After a Northern Greens fluff bomb visited the area last night, we got some incredibly great snow above treeline on Mt. Mansfield today.
Overnight we had one of those classic Northern Greens mini upslope snow events – the kind that almost seem to come out of nowhere and drop localized fluff bombs of Champlain Powder™. We’d been up at Bolton Valley yesterday from mid morning to mid afternoon, and by the time we left, it was really dumping up there – snow accumulation on the road was down to ~1,500’, and snow/mix was down to ~1,000’. It was still just rain down at our house in the bottom of the Winooski Valley at the 500’ elevation, and that was essentially all I’d noted about the weather before we went on with our evening indoors. We’d watched the second Hunger Games movie, which kept us pretty enthralled for a good couple of hours, and it was a while before I checked in on my computer to see what weather discussion was going on in the Northern New England thread at the American Weather Forum. I noticed eyewall in Burlington reporting some snow accumulation, and it prompted me to take a look out back. Low and behold, it was dumping snow out there, easily 1” an hour type snowfall, and there was already a couple fresh inches of snow down. By the wee hours of the morning, we’d picked up half a foot of snow at the house, and of course that got me thinking about what was going on in the mountains.
“The snow in the chute looked so good it was almost spooky.”
My thoughts of a very early departure to Stowe for me and Ty were stymied by the fact that I had to get some work done and send it off to Stephen, but we managed to get going by around 9:30 A.M. I hadn’t eaten by that point, and we stopped in at the DD on Route 100 to really calorie up with some hearty food. Although he’d had some breakfast, Ty followed suit with at least a cream cheese bagel; it was a good idea, because I suspected we’d need those calories, and as we’d find out later in the day… they were going to be burned. We got to the mountain by mid morning, and the slopes were looking very good. The resort was reporting a fresh 9 inches overnight, and they appeared to be in the sweet spot for accumulations. We were of course really happy that the surprise dump of snow coincided with our usual Sunday visit to the mountain. We’d dressed warmly since temperatures were around 10 F, but truth be told, the temperature just didn’t have the bite that it seems to in January. It’s mid March, and either we’re acclimated, or the March sun just helps to fight off the cold.
Warmin’ up for the day
Ty and I kicked things off with a run on the Sunny Spruce, featuring some Lower Smugglers Trees just like we’d done a couple of weeks ago, followed by a visit to the terrain above Meadows. The new snow was indeed light and dry, and the skiing in the trees was awesome, although the base was stiff in low elevation areas that were unprotected from the sun. I’d suspected that as a possibility based on the dense snow we’d found in the lower elevations at Bolton Valley yesterday, so after that warm up run our plan was to head right up into the higher elevations of Mt. Mansfield, where we knew the snow would be very well preserved.
We started off with a trip along the Kitchen Wall traverse, and hit some of the deep powder there. There had really been minimal traffic through the area at that point, so we just picked an untracked area in one of the first snowfields and had at it. That essentially led us on a long and meandering trip through various areas of tree skiing that brought us to the Fourrunner Quad. From the top of the quad I took Ty down Pipeline, which I probably haven’t skied in 20 years. I was happy that I was able to find it, but less enthused about how narrow it was. My skis have only gotten shorter since 20 years ago, so I have no idea how I skied it back then. It was already well packed out, which probably doesn’t take much, since in general people are going to side slip a lot of it anyway. It was just as steep as I remembered though, and the fall away views were spectacular. We eventually found ourselves dropping into the Hazelton Zone from the south side, and that resulted in a great run with tons of untracked snow. Somehow we even managed to get into some of the same lines we’d hit back on the 2nd, and I think our noses naturally lead us in certain directions. Knowing more about some of the big, north-facing gullies though, we managed to get ourselves into one of those, and that was pretty sweet. We’ve still got several of those to explore however, the trick is just finding exactly where to enter the zone to get there.
Ty sending up a huge spray of powder out there in some of the trees on the lower elevations of Mt. Mansfield
By the time we traversed out of the Hazelton Zone, it was time to head over to Spruce Peak for some lunch, and to meet up with Dylan, E, and all the other folks for the afternoon BJAMS ski program. After climbing and skiing the Cliff Trail Gullylast Sunday as a refresher, today the plan was to kick things up a notch and visit Profanity Chute. Skiing Profanity is a bit of a larger endeavor, since it involves going all the way to the top of The Chin, with a longer hike and a longer descent. This was a great day for it though, with a couple feet of snow midweek from winter storm Vulcan, topped off with another 9 inches of fluff from the overnight snows, the odds were favoring some really nice snow in the alpine. Joe had heard about our plans, and since he was interested in bringing his group up as well, we joined together with him, Ethan, and Julia to make a nice gondola-sized group of eight.
