions as the main office and store was a beautiful building. Everything was first rate, and they’ve got a huge playground, basketball and tennis courts, and even a pristine baseball diamond. It’s certainly in that upper echelon of campgrounds.

Visitation was only modest since it’s no Memorial Day yet, so they gave us one of the riverside campsites. We thought that would be nice, but it wasn’t until we finally got to it that was saw how amazing it was – it was absolutely one of the coolest campsites we’ve ever had in either to Eastern or Western U.S. There’s a wooded section with the usual fire ring, picnic table, etc., but then that expands up onto a riverside area comprised of the rocks that are part of the riverbed, with a second fire ring. It overlooks a gorgeous stretch of the Saco River that made E and I feel like we were back in Jasper National Park. As soon as we saw that riverside section, we knew we were going to pitch our tent right up there. The boys headed off to the playground for a bit, we cooked up some hot dogs and beans for dinner, and finished things off with s’mores and lot of campfire time. There wasn’t actually anyone else camping out on the river since campground visitation was light, but I have to believe those riverside spots are pretty coveted on busy weekend. The fly fishing looked amazing, and we saw one guy out working the stream about a half mile downstream. That is a campsite that will not soon be forgotten, and it will definitely be on our list for the next time we’re in the area. Apparently their Laundromat is a big deal as well, because there are as many signs for that as there are for the campground itself!

An image of a campsite along the Saco River at the Glen Ellis Family Campground in New Hampshire — The view from our campsite at the Glen Ellis Family Campground today

Sunday update: The evening sky had some on and off broken clouds and a nice moon, and I bet it dropped into the 30s F overnight because even with the rain fly on the tent, we were down to the mid 40’s F. After breaking camp, we decided to try out one of the local restaurants for breakfast on the way home, and found the Glen Junction Family Restaurant. It definitely seemed to be the hot spot for breakfast, and the menu was almost overwhelming with the variety of combinations of fresh toast, omelets, and most of the usual morning fare that you can think of. Not surprisingly with the junction location, the theme is trains, and they’ve got some fairly large-scale trains that circulate around the rooms up near the ceiling. The boys definitely enjoyed watching those, as did the numerous children that were there as well – especially the younger ones. Of course any adults like me would enjoy them as well. One of the specials had eggs Benedict on French toast, which was tempting, although I ended up making my own omelet which contained corned beef hash and spinach. The waitress said that was the first time she’d ever had anyone put together that specific combination, and it turned out great. Everyone liked their fare, and we even had some extra to take home as the portions are plentiful.

We got home today around noontime, after a bit of maintenance on the mowers, I was able to do the first lawn mowing of the season. It’s only about four short months until I’ll be on the last mowing of the season, and we’ll be thinking about the first snows, but there are plenty of summer activities to do in the meantime. In terms of skiing, we’ll have to see if we want to take a trip down to Killington for some turns in the next couple of weeks, since they’re apparently going for June this year just like old times.

May 4, 2013May 5, 2013

Sugarbush, VT 04MAY2013

An image of Dylan skiing on Stein's Run at Sugarbush on spring snow in May — Dylan at Sugarbush today

Last weekend I visited Bolton Valley for turns, but in general it’s been another week with day after day of sun and warm spring temperatures of 70-80 F for the valleys, so I suspect Bolton’s snowpack isn’t very continuous at this point. The Mt. Washington Auto Road opened to tree line today, but a full opening is required to use it for access to the snowfields, so local turns seemed to be on the menu again. Stowe has plenty of snow and is one of the closest options at this point, but once I found out that Sugarbush was offering free skiing this weekend in support of Vermont Land Trust’s preservation of the Bragg Farm, that jumped right up on the list.

I’d been tossing around different ideas about when to ski among other weekend chores and activities, but once I got the word that Sugarbush wasn’t going to be opening on Sunday, that sealed the deal on today’s trip. Ty was away at a friend’s house and E was busy with other things, but Dylan definitely needed to get out of the house, so I grabbed him in the early afternoon and we headed off to Sugarbush to make some turns. Dylan actually protested about today’s trip at first, and you could tell that there was a big activation energy required to get him moving, but even he realized that he needed to get his butt off the couch. We hadn’t been in the car long before his disposition started to change. With him and Ty, it’s often about that activation energy.

The main paved parking lot right below the Clay Brook Complex had a decent amount of cars in it, but it wasn’t chock full and there were plenty of available spaces right up front from people who had already left for the day. The mountain was requiring that everyone have free tickets, even with the free skiing, but the process was easy – we just stopped in the ticket building and they handed them over to us. You could make your donation to the Bragg Farm preservation project right there as well if you wanted. As we were walking over to the base of the lifts, my fired Chris spotted us from his seat outside at the Castlerock Pub, and he said to stop back after we’d done our skiing. The scene was lively outside at the pub, with live music from a guitarist going strong.

I was initially surprised when we walked up the steps and found that the Super Bravo Chair wasn’t running, and quickly realized that skiing was off the Valley House Double today. That’s a much slower and lower capacity lift setup, and meant that there was a decent queue of about 10 minutes or so to be able to load. The upside was that it probably helped to keep traffic down on the minimal terrain they had open – essentially Stein’s Run with the Coffee Run runout below that to get you back to the base of the lift. I wasn’t too excited when I’d initially heard that the skiing was only off Stein’s, since it never really seems to have any decent bump lines, just big, widely-spaced things, but at least it was warm enough out that its traditionally hard, manmade snow would likely soften. As we stood in the queue, Dylan was still a rather reluctant participant. He said, “Dad, I’ve got three things to tell you that I don’t like… one, it’s too hot out; two, this line is too long; and three, the snow is going to be sticky. Apparently his glass was well empty, but I did assure him that the snow wasn’t going to be sticky; it was definitely well-ripened corn snow and you could tell that even as we stood there at the base elevation.

