Lower Turnpike Archives - Page 7 of 7

January 25, 2014January 26, 2014

Bolton Valley, VT 25JAN2014

An image of Erica Telemark skiing on the Wilderness Lift Line at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont — Another Alberta Clipper meant another round of fresh powder at Bolton Valley today.

While we’ve still yet to get hit by a big synoptic snowstorm in Northern Vermont this season, another Alberta Clipper system came through the area today, and it began delivering a reasonable shot of fresh snow, just like the one last weekend. With the snow just starting up this morning, we waited until mid afternoon to head up to the mountain for skiing. By that point we’d picked up a couple of inches down at the house, and the snow was continuing at a good clip. Today also offered to bonus of being a somewhat warm reprieve from the arctic air, with temperatures around 20 F in the valley and up on the mountain at Bolton Valley.

I dropped E and the boys off at Snowflake, parked the car, and got my gear together fast enough to catch them on their second run. Ty was raving about the snow on Butterscotch in general, but E didn’t quite find the overall setup quite as nice as what we found on Monday. She said that the middle of the trail was good with the new snow, but the powder on the skier’s right didn’t cover and even out the subsurface in quite the same way that it had last time. Those subtleties aside, you could tell that there been another nice addition to the snowpack, and the snow from this storm was definitely denser than what we received on Monday. In fact, although it was still fairly dry at ~7% H2O according to my analyses from down our house, that’s still roughly twice as dense as the last storm. The snow certainly had some heft that helped cover up the old surfaces, but it wasn’t going to be flying in your face the way the snow from the last storm did.

“…the snow from this
storm was definitely
denser than what we
received on Monday.”

Heading next to the Vista Quad, we took Spillway, finding some good turns, but again a notch below what we’d found on Monday. Ty worked the terrain with fresh snow off to the skier’s right, but wasn’t interested in setting up any photos; clearly the snow couldn’t quite inspire him the way the last storm did. E wasn’t feeling comfortable enough on her Teles today to stick tight to the soft snow on the edge of Spillway, so spending more time toward the middle of the trail, she had to deal with some icy, high-traffic spots. As we descended toward Mid Mountain, the boys toured us through some nooks and crannies of access roads in order to ski under a big bent over tree. That was a bit of a slow route, but you could get a feel for just how much snow was starting to build on the natural terrain. We checked out Beech Seal on the lower mountain – I hit the usual soft snow on the skier’s right and found it performing right in line with the other terrain we’d skied. The skiing was great, just a notch below the last storm. I hadn’t seen where Ty had gone on Beech Seal, but it turns out he’d snuck over into the little lane of terrain on the right beyond the racing fence. He gets a kick out of being over there, and of course he’s probably one of the only people who can comfortably fit in there and loves the fact that the powder is untouched.

An image of Dylan skiing powder on the Wilderness Lift Line at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont — Dylan, picking up where things left off last weekend

With Swing finally open, we next headed over toward Wilderness to sample some of the powder over there. Checking on the powder depth at 2,775’ on Lower Crossover like I’d done on Monday, I got a reading of 9 inches. That’s actually an inch lower than what I recorded on Monday, but that’s not surprising after several days of settling and now some denser snow on top. Most importantly, the net content of liquid in the snowpack has increased again with this storm. Every storm continues to bolster the snowpack over there, and we definitely had our best run of the year on Turnpike. It’s really been our go-to trail this season when snow has been lean, and it was just a heck of a lot of fun with all the new powder.

An image of Ty jumping over a clump of brush on the Wilderness Lift Line trail at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Ty later told me that he was working on his body positioning in the air with this jump – nice!

Although we still had daylight, the night skiing lights continued to come on as the resort shifted into night skiing mode. It was 4:15 PM, and I had to be in Burlington for dinner, but we decided to catch a final run off the Mid Mountain Chair – Ty really wanted another chance to ski his line behind the racing fence on Beech Seal. The snow continued to pour down, now with some larger flakes more reminiscent of upslope, and as we skied along I commented to E on how conditions were almost of the type we like for night skiing – fresh snow, no wind, and relatively warm. For those that went out last night to the slopes, I’d say they chose a good one. Ty got to ski his line, and Dylan followed along as well, continuing on to the second fence where the line ends in a bunch of brush. Dylan extricated himself easily though, and came out smiling.