I’d checked on some of the boys packs down in the lodge, so once we got to the top of the gondola, the preparation for the hike went fairly smoothly. The ascent of the Climbing Gully was a little slow at first, simply because of all the fresh snow. The boot ladder was just not consolidated enough. That issue gradually waned as we got up into terrain that had been brushed by the wind a bit more. About 1/3 of the way up the gully, we stopped for a break and to let Jack and Kenny catch up with the group. In order to give them a rest, we waited a bit longer, and with temperatures in the single digits, we had to worry about getting too cold. In the upper half of the hike, I eventually had to put Kenny’s and Jack’s skis on my pack to allow them to keep pace with the rest of the group. That worked well though, and we eventually got everyone up to the Chin and the area atop Profanity Chute. Winds were probably 30-35 MPH up along the ridgeline near The Chin, but fortunately we were able to quickly get on the leeward side of the mountain by the chute.
The snow in the chute looked so good it was almost spooky. There was just one obvious ski track over on the skier’s left, but the right side was a huge field of what appeared to be powder. Just to be safe and to check on wind loading, I ski cut through that area to make sure it wasn’t going to release. It passed that test, and we let the kids just rip it up. I didn’t even have time to get my camera out because they were so quickly enamored with what lay beneath their feet. Indeed that was some mighty fine snow we hit, two to three feet of soft powder, with the denser accumulations from Vulcan topped off with last night’s fluff. I was at least able to shoot some images of Joe in the chute, since he’d waited for all the kids to go. The kids were treated to some fantastic conditions up there, with almost no tracks all the way down the second part of the chute toward Taft Lodge. There’s not much to say other than that the snow was deep, bottomless, and everywhere; that leeward side of Mansfield just really knows how to do snow right.
After following the mazes of tracks and bobsled runs through the subalpine area, getting down to Chin Clip, and then skiing all the way to the base, it was time to head back to Spruce Peak and call it a day. The kids really earned high marks today, and I was amazed at how comfortable with the exposure of the chute up in the alpine. I think that the amazing snow helped with that of course, because even when people did fall, they just immediately stopped thanks to the deep powder. The temperatures were doing a great job of preserving the snow, even when the March sun came out, and it looks like those temperatures will continue to keep preserving the snow as we head into the coming week.
A Google Earth map with GPS tracking data of today’s ski tour to Profanity Chute in the Mt. Mansfield Alpine area – Click to view the full size image.
The snow was quite settled today, but boy is coverage good now in Northern Vermont as we hit mid March.
It was already obvious from my outing on Thursday at Bolton Valley that the snow from Winter Storm Vulcan had fallen in a fairly dense state in this area. It hadn’t been warm during the storm, but snow growth just hadn’t been all that great around here, and the small flakes packed together to produce snow in the 10-11% H2O range. When combined with some wind, the snow had definitely been settled, and that was already evident even though I was skiing while the storm was still finishing up. And of course, snow generally just gets denser over time, so with temperatures predicted to be in the 30s F today, we weren’t expecting light and dry powder everywhere.
“…Vulcan dropped what was likely close to two inches of liquid equivalent in the mountains in the form of snow, so we knew that the mountain had received a full resurfacing.”
Although we weren’t expecting feathery, “Champagne Powder®” on the slopes today, Vulcan dropped what was likely close to two inches of liquid equivalent in the mountains in the form of snow, so we knew that the mountain had received a full resurfacing. That meant it was a perfect time to hit all the steep terrain that just hasn’t been well covered yet this season. Because we’re still waiting on Dylan’s physician to give him the go ahead for doing the most vigorous activities, such as skiing, Dylan and E planned to go swimming in the Bolton Valley Sports Center, while Ty and I planned to ski.