The skiing turned out to be much better than I’d expected, not so much due to the snow, which I expected to be decently softened with temperatures in the 70s F, but the terrain setup. In this case, Stein’s tendency for those wide, spread out bump lines meant that there was actually some pretty smooth snow off to the sides where fewer people were skiing. It wasn’t totally flat, but the bumps were fairly scattered, so you could enjoy that area for smooth turns, and then move toward the middle of the trail for more bumps. Amazingly, even on such a warm day, Stein’s still found a way to have firm snow between some of the bumps. It’s almost hard to imagine that on such a day, but Stein’s is steep and it really faces north. Dylan worked on his pole technique and we both had some fun turns. I’d gone with alpine equipment, not wanting to deal with Telemark turns on the typical crazy assortment of bumps that can sometimes be found on Stein’s, but it turned out to be so much better than I’d expected; Telemark skiing would certainly have been fun as well.

The lift queue at Valley House had gone down somewhat by the time we finished our run, but I still couldn’t convince Dylan to do any more skiing. He did say that the skiing was better than he’d though it would be, so that was at least a bit of a positive note in his rather sour disposition. We met up with Chris down at the Castlerock Pub, where we had some nachos and root beers. We’d checked over at Timbers first, but they weren’t opening until 4:00 P.M., so it seemed like a perfect time to introduce ourselves to what to the pub had to offer. On such a gorgeous day, you could either sit inside and be just out of the sun but catching the cool breeze, or hang out on the patio and absorb some rays. We haven’t seen Chris since the Warren Miller movie in the fall, so we caught up with his latest exploits; he’ll be up in the area for some work in the next couple of weeks, so hopefully we’ll see him again.

An image of a Route 100 highway sign in Vermont covered with a variety of ski stickers — At least Vermont’s Skier’s Highway has got it’s 15 requisite pieces of flair.

I’m really glad that Sugarbush offered the free day today, because in our case, it needed to be something pretty economical to make it worth it for the minimal terrain. Simply skinning for turns at a place like Stowe is pretty high on our list, but today’s skiing was definitely worth it for a nice change of pace. It’s been a couple of seasons since we’ve had the occasion to visit the ‘bush, so I’m glad that we snuck a visit in under the wire today.

April 21, 2013April 25, 2013

Stowe, VT 21APR2013

An image of Jay in a Telemark turn in spring snow on the Gondolier trail at Stowe Mountain Ski Resort in Vermont — Dylan doing some work behind the camera today capturing Dad in a turn.

It was a Telemark day for the family yesterday at Stowe, but today was an alpine day for the boys, in line with plans to hit some steep and challenging terrain. We were hoping to introduce Dylan and E to some of the Bypass Chutes that Ty and I had skied last Saturday, with additional plans to head over to the Gondola area of Mt. Mansfield and potentially up to some of the steep alpine terrain of The Chin. The weather was looking pretty good, with clear blue skies and fairly seasonable temperatures. E had tweaked her back a bit the other day, so she ultimately decided that the best course of action would be to rest it, and I took the boys off to the mountain in the mid afternoon. On our drive, the one thing I quickly noticed was that today’s temperatures were actually a bit colder than yesterday’s – whereas it was roughly 50 F in the lower mountain valleys yesterday, today I was seeing numbers more in the mid 40s F. The car thermometer was reading just 39 F when we arrived at the base of Mansfield, and that got me a little concerned about the snow surfaces, since yesterday’s slightly warmer temperatures were already somewhat marginal with the softening. Today had 100% sunshine though, so I was hoping that could make a difference.

An image of skiers tailgating in a packed Mansfield parking lot at Stowe Mountain Ski Resort in Vermont — The sea of vehicles and tailgating people in the Mansfield parking lot today

As soon as we arrived in the Mansfield Parking Lot, it was obvious that the number of people at the resort was nothing like what we’d encountered yesterday afternoon. Yesterday we just pulled up and grabbed a parking spot in the first row, directly in front of the Mansfield Base Lodge, but today I didn’t see a single open spot in the entirety of the east side of the lot. I eventually decided that it would just be easier to park over in the Midway Lot at the Gondola, since we’d be finishing our day there. Even over there though, there was a healthy amount of vehicles, so the resort was definitely drawing a crowd for its last official day. As we made our way over to the base of the Fourrunner Quad, we witnessed the incredible sea of vehicles and skiers that filled the Mansfield Parking Lot. The sights and sounds were simply everywhere, there was one source of music that was so loud that it sounded like a live band was playing. I even heard someone mention something to that effect a bit later, but didn’t know if it was true. Anyway, that’s what happens when you combine that last day of Stowe lift service with weather like we had today.

An image of the Gondola area at Stowe Vermont below Mt. Mansfield from the Midway parking lot — Arriving to a beautiful day on Mansfield

“It was still reasonably
good corn snow, and
fortunately it improved
with ever turn we took as
we dropped in elevation.”

Up at the summit of the Fourrunner Quad it was certainly a bit chilly, and I suspect that the temperature was right around the freezing mark. I thought about doing a run on some of the quad terrain before making our way over to the Gondola, but decided that it was best to get going early so we’d have maximal time for whatever touring we wanted to do. The snow seemed at least somewhat softened in the sun from what we could see below us on our trip up the quad, but as soon as we dropped onto Nosedive, we found out that anything out of the sun was going to be a total nightmare in terms of surface consistency. We saw that the upper entrance to Bypass was roped, presumably because of the firm snow surface. The trip down those next couple of pitches of Nosedive was quite hairy, and I wouldn’t have recommended it for anyone like us that doesn’t keep their edges sharp. We picked our way down with some survival skiing to find that even the next entrance to the Nosedive Glades was roped off. Access over to Rimrock was only available once the pitch flattened out a bit, and we got our butts off Nosedive as soon as possible.

An image of Dylan hiking on the snow on the Perry Merrill trail at Stowe Mountain Ski Resort in Vermont — Dylan sees the light at the end of the tunnel as he finishes off the ascent on Perry Merrill.

