I’d seen that the potential for more snowfall was in forecast today based on the weather modeling, and it looked like the afternoon period might be the best bet for catching some turns in fresh snow. The BTV NWS forecast discussions have been noting that there’s no large, defined system in our area today though, we’re just moving into a general period of unsettled weather. With nothing really going on at the house other than cloudy conditions around midday today, I was surprised when I checked the Bolton Valley Base Area Webcam and saw that the visibility up there was extremely low due to heavy snowfall. It was notable to see such a disparity between the weather on the mountain and the weather at our house, but then I checked the radar and saw what was going on. The precipitation was very convective/cellular in nature, so the mountain happened to be under one of those rather localized, intense areas of snowfall. In another 10 minutes or so, the snowfall began to wind down, but the radar of to the west was riddled with similar pockets of precipitation all across the North Country that were heading toward the spine of the Northern Greens. I suspected the mountain would see additional episodes of snowfall throughout the afternoon, so I decided I’d head up for turns once I finished up some work I had to get done.
Later in the afternoon when I was getting ready to pop up to the mountain, I checked the webcam again and they were getting hit by another round of snowfall. The early morning snow report from the resort indicated that they’d picked up a fresh inch of snow before opening, and with the way the afternoon had gone, I wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d picked up another inch or two. We were even getting some rain in the valley with that round of snow, and as I headed up the Bolton Valley Access Road, the precipitation switched over to snow a bit below 1,500’. When I’d headed up to the mountain on Friday, the snow level was around 2,000’, so it was notably lower today.
I can’t say what the snow was like earlier in the day today, but what I found in the later afternoon was a very fun mix of different conditions that all skied quite well. The mountains have been in that temperate March/April mode over the last few days where we’ve got some fresh snow accumulations, temperatures in the upper 20s to 30s F, some sun, some clouds, semi-cycled snow depending on elevation, and probably whatever else you can think of that this time of year has to offer in the higher elevations. Descending from above 3,000’ on Wilderness, I found wintry conditions with some dense powder that was blended into the old snowpack in untouched areas, with wintry wet pack on the groomed/traveled areas that had firmed up somewhat with temperatures below freezing. By the time I descended to 2,000’ I encountered areas of semi-corn, soft packed snow on piste, and denser wet snow off piste. I didn’t ski down below 2,000’ to Timberline, but that area unquestionably had the softest snow. In any event, it all skied remarkably well, with nothing overly sticky or firm. I had waxed my skis in preparation for any potentially sticky conditions, so that probably helped keep things extra smooth for me, but I didn’t see anyone else struggling with apparent stickiness either. Temperatures did seem to be dropping as the afternoon came to a close, so the sub-freezing conditions were falling to 2,000’ and below.
Being later in the day on a Sunday afternoon in March, skier traffic was quite low when I was on the mountain, and I was coming upon trail areas where there were literally just two or three tracks in the fresh snow, and I’d basically have the run of it with respect to laying down my own tracks. I see that the mountain is indicating 3 inches of new snow in the past 48 hours, so that seems about right based on the untouched areas I skied, and it’s generally dense so it does a great job of providing floatation above the base. The weather models are still suggesting that we’ve got more snow chances continuing right through to the end of the month, so we’ll look forward to what are hopefully additional days of these fun winter/spring conditions atop a snowpack that is probably slightly below average, but not bad. Average snowpack this time of year is nearing peak anyway, so even if we’re off from that a bit, it’s still quite plentiful.