E dropped Ty and I off over at the base of Wilderness, and for me, it was quite a treat to get the chauffeur service that the rest of the family usually has. We found out that the Wilderness Double Chair was still on wind hold though, so we headed up to the Vista Quad for a run. Our first stop on the steep terrain tour was the Preacher Woods. The coverage there is definitely sufficient now, even up in the big open areas with multiple ledges. There are still some aspects of the ledges that one needs to dodge here and there, but when the terrain is small cliffs, that’s often the way it’s going to be. The snow was packed, and the untracked powder was sort of thick and dense, but the skiing up there was really pretty decent. There just wasn’t any fluff factor to speak of, so things felt very “settled”. It was really just fun to take virtually any line and not worry about coverage around the next corner; we’ve been waiting for a while to get to that stage this season. Our run brought us down through the Cobrass Woods, and then Deer Path, and finally the Bear Run Woods. The lower half of the mountain had warmer temperatures and snow that was somewhat wet, so that made it a bit more challenging. I’d brought my fat skis, and while I liked them a lot in the dense powder and chowder up high, I was less than thrilled with them on the more packed snow in the lower elevations.
Throwing around some dense snow out in the Deer Run area today
When we arrived back at the base, we found a big lift queue at the Vista Quad, and a similar queue at the Snowflake Chair. The Wilderness Chair was still on wind hold, so we decided to go for a run off the Mid Mountain Lift to get ourselves over to Timberline. We used Deer Run to get there, and Ty had an excellent crash in some of the powder that appeared to be to the amusement of some of the little kids in one of the ski programs. As we headed lower and lower in elevation over toward Timberline, the snow got wetter and wetter, and we could tell that it was really getting warm down in those lowest elevations. We encountered a huge queue at Timberline, probably because of other people that had left the main mountain to find shorter lift queues, but after seeing the drop in snow quality down low, I bet many of them headed back to the relative cool of the main mountain. I took Ty down the steep terrain of Lost Girlz, followed by Thundergoat Pass. We generally skipped the untracked powder down at Timberline, as it was just getting too dense and challenging. The partially tracked up snow was much easier to ski.
A deli lunch break for the boards
We made our way back to the main mountain after that, and finding that Wilderness still wasn’t open and there were substantial queues at the other lifts, we decided it was time for lunch. I called down to E and Dylan, and we met them for lunch at the Deli. I suspected that with all the patrons the resort had today, the lodge would be quite packed, and even the usually very quiet deli was hopping, so it was definitely a busy one out there. I actually think it’s interesting that so many people would come out after President’s Day, but Vulcan was a big storm and it caught a lot of people’s attention. After lunch, Ty headed down for some swimming with E and Dylan, and I contemplated another run or two. Finding the lift queues still fairly substantial, I decided to just call it a day. The skiing certainly wasn’t phenomenal enough that it warranted waiting in lift queues, especially since the snowfall was picking up and the possibilities for tomorrow were looking decent with cooler temperatures. I toured around the Village a bit and got some pictures, returned the pizza pans that Fireside Flatbread had lent us when we ordered pizza last Saturday, and finally worked my way down to the Sports Center. I worked on a jigsaw puzzle that was out in the recreation room while I waited for the others to finish swimming, and when they arrived, the battle was joined in a game of foosball. I forget how much fun stuff there is to do down at the Sports Center – we don’t visit to often because we’re usually headed home after skiing, but we’ll have to remember that there’s a lot more than just swimming.
It was over a week ago that Typhoon Tip of the American Weather Forum spotted a potential winter storm of the Northeastern U.S. based on the overall large-scale weather patterns. He started a thread that ran for dozens and dozens of pages, and as the time period in question approached, it looked more and more like Northern New England was going to be in the sweet spot for snow. Folks up here were understandably cautious, as most storms have seemed to trend southward this season, but winter storm “Vulcan” formed, and walked right through Northern Vermont with up to 24 inches of snow at some of the local ski resorts as of this morning. Although the snowpack at the Mt. Mansfield Stake is running less than a foot below average depth, it’s actually been a pretty lean snow year for the Northern Greens, with places like Bolton Valley and Stowe not yet even reaching 200 inches of snowfall. The on piste snow had definitely been a bit stale last weekend, so Vulcan was very welcomed with respect to both freshening surfaces and building the snowpack going into the spring skiing season.
“…this stuff put down a ton of liquid equivalent.”