We skied right back down to the access road through the trees near the Wentworth Condos, which is always a nice way to end the day. I’d say the mountain had picked up at least 2 to 4 inches by the time we’d left, and a half foot would be a reasonable way to expect the event to finish off. We’ve got a chance for another Alberta Clipper on Monday, and a steady diet of these is certainly a nice way to go until a bigger storm comes through to really give us a big jump in base depths.

December 27, 2013December 28, 2013

Bolton Valley, VT 27DEC2013

An image of Erica skiing powder snow on the Cougar trail at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont — E showing how its done in the powder at Bolton Valley today

An Alberta Clipper hit the New England region yesterday, dropping up to 10 inches of snow in Northern Vermont and continuing the process of covering up surfaces that were hardened by the big mixed precipitation event earlier this week. We had a couple additional rounds of light snow prior to yesterday’s storm, but there still hasn’t been enough new snow to resurface steep, icy terrain. As such, Bolton Valley only has their core set of trails open on the main mountain. I had fun on those trails on Saturday, but it’s still a limited number of options for runs, and with a good amount of new powder available, we decided to earn some turns and get some fresh tracks today. The Wilderness Lift isn’t running yet for the season, so we decided to pay that terrain another visit. Ty, E, and I had a great time there back on November 30^th, and with the current firm, icy subsurface, we knew that the moderate pitches and relatively high elevation of the lower Wilderness area trails would be a good bet for powder skiing today.

Now that we’re back into a more consistently wintry weather regime, the Northern Greens snow globe has kicked in, and we’ve had a fairly consistent supply of light fluffy snows in the air. It’s not really substantiating the base snow, but it is creating quite the quintessential Vermont winter scene for holiday visitors, and it’s topping off the slopes with some serious softness. Another burst of flakes was just kicking off when we left the house to head up to the mountain today after lunch, and the snowfall intensity increased as we headed up toward the resort. Up in the Village we encountered temperatures in the low 20s F and steady light but accumulating snows. There were plenty of cars in the parking lots, but since spots were opening up with early afternoon departures, we secured a spot right at the north end of the upper lot.

“The descent was a
peaceful glide through
silky smooth powder,
with only the occasional
touchdown on the old base.”

We headed up to the landing on the northwest corner of the main Village complex, and got our gear ready. Quinn passed through and gave us a heads up on conditions – below the powder was a slick, icy base as we’d suspected. We followed a nice skin track up Lower Turnpike, and there were a few sets of tracks on the trail, but a lot of fresh snow remaining. A couple of guys came down the trail and let us know that the steep upper sections weren’t worth the effort because of the ice, right in line with what our beta was suggesting. Depth checks at the start of the ascent revealed 5-6” of powder, which represents the accumulations from this recent clipper and the couple of small bouts of snow that preceded it.

“…you could really feel the
way the floatation afforded
by our fat skis was letting
us ride a bit higher and
faster in the powder on
those lower-angle pitches.”

We skinned up among steady flakes, enjoying the snowy views of evergreens around us, and when Dylan called for a break ,we stopped at the first crossover to the Wilderness Lift Line at 2,500’. I checked on the conditions on Wilderness Lift Line, and found that it had been hit with wind harder than our last visit – it was clear that although Turnpike had a few tracks, it was the better choice for snow quality. With Ty leading the charge, we continued on up to ~2,750’ before finally putting a halt to the ascent because we were getting into icy, scoured terrain. The snow depth up at the point had increased to roughly 7 inches.

The descent was a peaceful glide through silky smooth powder, with only the occasional touchdown on the old base. The pitch and powder were essentially perfect, although the powder was deep enough that Dylan would sometimes have difficulty keeping his speed up. Dylan’s Telemark skis (Völkl Gotama Juniors) are fairly wide, but nothing like the Black Diamond Elements and AMPerages that E and I were using, and momentum issues aside, you could really feel the way the floatation afforded by our fat skis was letting us ride a bit higher and faster in the powder on those lower-angle pitches. I was curious to see if E had noticed the effect, so I asked her how she felt about the speed of her skis on the descent. She initially thought that they were very fast, and figured it was because they haven’t been used for too many outings and had been waxed. I explained that a good part of that was actually from the floatation that the skis provided. Ty invented a new descent technique where he would kneel all the way on the tips of his skis with both knees, and in the powder it gave the illusion that he was just kneeling in the snow with no skis and flying down the mountain. We’ll have to get some video of that at some point, because it’s quite a hoot.