Based on the snow surfaces, I didn’t think there was much sense in heading above tree line, but the ascent over to the top of the Gondola still looked viable, so we set our sights on that. To make it easy on the boys, especially since they’ve been under the weather a bit this past week, I took care of carrying their skis for them. I skinned with my skis, and attached theirs to my pack. We actually encountered a number of people heading over to the Gondola via Rim Rock, they were keeping that aggressive traverse that would let them reach High Road and maximize their vertical. We were heading higher than that though, since we continued up Cliff Trail once we got to that High Road intersection. After a break at that intersection, we continued on up with the Cliff Trail ascent, and even though it’s just an intermediate pitch, it looked daunting to the boys compared to what we’d just traversed. It really went quickly though, it felt like we began to see the top of Cliff Trail just after ascending the first steep pitch, and even with the boys somewhat beleaguered pace due to recent fought illness, it couldn’t have taken much more than 10 minutes. We could still see some sunlit terrain above us at that point, so after a quick break, we continued on a bit more and finally stopped our ascent up near the flats leading to the Cliff House. In terms of both sunshine and slope, there wasn’t much point in going beyond the first big pitch of Perry Merrill. We could hear, and in some cases see, people picking their way down through the Rock Garden and other, even steeper lines off the Mansfield ridgeline, and it sounded horrible up there. That terrain is shaded, high in elevation, and steep. It looked like it was worse than what we’d found on Nosedive, and that experience was already going down as serving up the most hellacious ski conditions we’d encountered all season. At least the snow was being well-preserved for future use, but it had me longing for the fresh snow that Ty and I got to play in last weekend.

“…we found out that
anything out of the
sun was going to be
a total nightmare
in terms of surface
consistency.”

The boys finished with a final snack and some roughhousing in the snow off to the side of the trail as we enjoyed some sun, and then we were off for some turns. We stuck to as much sunny terrain as we could, descending on Perry Merrill and then to Gondolier on the skier’s left. The snow was only marginally softened, so it was OK, but like yesterday, not really as great as the sunshine might suggest. It was still reasonably good corn snow, and fortunately it improved with ever turn we took as we dropped in elevation. All I can say is that the upside of the minimal softening is that even down in those lower elevations below the alpine, the preservation of the snowpack was looking quite good. I was happy for E though, as she’d made the right call in staying home and resting her back. Although she missed a fun bit of hiking and touring, which gave us a nice workout, she certainly hadn’t missed out on any extraordinary (or even ordinary for that matter) spring skiing.

An image of Dylan with Ty mostly hidden behind as they begin a ski descent of the Perry Merrill trail at Stowe Mountain Ski Resort in Vermont — Dylan leading the charge down the top of Perry Merrill with Ty right behind him on his heels

For the final half of the descent on Gondolier, we used my camera (Canon EOS 30D) and E’s camera (Canon PowerShot ELPH 510 HS) between the three of us and played “Shootout”. It’s a contest in which everyone skis in front of the cameras, but also gets behind the cameras to serve as photographers. The goal is to see who can get the shot of the day in both the photographer and skier roles. E’s point and shoot camera does have a decent high speed shooting mode that runs at 7.8 FPS in low (~3 megapixels) resolution, and it does a decent job of capturing images, even if you can’t really view your subject the way you can with a DSLR. The big downside of her camera is that the focus, exposure, and other parameters are set on the first shot and remain fixed – also, you have to stop shooting to adjust the zoom. For sports photography, this represents a serious disadvantage compared to the DSLR that is rapidly adjusting all these for every high speed shot, and even though it’s only shooting at 5 FPS, it’s going at full resolution and is attempting to optimize the picture every time. Also, you can zoom on the fly and keep filling the frame with the skier if you want. E pointed out that I had a huge advantage using the DSLR (since it’s big, the boys don’t typically use it), so it was a bit uneven in that regard, but we’ll see how things come out in the end.

April 20, 2013April 21, 2013

Stowe, VT 20APR2013

An image of Erica skiing spring snow at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont — On the spring snow today at Stowe

We almost did a little skiing at Stowe on Thursday this week, but it was just starting to rain when we stopped in at the mountain around midday, and with E and the boys a bit under the weather, we decided to hold off. The weather was much better today, so we headed up to Mansfield in the afternoon to make a few turns. Temperatures were up around 50 F in the mountain valleys, and the sky was a mix of clouds and sun, so it seemed like a reasonable spring skiing day. It was only in the 40s F at the base of the mountain, but that was still more than warm enough to soften up the slopes.

One item of note today was that it was E’s first chance to try out her new Telemark ski boots that she bought a couple of weeks ago. After almost six seasons of using the $50 boots that she picked up at the South Burlington Ski Swap, it was finally time to up the fit and performance level of her Telemark footwear. Her boots had always been just a bit on the large side, and she’d just either worn some thicker socks or dealt with the minor inconvenience, but when she got some fatter Telemark skis this season (Black Diamond Element) with a width of 115 mm underfoot, the fit became a real concern. There weren’t any serious issues in untracked powder, but as firmer or more uneven surfaces were encountered, the slop in the boot was clearly making things difficult. Relative to a narrow-waisted ski, getting a wide ski like that on edge takes more pressure, and if you don’t have a snug fit in your boot, you’re potentially going to have problems when you encounter groomed or other firm surfaces. Since I have the standard, slightly stiffer version of her ski (Black Diamond AMPerage) I could feel the extra force required to get the ski up on edge when encountering groomed surfaces, but I found the inconvenience fairly trivial in a good-fitting boot. With that in mind, E got a gift certificate from Outdoor Gear Exchange for her birthday last month so the she could go and get the boot that she liked best without thinking about the price; she’s more than paid her dues the past six seasons in her current boots. E’s birthday has always been timely for ski-related gear, and as is typical, all the current boots are on sale now that we’re near the end of the ski season. After a solid boot-fitting session with one of the associates, she found the Scarpa Women’s T2 Eco to be the perfect fit. It’s a three-buckle boot with a power strap, similar to my Garmont Garas. It looks like they’ll be a great boot for the combination of lift-served and backcountry skiing that we do. It’s also interesting to note that Scarpa T2s were the Telemark boots we tried back in 2002 at Lost Trail Powder Mountain in Montana on our first day of Telemark skiing ever. We had no other reference at that point, but liked the boots a lot.