I got the word in the morning that UVM wasn’t resuming classes until noontime because of the challenges of clearing all the snow, so after thoroughly clearing the driveway with the snow thrower, I headed up to Bolton Valley on my way in to Burlington. I knew from the snow report that all the lifts were on hold due to the winds, so I brought my skins and planned on a quick ascent of Timberline. Temperatures were in the single digits at the Timberline Base even as midday approached, but it actually turned out to be a very comfortable temperature for skinning with what I had on. I generally found 14-18” of settled snow down at the 1,500’ elevation, and was therefore happy to see that there was indeed a skin track in place up Twice as Nice. In actuality, it was a snowshoe track that had apparently been made by snow snowboarders, but it was well packed and accommodated my skins well.
I made quick time up to the top of Twice as Nice, ripped off my skins, and headed right back down. This was definitely one of those situations where you never quite know how the snow is going to ski until you ski it, but I could tell it was probably going to be dense, so I had chosen Twice as Nice because of its more consistent pitch. There was plenty of snow, but there wasn’t much of any fluff on top, so the powder skiing was fairly underwhelming, certainly by NVT standards. Combined with the cold temperatures, the skiing was definitely “slow” this morning. I’m glad I had my fattest skis at 115 mm underfoot, but even they didn’t keep me planing high enough on some of the shallower pitches. After skiing it, I’m actually looking forward to trying the snow from this storm chopped up a bit in chowder form – the trails are going to be great at that stage because this stuff put down a ton of liquid equivalent. There were certainly some good turns to be had, but nothing spectacular like you can get with fluffy Champlain Powder™.
On my way to Burlington on Route 2, I found myself running right alongside a locomotive, the 2674 from New England Central Railroad, and I was impressed with the way the snow was flying as it cleared the tracks of fresh snow. I sped ahead to see if I could catch it at the Jonesville railroad crossing, and quickly parked the car along the side of the intersection there and go into position. I was able to catch the locomotive blasting through the berm left by the plow, and the snow was flying everywhere. Just moments after this, I saw a snow plow approach the intersection, and the driver was really excited to see if I’d gotten the shot. I gave him a big “thumbs up” to let him know that I’d managed to get it, and couldn’t wait to have a chance to see just what it looked like. I’d argue it looked like what a locomotive would do on a powder day.
Catching a locomotive hitting the snow at the Jonesville railroad crossing
It was the BJAMS boys dropping powder bombs off the Mansfield ridgeline today.
Jack had inquired about a hike to The Chin during our BJAMS ski program last Sunday, so while getting my ski group up into Stowe’s alpine terrain has been on my mind over the past couple of weeks, that really got me thinking about a hike for today. The snowpack at the Mt. Mansfield Stake has been sitting at roughly 60 inches for the past three weeks, so I’m satisfied with base depths, and the only other concern that would affect the quality of the skiing would be the usual suspects up there in the alpine like wind and sun crusts, etc. Temperatures also looked reasonable for today, with highs in the 10s and 20s F, and with no strong winds expected and lots of sunshine, it seemed like we were on for a trip above tree line.
“I shot a few pictures of the accomplishment, and then came the highlight of the trip… the jumping.”
Although I’d like to get them up onto The Chin into Profanity Chute at some point, with no direct knowledge of the current snow conditions in the alpine, and this being the boys’ first hike above tree line this season, something a little less aggressive was in order. So, just like we did for our alpine outing on April 7th last season, I decided to go with a hike up Cliff Trail Gully, followed by skiing in that general vicinity. With that plan in place, I met up with today’s group, which consisted of Kenny, Ty, Jack, and Luc, and informed them of the plan. While Dylan is feeling quite chipper after his recent bout of illness, we want to make sure that his physician says he at 100% before we subject him to anything overly rambunctious. So, after grabbing the feature photo on our last trip up Cliff Trail Gully, unfortunately he had to hold out in the base area today.
After a warm up run on Sunny Spruce with Connor while we waited for Jack, everyone was finally ready to go, so we headed to lockers to prepare the gear. The guys got any water and snacks together, I did some fitting of their packs, and we were off to the Gondola. Up at the Cliff House, I helped everyone attach their skis to packs, and in general after working with Kenny’s setup a bit, the arrangements were pretty good without too many skis hitting heads or legs. Luc was carrying his skis, and I talked with him about switching arm positions as need and trying to let his shoulders do as much work as possible so that his arms wouldn’t get too tired. Kenny was very excited, because he said it was the first time he’d ever hiked for skiing.