An image of Ty Telemark skiing in powder snow on the Cougar trail at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont — Ty dives in

We ended our descent back at the landing on the northwest corner of the Inn, and discovered that it’s a great spot to be if you want to catch up with what’s going on at the resort. After seeing Quinn at the start of our tour, we ran into Cam and later Josh at the end of the tour. We got to chat about the current state of the conditions, being happy that there are still great options out there for powder, but hoping that we can get some larger storms in here to start building the base. We’re in an OK pattern for maintenance over the next couple of days, and there’s a chance for getting in on snow from a coastal system as we head into Sunday night. We’re certainly a bit fat to the northwest to really jackpot with that storm, but if we can get some base-building synoptic snow out of it, it will really be a step toward terrain expansion.

November 30, 2013December 1, 2013

Bolton Valley, VT 30NOV2013

An image of Ty skiing in powder on the Turnpike trail at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Getting after some of that leftover Thanksgiving powder

For the valleys in Northern Vermont, our first big winter storm of the season hit the area this week, and it created some potential holiday travel woes because of its occurrence so close to Thanksgiving. The storm was essentially complete by the time we traveled on Thanksgiving Day, but with 8.2 inches of snow, and 1.62 inches of liquid equivalent, it had certainly bolstered the snowpack in the yard and changed the look of the landscape. While the storm did have some mixed precipitation and rain in the middle, it was quite a nice gain in snow for the mountains, with some of the ski areas in the Northern Greens picking up more than foot of snow. And, as is often the case, the final volley from the storm consisted of a good shot of dry powder that sat well atop some newly added dense base to create some great Thanksgiving Day skiing.

With our holiday traveling done, we finally had the chance to get out today and sample some of the new snow. Dylan was away at a friend’s house, but E, Ty, and I headed up to Bolton Valley to earn some turns. They had reported 9 inches of new snow for Thanksgiving morning, and as we headed up to the Village, we stopped in at the base of Timberline at 1,500’ to check on how the snow had settled in down at that elevation. The depth of the powder was 3 to 4 inches over a good base, and we could see that there had been plenty of ski activity on Timberline’s slopes. Continuing on up to the Village at 2,100’, we found that the snow had increased to 4 to 6 inches in depth.

“The powder skiing was
every bit as good as
what I’d experienced
on Sunday…”

Having experienced some good snow on Turnpike on Sunday, I figured that we would check that out again today. Of course, with it being two to three days since the snow fell, plenty of skiers and snowboarders had been out on the trail, a lot more than the single track I’d seen on my last trip. We were treated to a nice skin track, but most of the powder was tracked out, so we definitely kept our eyes open on the ascent for lesser used options. We ran into Cam at the top of Lower Turnpike, and chatted about the mountain’s opening in a couple of weeks. If we can stick with the current weather pattern, things are looking quite good.

Like I’d done on Sunday, we stopped our ascent around 2,900’ on Turnpike since the terrain above that level was rather windswept, but snow depths had increased to roughly 6 to 8 inches, and combined with the base, there was easily over a foot of snow sitting there in many places. On the ascent I’d looked at the snow on Cougar and the Wilderness Lift Line, and I’d seen only a couple of tracks, so we worked those into our descent. The powder skiing was every bit as good as what I’d experienced on Sunday, and I was glad that we found plenty of untracked snow for Ty and E. Ty was putting together some great turns on his Teles, and I think his skiing was helped by the fact that he was in high spirits. E had her first chance to get on her Element skis with her new Telemark boots, and she definitely felt a big increase in control that she’d previously lacked with on her fat skis with her old boots.

An image of Erica skiing in powder on the Cougar trail at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont — E finding much more ability to drive her powder skis today with her new boots

Today was a great, mellow outing, just like you’d expect pre-season at Bolton Valley. Along with Cam, we saw a couple other pairs of skiers, and they all appeared to be experiencing that same vibe. We’ve actually got our next small storm coming through tonight, and it’s supposed to persist into tomorrow, so perhaps we’ll get a freshening of the powder that will set things up for more turns. It’s been a great November of skiing around here, and now it’s on to December – let’s hope it can follow suit.

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