“As for conditions on the
hill, they were a mixture
of corn snow bordering
on loose granular at the
very top, which blended to
a softer corn snow below.”

While we were getting changed in the lodge, Ty found an Easter egg in his Telemark boots, and we realized that it’s been a few weeks since he’s been out on his Telemark skis. While Dylan had last used his Telemark skis for our trip down the Bruce Trail on March 31^st, for Ty it’s been since back in mid March when the boys and I skinned over to Wilderness at Bolton for fresh tracks. That’s over a month that he’s been off his Telemark gear, so indeed it was good that he was getting out for an opportunity to keep working on his skills.

As for conditions on the hill, they were a mixture of corn snow bordering on loose granular at the very top, which blended to a softer corn snow below. I enjoyed the snow a lot, being able to really bite in and carve, although Ty and Dylan felt like they were being pushed around in the soft snow at times. The major downside I found today was that it wasn’t quite warm enough to really soften up the subsurface to where I like it, so there were occasional encounters with firm patches. Both boys were still feeling the effects of being under the weather this week and they didn’t really have their usual levels of energy. With the combination of low energy and what they found to be challenging snow, they ended up going pretty minimal on the number of Telemark turns they made. They stuck with alpine most of the time, but at least they got a bit of Tele practice and were out in the fresh air.

“Those were
some very
smooth turns.”

E immediately noticed the security and stability in her new boots. They were noticeably harder to flex than her old boots, but of course these are new, and her old ones must have seen a decade worth of ski seasons… and they had cracks in the bellows as well. The rigidity and support in her new boots must be light years ahead of what she had. E was quite impressed with the increased control she had with the new boots, she said that she could feel the soft snow wanting to push her skis around, but she could overpower that more easily and direct her skis wherever she wanted. She said that she couldn’t do that to nearly the same degree with her old boots.

An image of Erica skiing in spring snow at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont as she tries out the Scarpa Women's T2 Eco Telemark ski boots — The new boots in action

By our second run, temperatures seemed like they were cooling, because the snow was beginning to tighten up near the summit of the Fourrunner Quad. By that point the boys had had enough skiing anyway, as they were feeling tired. One can always tell when Ty is tired, because he’ll take a seat or lie down when we stop on the trail. He used to do that a lot when he was much younger since he didn’t have any stamina, but if we see it frequently now, we know he’s getting tapped out. We did finish that next run on quite a high note by catching some untracked corn snow on Lower Gulch. Those were some very smooth turns. On a weather-related note, we were very surprised to find that it was actually snowing at times this afternoon, despite the fairly warm temperatures. Clearly some colder air has moved in at the higher elevations to support the snow we saw, because that’s the only type of precipitation that fell.

So E had a great experience with her new boots today, and I think it’s going to be interesting as she tries them out under different conditions, and eventually on her fat, powder skis. It seems like they’re going to give her much more control, but we’ll just have to see what the combination of boots and skis is like. I realize now that after checking them out more closely, that her old boots are actually only a two-buckle model with a power strap; they seem like they might be some Scarpa T3s, and an old well-used T3 from a decade ago is going to be a dramatically different boot than a modern T2. I’m sure we’ll have more boot updates as we move ahead in the spring skiing season.

April 13, 2013April 18, 2013

Stowe, VT 13APR2013

An image of Ty skiing in the Bypass area of Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont — Fresh snow in the Bypass Chutes today

The storm that came through the area over the past few days was a real mixed bag; we certainly got some snow, but there was also a lot of sleet, and that was the preponderant precipitation down at our house. By the time the storm wound down this morning, we’d picked up roughly eight tenths of an inch of liquid equivalent in our sleet and snow, and I suspected that would translate into more than an inch of liquid up in the higher elevations. Although the new snow accumulations reported this morning were only in the 3 to 5-inch range in the Northern Greens, the snow had all that liquid in it, so there was a good chance of a decent resurfacing of the slopes.

“…a healthy layer of smooth,
dense snow that offered up
some great turns and did
a nice job of covering the
subsurface.”

E and Dylan had midday communion practice, but Ty and I planned to ski, and I’d alerted Ty about the potential for some fresh snow earlier in the week. He was definitely ready for some skiing, but I was still torn about whether or not to head out first thing in the morning. Either the snow was going to be good and wintry from the get go because it was soft and sufficient to cover up the old subsurface, or we’d have to wait for it to soften up. We told E and Dylan that we might just end up doing a run or two if the snow wasn’t good, and Ty was definitely prepared for the worst. I brought both fat and mid-fat Telemark skis for me, and fat alpines and Telemark skis for Ty – we also brought out skins and ski packs in case we got ambitious and wanted to earn some untracked powder over on the upper part of the Gondola area.

An image of Ty dropping into some April powder in the Toll Road trees at Stowe Mountain Ski Resort in Vermont — First things first: Ty checks on the powder in the trees.