Up the boot ladder go the boys
There was a decent boot ladder in place, so Ty took the lead, the other boys followed, and I brought up the rear. Ty was off like a shot, and within minutes it seemed like he was ¼ of the way up the gully and I had to reel him in a bit and tell him to hold so that the group could catch up. He was good about that, and hung out on one of the obvious stopping plateaus created by the massive room-sized boulders that fill the gully. Kenny was taking his time while he figured out what this whole “hiking with skis” process is all about, and I while I hung out with him, I gave him lots of tips on how to move efficiently in the terrain. He was floored by how fast Ty flew up the gully, and I let him know that Ty had done an awful lot of this kind of hiking and that he’d be much faster as he got used to it. The boot ladder wasn’t too bad, but in some spots you could tell that it was made by someone with fairly long legs. That set the boys at a disadvantage, but they worked it out, and I’m sure Ty was putting in plenty of shorter steps that they got to use. I did get to express to them how if they’re ever the first to set the boot ladder, shorter spaces between steps are the way to go, as they work for everyone.
As we climbed higher in the gully, Kenny was very impressed by the views, and I told him how they would just keep getting better with every step. Kenny really started to catch his groove with the hiking when we got into the upper, less steep half of the gully, and he commented on how much easier it was getting. Once into the upper half of the gully, Ty and Luc quickly gained the ridge line, and it wasn’t long before the rest of us caught up and we were there. The wind was minimal and the sun was warm, so the boys immediately started to explore the immediate area above the gully. I shot a few pictures of the accomplishment, and then came the highlight of the trip… the jumping.
It was jumps, jumps, and more jumps!
There hasn’t been much snow to set up a big cornice along the ridge, but there was at least a little bit of one, and more importantly, plenty of snow deposited just below on the leeward side of the ridge. I can’t recall who suggested it first, but the boys quickly got into a session of leaps, slides, tumbles, and bomb holing, all thanks to the deep snow deposited below the ridge. I’d say they had a good half hour session of jumping before I reminded them of the time and pointed out that we weren’t going to get in much additional skiing today if we didn’t get going. The boys were able to pull themselves away, and after a few snacks, we started our descent of the gully.
Finally, the boys made the ski descent of the gully.
The snow conditions were actually somewhat challenging, with a few pockets of soft snow, but a lot of wind slab, dense snow, and even pockets of leftover rain crust. The boys really showed their technical abilities, applying a range of techniques to take on some impressively steep, tight, and scratchy lines down the gully. I kept my eyes peeled for other options off to the skiers left, but with the current snowpack, nothing immediately jumped out that was worth pursuing. So, the boys finished their run right down through the Cliff Trail Gully itself, and it was quite impressive.
Of course, one great part about a run down from Mansfield’s alpine areas is that you have an entire run of 2,000+ vertical feet still to go. The boys chose Mac and Cheese, which actually seemed sort of tame after what they’d just done. We followed that up with some trees and bumps on Lower National. We also had time for one more run over at Spruce Peak once we got back. Actually, despite the time taken up by the hike and the run down the gully, I’m glad the boys spent a lot of time up there, because in general, the conditions on piste were pretty unimpressive. The off piste snow in places such as the Nosedive Glades was reasonable packed powder, even if well packed after this past week with minimal new snow, but trails with snowmaking and high traffic are really quite icy. There’s powder in the trees, but naturally it’s getting harder to come by at this point, and the boys weren’t really missing out on too much down below. Luc even commented on how he didn’t like the snow when we were down on Lower National, so he’s definitely refining his preference for good snow. Fortunately, it looks like we might get some storms this week, so hopefully we’ll have some softer conditions next weekend. Hopefully we’ll be back at Stowe for more fun in the snow.
There hasn’t been much fresh powder this week, but there’s still plenty out there.
As soon as I got back from my backcountry ski tour in the Monroe Trail area of Camel’s Hump, I checked in with Ty to see if he was still interested in heading up to Bolton Valley for some lift-served turns. I grabbed my fat skis off the car’s ski rack, traded them for some mid fats, and as soon as Ty was dressed, we were off. I was unsure how the trails were going to be, since we haven’t had much snow this week, but in any event it seemed like it would worth taking at least a couple of runs.
It was already after 4:00 P.M. when we started skiing, so I was expecting we’d have just the night skiing terrain to choose from, but that wasn’t the case. The Cobrass suite of runs was all still open, so Ty and I headed that way and dropped into the Villager Trees. Not surprisingly with little recent snow, the main lines were tracked, but traversing out got us into some decent powder. There was still that crust under there, but the powder was often deep enough to keep you floating above it, even though we were only on mid fat skis. We finished off down by Snowflake, so did a run through the Bonus Woods to get us back down to the bottom of the Vista Quad. We explored around a lot in the Bonus Woods, finding mostly nice powder, although we’d occasionally encounter some crust and it made for comical results. When we arrived at the top of Vista on our next run, it was approaching 6:00 P.M., but the sun was still out and patrol had not yet roped off the trails in the Cobrass area. Seeing that, we took a run down Preacher and part of Devil’s Playground. Ty and I talked about how when he was little, he was intimidated by the steeps in Devil’s Playground, but now he just attacks them like they’re nothing. The snow in that general was OK, but we could definitely use another storm to freshen things up. It actually sounds like we might have some systems of various types next week, so that would really get the March skiing rolling.
When we were done skiing, we stopped in and ordered up a couple of pies to go at Fireside Flatbread. While we were in line to place our order, Ty was face to face with some of the pizzas behind the glass that were out for slices, and being a huge fan of their crust, he was really drooling over it. I have to say, we were both quite hungry and it did look really good. The guys were actually out of pizza boxes, so they actually created one for me out of some other box – and gave me the pizzas to go right on their pizza pans. Hats off to the guys behind the counter for solving the issue, and we’ll have their pans back to them real soon!
Out for some powder on the east side of Camel’s Hump today
It’s been a light week for snowfall here in the Northern Greens; since the storm that hit the area last Sunday, we’ve had generally cold and dry weather, with just one small round of snow in the Tuesday-Wednesday timeframe. That got me thinking about a backcountry tour for today. My initial inclination was to head northward, since as our snowy Sunday outing at Stowe confirmed, the northern mountains had really picked up the most snow, and accumulations tapered off as you headed southward. With that in mind, I was thinking of heading to Nebraska Notch for some turns. However, yesterday’s and today’s weather history also needed to be factored into the mix. Temperatures reached above freezing in some spots yesterday, and today was looking similar, so I figured that something sheltered and with relatively high elevation was the way to go for the best snow. I decided to head to some of the skiing around the Monroe Trail, on the Waterbury/Duxbury side of Camel’s Hump. I had planned to have Ty come with me, but at the last moment he decided that he didn’t want to skin today, so I said we’d head up to Bolton Valley for some lift-served turns when I got back from the tour.
It’s been over four years since I last visited the Monroe Trail area of Camel’s Hump for skiing. On that outing, I followed the Monroe Trail up to the large cliffs beneath the peak of Camel’s Hump, then traversed somewhat northward to set up for a descent fairly distant from the trail and toward the glades that drop down near the trailhead. I got in some good skiing in the trees, but really just caught the end of the glades, so I knew there would be more lines to explore. This time, my plan was to simply skin up one of the descent tracks made by skiers coming down through the glades, since it would save a lot of time traversing around up high to find the best starting points.
I headed out from the house a bit before noon, and temperatures were in the mid 30s F. The temperature fell as I headed up Camel’s Hump Road, dropping to 31 F by the time I reached the winter parking area at ~1,200’. Just a couple hundred feet below the parking area, I’d seen the first flakes of snow from a small system that was expected to come through in the afternoon. From the trailhead at ~1,500’, I skinned up the Monroe Trail for a few more minutes and then as the trail started to bend southward, I jumped onto one of the ski tracks coming down out of the obvious glades in the terrain above. The tracks traversed northward for a bit, but then gradually began to make a more direct ascent up toward the east face of Camel’s Hump. I was a little worried about the snow quality, because although it was below freezing and most snow that wasn’t in the sun was still wintry and dry, there were only a few inches of powder above an old crust. I wasn’t quite sure how that was going to ski. But, the snow got better and better as I ascended, with the powder on top of any crust getting deeper and deeper. It was really nice skinning though – the temperatures were just below freezing, the wind was calm, and light snow was falling in association with the afternoon’s storm. I hiked in just a vest over my polypropylene base layer, and quickly had my hat off as well.