Ultimately we went with a mid morning start, finding temperatures in the mid 30s F at the base of Mansfield. The snow on the lowest slopes of the mountain had clearly softened into something nice based on the sounds (or lack of them) we heard from the lift, but up in the higher elevations, the temperature was below freezing and the quality of the skiing was still a mystery. The top half of the mountain remained in the clouds, and appeared to be well protected from any warming effects of the sun. We started off the day’s explorations near Ridgeview, and with a few quick samplings off piste it was quickly evident that the high-elevation snow was not some hard, refrozen amalgam of immovable ice, but a healthy layer of smooth, dense, sugary powder that offered up some great turns and did a nice job of covering the subsurface. Discovering this, we quickly dove into the trees toward Toll Road, and Ty was immediately captivated by the quality of the turns. He confirmed that we wouldn’t be going home after just one run. We found ourselves certainly more “on” than “in” the powder, based on the density, but the turns were silky smooth and skiing the trees was like mid winter. We worked our way down through a series of gladed areas on the various tiers of Upper Toll Road, before reaching Sunrise. Ty is always talking about how much he likes Toll Road, more for the glades that cut the switchbacks than anything else, and with the discovery of all these new lines it’s becoming even more attractive. We’ll have to find a way to get in there more often; perhaps I’ll have to capitalize on Ty’s requests. We dove back into the Sunrise Trees, and continued into the Chapel Glades, with good snow all the way to the Chapel. The snow really started to transition to a wetter, spring-style consistency below that point, and going was slowed on Lower Tyro. We did catch some nice, albeit somewhat sloppy and wet, fresh tracks down there though. After the experience of that first run, I was ever so close to grabbing my fat skis off the car and switching to them, but the mid-fats were getting the job done and I decided to save the time.

On the next run I decided it was time to introduce Ty to the Bypass Chutes. He’d never been in there before that I can recall, but I told him that it was like doing the Kitchen Wall traverse in the opposite direction. We traversed high, and saw a lot of good lines. The snow was definitely the deepest of the day out there, and when we finally hit an area where my depth checks revealed 11 inches of new snow, it was time to ride. I couldn’t believe how deep the snow was in that area, but you could see that it was likely spillover from the ice cliffs above. Mt. Mansfield always seems to find a way to deliver the goods. Ty hiked up a bit higher than me to get a good starting point, and then let it rip down a beautiful line, while I shots some photos. Some other skiers who were on the traverse below us stopped to watch the show, and gave him props for his turns. Ty was definitely loving his first experience in the Bypass Chutes; it’s totally his kind of terrain. The trip through various steep cutes continued, until we reached Rimrock. We worked our way over to check out the Gondola area next, and eventually got back into that springtime snow as we dropped in elevation. One nice aspect of this recent storm made itself apparent though – the sleet that fell really isn’t all that different than corn snow, so it really made a quick transition to something other than mush. There were still sticky areas due to the recent snow, but overall that snow was transitioning to a nice spring snow much quicker than dry, fine-grained powder would.

“…the turns were
silky smooth and
skiing the trees
was like mid
winter.”

We had a good lunch in the Mansfield Base Lodge, and by the time we got back out, the clouds had risen up to near the peaks, and it was really starting to warm up. There were even some breaks in the clouds off to the east and it was starting to turn into a partly sunny day. The freezing level had climbed all the way to the top of the Fourrunner Quad. We did get back into the Upper Toll Road Glades, but the snow was much wetter than it had been, and we spent most of the run back on the trails. Although not quite up to the level it was before, the skiing was still decent, but Ty was pretty tired and we called it a day. We’ve got more precipitation falling this evening though, and with temperatures in the 30s F down here in the valley, it’s going to be frozen up high. The snowpack at the stake continues to sit in that 70-80 inch range, and coverage remains excellent at Stowe all the way down to the lowest elevations. I suspect the mountain could be sitting at roughly 100% open if they really had the traffic to warrant it.

April 7, 2013April 12, 2013

Stowe & Mt. Mansfield Chin, VT 07APR2013

An image of Dylan dropping into a steep line on his skis in the Cliff Trail Gully in the alpine terrain above Stowe Mountain Ski Resort in Vermont — Dylan up in Stowe’s alpine today, dropping into his line

I didn’t have high hopes for the overall ski conditions today after what I experienced during yesterday’s outing at Stowe. Snow surfaces in the lower elevations had warmed earlier in the week, followed by plenty of cold nights, and the temperatures yesterday just weren’t warm enough to get the snow to soften. Gondolier was quite firm yesterday afternoon when I made my final descent to the base, with generally frozen granular and a bit of loose granular. Fortunately there was some refuge up in the alpine elevations above ~3,800’ where the snow was still wintry, but it would take some sun and/or warmth to get the lower elevations in shape today, and sun didn’t appear to be in the forecast. Whatever the case, we’d be able to head back up into the alpine to get to the good snow if necessary; today was our final BJAMS ski day of the season, and if the right group of willing students came together, my plan was to make use of the reconnaissance I’d done yesterday and get them up for some fun turns in the area of The Chin.

“…he dropped in with
gusto and led into a
huge sweeping turn…”

Throughout the morning today, E was getting various calls and text messages from folks letting her know that they weren’t going to be making it to ski program. Those students in the BJAMS theatre program have been putting in many long days of preparation over the past 10 weeks, and this weekend was the culmination of those efforts with shows on Friday and Saturday. Most of those students were so sapped of energy from long days and very late nights, that skiing just wasn’t in the cards. Luke was one of those students, but fortunately Claire had made it out for the day. After combining the usual number of absences for various reasons with the ugly-looking weather forecast and the many students resting up from the play, the end result was eventually just a handful of students and adults meeting at the base of Spruce Peak today. When the dust and reorganization had settled, it turned out that both E and Claire were free to go with our group, and the only kids that we’d have would be Ty, Dylan, and Jack.

Ty and Dylan were raring to go for some hiking and turns in the alpine, and it turned out that Jack was more than ready as well. Somehow, a little bird had told him that I’d been out on the mountain yesterday doing some reconnaissance in the alpine near The Chin… and that I just might be planning to take the ski group up there today. He came ready with his backpack holding a couple bottles of water, and an attitude that said “Let’s get up there!” Ty, Dylan, and I grabbed our ski packs, E and Claire joined us, and we headed up the Gondola for a visit to the wilds of The Chin. Everyone in the group had been up on The Chin and other alpine areas of Mt. Mansfield extensively for hiking in the warmer months, but for everyone but me, this was going to be their first experience up there with winter snowpack and skis. We hoped that Mother Nature was going to make the experience a good one.

An image of Jay and Claire hiking the Cliff Trail Gully as they head into the alpine terrain above Stowe Mountain Ski Resort in Vermont — Ascending into the alpine today

Indeed the weather was ultimately on our side today, and skies that might have been cloudy became blue and almost cloudless as we set off on our midday adventures. Claire was unsure of how long she wanted to hike and ski, but when I told her we’d be starting off with and ascent and some turns in the Cliff Trail Gully, which was a fairly quick ascent to the ridgeline, she was game. While I was finishing with the other boy’s packs, Dylan led the charge upward, and blazed the ascent using a combination of the boot pack I’d used yesterday and some variations of his own. It was immediately obvious that we were going to be dealing with a different kind of snow today. The snow that had been firm with a bit of wind or sun crust yesterday was now softening in the sun. The ascent was absolutely delightful; there were occasional bouts of gusty winds, but for the most part the temperature was perfect, the snow supportive, and the boy’s attitudes positive. Although notably slower than my solo pace yesterday, we probably gained the ridge at around 4,100’ in roughly 30 minutes.

An image of Dylan and Ty on the ridgeline of Mt. Mansfield above the Cliff Trail Gully at Stowe Mountain Ski Resort in Vermont — Ridgeline Walkin’

The views from the ridgeline were tremendous, and Claire was absolutely loving her decision to join us for the full ascent. The boys were already feeling in their element, as we watched them traverse higher on the craggy rocks farther south along the ridgeline. We hung out for about 20 minutes for drink and snacks, where we conversed about the season’s skiing, and just generally enjoyed the scenery and weather. We could have just as easily been up there in gray and cloudy conditions, but apparently the sun wanted to make its presence know.

An image of Ty skiing in the Cliff Trail Gully in the alpine terrain above Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont — Ty carves up some great snow in the Cliff Trail Gully.

To begin the descent, the boys headed over to the lip of the gully so that they could drop in on the steep terrain. The snow that was protected against the ridgeline was somewhere between spring and winter, but generally dry and edgeable; it was going to support some nice turns. Dylan was chomping at the bit to drop in, and after heading to the highest part of the lip, he dropped in with gusto and led into a huge sweeping turn that send him flying right down the gully into the terrain below. Ty and Jack followed suit, and within moments the boys were whooping and hollering about how great the turns were as they made their way down the upper sections of the gully. Indeed once I dropped in myself I found the snow to be well worthy of their praise. One could stick next to the protection of the rocky wall of the ridge for the driest snow, or head left out into more sunshine for more spring-like surfaces. We mixed it up with turns in various part of the gully until we’d dropped a couple hundred vertical feet, right to the spot where I’d descended yesterday that at that time marked the transition to lower-quality snow. That wasn’t the case today thanks to the assistance of the sun, but as we stood atop one of the overlooks and Jack saw the Cliff House below, he lamented the fact that we’d already descended so far and would soon be back to the bottom of the gully. I told him not to worry – we didn’t have to descend if we just wanted to keep touring.

An iamge of Jay skiing in one of the alpine gullys up above Stowe Mountain Ski Resort in Vermont — Great turns in our second gully today

Instead of descending the rest of the gully, I led the group on a traverse across to the next gully southward (see stage 4 in the detailed Google Earth GPS map from yesterday’s outing), and we were able to follow the same track that I’d used yesterday. I told the group that one option was to make another ascent here and ski this gully from the top of they wanted. The boys weren’t all that enthusiastic about another ascent, so after a few moments of discussion, we decided to descend the new gully and see how it went. We saw some great terrain below us, but I warned them that I hadn’t scouted the bottom of this gully yesterday. I told them that we could end up having to hike back out and descend via the Cliff Trail Gully if the trees got too tight or we got ran into cliffs. The acknowledged my advice, and then it was time to drop in. The descent of the second gully started with some nice steep terrain among sparse, buried evergreens. There were really a lot of fun terrain options such as rollovers and small ledges in there that will lend themselves to a lot of future exploration. As we continued downward, the trees began to get tight, and Dylan seemed to be having quite a time blazing a trail through the evergreens using a combination of his own ideas and the tracks of a previous skier that had passed through the area. With all the experience they continue to build, it really is inspiring to watch how confidently the boys navigate their way through challenging terrain like a maze of subalpine evergreens. They were inspecting options and helping each other out all while they were well ahead of the adults. Eventually my spider sense told me that that we needed to break right toward the Cliff Trail Gully, and after some tight squeezes through a few spots, we found ourselves in a pleasant spot atop a rock outcropping among the sea of evergreens. About 100-200 feet below we could see the Gondola summit area, and it felt as if we were on a balcony overlooking a show of skiers and boarders starting their way down the slopes. We spent another few minutes there on the knoll while everyone gathered back together via their own routes through the evergreens, and then we cut right about a dozen yards to get back to the Cliff Trail Gully. We finished our descent to the Cliff House there, and that bottom section of the gully served up some nice turns. It was ski pole-style high fives all around for the folks that had just completed their first descent from the alpine areas of Mt. Mansfield. I didn’t track our outing today by GPS, but for visual details, refer to stages 3 through 5 shown on the detailed Google Earth/GPS map from yesterday – today though, instead of ascending the gully shown in stage 5, we descended it.

“Indeed the weather
was ultimately on
our side today…”

It was around 3:00 P.M as we began the next phase of our descent through the resort. We took Perry Merrill, and didn’t see another soul on the entire descent. The late season date, the fact that it was Sunday afternoon, and the ominous forecast had really cleared out the mountain. With the terrain entirely to ourselves, I led the boys in some huge GS-style turns that took up the whole width of the trail, and they had a lot of fun with that. Ty said that he had used up all his patience for going slow during the hiking portion of the day, so with that in mind it was a great time to let him really open it up. The snow was in fact fantastic, not too firm, not too sticky; it was just what you’d want in corn snow to sink in those edges and let the skis ride. Whatever the sun had not been able to do yesterday in terms of softening up the snow surfaces, it had done it in spades today. We had time to squeeze in one more run of Gondolier before calling it a day and heading back to Spruce Camp. Today is the end of the season for the Gondola and for Spruce Peak, and it ultimately turned out to be a great one. The weather was extremely changeable though – once we were back at Spruce Camp, gray clouds had come in and sleet began to fall.

We finished off the day with a visit to Frida’s for dinner, since we hadn’t been there at all this season. The guacamole was excellent as usual, with a real good dose of lemon today. Despite the fairly spring-like atmosphere out there, the boys both went for hot chocolate, which Frida’s does Mexican-style with some interesting extra flavor. It looks like this week is going to have more precipitation coming in, although not necessarily a lot of snow. It doesn’t look especially warm though, so it looks like it could be OK for snow preservation. It’s great to be going into the month with such a strong snowpack, because it looks like there a lot more great skiing to come.

March 31, 2013April 4, 2013

Stowe, VT 31MAR2013

An image of Jay skiing on the Bruce trail near Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont — Out enjoying the great snow on the Bruce again today

With the Easter holiday, we didn’t have BJAMS ski program today, but we decided to head to Stowe anyway for a bit of lift-served skiing and another run down the Bruce Trail. E wasn’t able to join us for the Bruce run with the kids last week because she was coaching her younger, intermediate-level students, but she had no such obligations today. Coverage on the Bruce was excellent last week, and this week has seen fairly typical spring weather for the Northern Greens, with some snowfall and some warmer days, so it didn’t look like there would be any major changes in that department. Not surprisingly, the snowpack at the Mt. Mansfield Stake is still sitting right around that 80-inch mark, so there were clearly no issues with loss of snow in the higher elevations. However, the lower mountain valleys certainly lost snow this week, brining into question the lower elevation snowpack. And, the Bruce Trail has a good deal of southern exposure, so that means that those areas are going to lose snow more quickly than other aspects at similar elevations. In fact, I was more concerned about snow coverage on those higher-elevation, south-facing pitches in the 2,000 to 3,600’ elevation range than even the lowest elevations down near 1,000’; the snow in lowest elevations of the route is well protected by the forest and well packed, so I suspect it persists quite well in the spring.

“…I’d say the Bruce
will probably still
be good to go next
weekend as well…”

Today we planned to flip our Bruce Trail tour setup from what we’ve done in the past; we’d park the car down at The Matterhorn, ride the Mountain Road Shuttle up to Mt. Mansfield, ski the mountain for a while, and then finish off with a run down the Bruce and a meal at The Matterhorn. We timed things pretty well with knowledge of the Mountain Road Shuttle schedule, and arrived at The Matterhorn in the early afternoon with time to get into our gear and head across the street to the shuttle stop. The plan was for everyone to Telemark since the boys could get in some lift-served practice runs and it’s generally a good fit for a trip down the Bruce, although Ty opted for alpine gear at the last minute because that’s what he felt like skiing.

“On piste coverage
at Stowe remains
excellent, with
100% of trails
open today…”

We started off the afternoon as planned with some lift-served runs, and found some marginally sticky conditions in places. None of the surfaces were too bad in that regard, but there was definitely some snow that has not transitioned all the way to corn with the rounds of snowfall earlier this week. Temperatures were a bit warmer than yesterday, sitting in the upper 40s F down in the lower elevations, and somewhere in the 30s F at the summit elevations. On piste coverage at Stowe remains excellent, with 100% of trails open today – it’s much more typical this season, and nothing like last season when that huge March heat wave really sapped the snowpack. Dylan worked on his Telemark turns and was making strides on his bad side turn, and Ty on his alpines was throwing himself off all the airs he encountered.

An image of Erica Telemark skiing on the Bruce Trail near Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont — E working those Telemark turns on the Bruce today

Around mid afternoon we decided to head down the Bruce for our final run, and the snow was nice and soft right from the top. The only notable coverage issues were in the usual spots – those steeper pitches with southern exposure. Those areas had opened up a bit since last week, but the differences in the skiing are fairly marginal; you’ve just got to navigate those areas cautiously. As expected, the lowest elevations in the Nordic areas in the 1,500’ – 1,000’ range had perfect coverage. The only potential break in the snow cover down there is the last hundred yards or so where you use the road the leads to the Bruce House. The road has been plowed, but you can ski on the snow banks along the edge of the road and they’ll take you right out to Route 108 as usual. The whole trip down the Bruce was extremely quiet today – we didn’t see a single soul on the Bruce itself, and we only saw one family touring on the trails of the Stowe Mountain Resort Cross Country Ski Center. Perhaps the holiday kept the numbers of visitors down relative to a typical Sunday, but the resort looked pretty busy overall. I didn’t track today’s travels by GPS, but for a representative GPS/Google Earth map or elevation profile plot of the general route of the Bruce Trail, refer to my Bruce Trail trip report from January 21^st.

An image of Jay, Ty, and Dylan giving each other a "high five" near the Matterhorn in Stowe, Vermont after finishing off a run of the Bruce backcountry ski trail — Dad, Ty, and Dylan celebrate finishing off another fun trip down the Bruce.

It was fun to get E’s impressions of the trail since this was her first trip down the Bruce. She found, and I entirely agree, that on today’s outing the combination of the relatively narrow nature of the trail, the areas where the formation of moguls tended to dictate specific locations for turns, and the concave sculpting of the snow due to skier traffic, all come together to create quite a challenging ascent on Telemark gear. I noticed those aspects as well, and indeed in this case what is really pretty standard intermediate or advanced fare on alpine equipment, is much more technically demanding on Teles… or at least it is if you’re trying to make Telemark turns. Trying to navigate those concave edges while snaking down a narrow line (and even feeling narrower in a Telemark stance) among moguls on terrain with decent pitch will certainly push your skills. Fortunately one can use alpine turns as a fall back, and those are certainly a lot of fun too, but of course trying to be strict with those Tele turns keeps the bar up. Even with the great spring snow, E favored alpine turns heavily in the steep, upper sections of the trail, but there were plenty of areas where her Telemark turns would flow. I threw in good doses of alpine turns myself in spots, because sometimes it’s just too hard to plot a solution with Tele turns through certain areas. But, every run gets more turns under your belt. Dylan threw in a few Telemark turns here and there, but he already knew going in that he was going to mostly alpine and just enjoy the ride in that fashion.

The final part of today’s outing was an early dinner at The Matterhorn. I’ve actually never eaten at The Matterhorn, since I’ve thought of it generally as an après ski bar. As it turns out though, they’re a restaurant as well, and to my amazement, they’re pretty well known for their sushi. I tried for a visit to get some sushi back on Bruce Trail trip on January 21^st, but the sushi bar is closed on Mondays, so I decided to wait until my next visit. Well, today was that day, and I’ve got to say that indeed the sushi was quite good. I went with a Salmon Maki Roll and one of their specialty rolls, the Crab Rangoon Roll, and both were great. E and the boys didn’t get sushi, but everything we had was good. Sitting out back by the river is also a nice perk – there was a feel of early spring watching the water roll by amidst the snow.

An image from a table along the Ranch Brook at the Matterhorn Restaurant in Stowe, Vermont — Riverside at the Matterhorn this afternoon

Based on forecast for the coming week, I’d say the Bruce will probably still be good to go next weekend as well, so keep it in mind if you’re looking for something to do as we move on to April skiing in the Northern Greens.

March 30, 2013June 15, 2013

Bolton Valley, VT 30MAR2013

An image of Ty skiing in spring corn snow on the Spell Binder trail in the Timberline area at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont — Spring corn snow at Timberline today

We planned on getting in some skiing on soft, spring snow today, but Mother Nature had different plans and gave us a lot more than that. Temperatures were below freezing at all elevations last night, which is good for running the corn snow cycle, but it meant that surfaces would need some time to soften into what we were seeking. With that in mind, we took care of other projects in the morning and let the sun do its thing to warm up the snow. At around midday I checked on the temperature in the Bolton Valley Village (elevation 2,100’), and it was still reading just 34 F despite being in the low 50s F down at the house (elevation ~500’). Although skies were clear and that late March sun is getting powerful, 34 F at the base meant that summit temperatures were likely below freezing, so if that snow needed softening, it probably wasn’t going to get it. An hour or so later, I checked and found that the Village temperature had only risen to 37 F, but we figured that the lower slopes, especially those at Timberline below the elevation of the Village, would certainly be softening by that point. With Bolton Valley having an extensive amount of west-facing terrain, softening in the morning can be slow, but it really gets rolling in the afternoon sunshine.

“It was really interesting to
find the mountain featuring
essentially everything from
mid-winter to spring
conditions today…”

The snowpack has mostly disappeared from the bottom of the Winooski Valley as we approach April, and even on the lower sections of the Bolton Valley Access Road the situation is the same. It’s not until climbing to around 1,000’ that substantial snowpack starts to return, and then it really snaps into place once you get above the big S-curve in the access road and up to the base of Timberline (elevation ~1,500’). We parked there, finding that the temperature was around 40 F, and as we rode the lift we could immediately see that the snow in the Timberline area had nicely softened into corn. I was also impressed with how extensive and complete the snow coverage was on the trails, even all the way down to the Timberline Base. There were a few bare spots around in some of usual sensitive areas, but the natural snow terrain was really in good shape.

“We made our way over
toward Dylan’s “Heaven”
line, which turned out
to be more like “Hell”…”

The resort’s Rock and Roll Pond Skimming event, which had been postponed from last Saturday due to the winter-like temperatures, was just finishing up as we boarded the Vista Quad. With the full sun, today was a much better fit for the pond skimming, even if it wasn’t outrageously warm. Riding on Vista we began to see that conditions actually appeared to be wintry on the upper mountain, and indeed that’s what we found as we made a run on Spillway. There was even some powder off to the sides, and I caught some nice turns in there, but for the most part it was standard packed winter snow. It was nice, but nothing that was going to compete with the powder or corn snow. The conditions then transitioned into a mix of winter and spring snow on the lower half of the main mountain, depending on sun exposure and aspect.

An image of Dylan skiing some spring snow in the Villager Trees at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont — Searching for that perfect aspect in the Villager Trees

The plan today had initially been to work on some steep terrain like Spillway and Devil’s Playground in soft spring snow, but with the discovery of some powder on the upper mountain, we decided to visit “The Crack” to see if there was any untracked powder up there. The boys had some fun as we made the ascent, climbing other routes that Dylan pioneered over by the icicles, and starting a snowball fight with me when they had the high ground. We made our way over toward Dylan’s “Heaven” line, which turned out to be more like “Hell”, since the snow wasn’t softened. Indeed the snow remained wintry, but it had taken on a dense layer of about an inch thick from previous elevated temperatures. That line is north-facing, but at around 2,500’ or so, it wasn’t quite high enough to avoid whatever warming had taken place earlier in the week. It turned out that someone had already skied Heaven anyway, so we ventured left and changed to a more westerly aspect. Ultimately, we actually found far better turns in the Villager Trees on west-facing terrain that had been softened by the sun today.

Since the Timberline area seemed to be low enough in elevation to support soft snow from top to bottom, we finished off the day there, with Spell Binder being our favorite run. We found lots of excellent corn snow from top to bottom, but a few shots were getting sticky if they were in direct sun and hadn’t seen traffic. As good as the snow was down there, I think the boys had just as much fun throwing snowballs around in the sunshine as they did making turns. It was really interesting to find the mountain featuring essentially everything from mid-winter to spring conditions today based on how warm it got in the lower mountain valleys. I’d break it down as the upper mountain from around 3,200’ to 2,500’ featuring winter snow on all aspects except directly south-facing, the lower mountain from ~2,500’ to ~2,000’ featuring a mix of conditions depending on sun exposure, and then most of Timberline featuring spring conditions with its lower elevations down to 1,500’. Hopefully we’ll get to do something similar next weekend as Bolton Valley rolls into April.

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