As I ascended, it became obvious that the lower parts of the glades represented a common track to regain the Monroe Trail, but in the higher elevations, there were a number of interconnected glades from which to choose. About halfway through the ascent, I stuck with a glade that was generally on the skier’s right of the area that had seen very little traffic. There was just one very old descent track in it, and that track was actually hard to find at times because so much snow had fallen on it since it had been made. I knew that there were other glades around to my north, because I saw a couple of skiers descending in that area. After generally rejoining with tracks from some of the other glades, I traveled for a bit through more gently sloped terrain until I hit the trail for the Camel’s Hump Challenge at roughly 2,800’. I followed that northward a bit more until I topped out around the 3,000’ mark in some of the upper glades just below the Cliffs of Camel’s Hump. The quality of the snow had definitely improved up at that elevation, with any crust buried below several inches of powder.
I had a snack, switched my gear over, and then began my descent. There were some decent turns above the Camel’s Hump Challenge Trail, but the best turns were definitely when I got onto that lesser used glade below that point. The highest quality snow was in the top half of the vertical, and with my fat skis it was generally soft, bottomless turns. On the lower half of the descent, even my fat skis weren’t enough to always keep me floating, as the depth of the powder decreased to just a few inches; to best handle any partially tracked and/or narrower sections of terrain, I had to inject a lot more alpine turns into the mix vs. just Telemark turns. I did venture off the main glade that I was on at times, and there was plenty of skiing to be had right in the natural trees all around. I saw one other skier as I was descending – he was ascending through the glades as I’d done. He and his dog moved out of the way when he saw me off in the trees beyond the glade, but after I let him know that I was solo and nobody else would be coming down behind me, he quickly resumed his ascent.
Just as I’d experienced on my last outing in the area, from the bottom of the glades it was an easy downhill ski on the Monroe Trail itself. I was even able to catch some turns in the powder off to the side of the snow-covered roadway below the trailhead, then shouldered my skis to walk the last tenth of a mile back to the parking area. The temperature was 31 F just as it had been when I arrived, and the light snow had mostly tapered off down at that elevation. Despite the deeper snow and lack of a defined skin track in the glades relative to the beautifully packed nature of the Monroe Trail, I almost wonder if it’s more efficient to ascend in some cases because it’s a much shorter distance due to the way the Monroe Trail wraps around so far to the south. In terms of preserving the powder and ascending if the unconsolidated snow is deep and there aren’t many descent tracks, the Monroe Trail is the way to go, but now that I’ve gone up via both routes, I’d say they are both pretty convenient options. Hopefully I can get E and the boys along on one of these Monroe Trail trips – now that I’ve had a couple of sessions out there, I think I could guide them on a great tour.
The GPS data from today’s backcountry ski tour overlaid onto Google Earth
The boys out in the white stuff today on one of those sleeper powder days at Stowe
One of the early signs that Stowe has received a decent shot of overnight snow, is when Powderfreak sends out a pre-sunrise update and you see some nice depth to the snowy tire tracks in the parking lot. That’s the way it went this morning, and since a few inches down low can mean even more up high. It definitely piqued my interest, and suggested that we should go for one of those morning starts ahead of our afternoon ski program. With Dylan still under the weather, and E staying home with him, it would be just Ty and I heading out today. I waited until Ty woke up, he grabbed a quick bite, and we were off.
“Depth checks revealed powder close to two feet on north and other protected aspects, and while that crusty layer from a couple of weeks ago was presumably in there, it’s so deeply buried now that you’d never know.”
Ripping up some big turns above Meadows
The lifts hadn’t been running too long at Spruce Peak when we arrived, and you could tell by the tracks that were appearing that there was some great fresh snow. We suited up in Spruce Camp, and then hopped on Sunny Spruce for a quick first run. When we saw that Freddie’s Chute was open, we headed right there and caught some of the fresh lines still available along the skier’s right. The snow that fell overnight was some gorgeous light and dry Champlain Powder™. There were several inches of new snow, and it skied really well, even if it didn’t have the density to keep you off the subsurface in previously tracked areas. We grabbed first tracks on some lines we knew in the Lower Smugglers Trees, and found the turns to be mostly bottomless there. We finished off with a run through the terrain above Meadows – there wasn’t quite enough powder to be bottomless down at those low elevations on south facing terrain, but the snow provided a good amount of resistance to make the turns fun.
“It was just me and Ty, and a couple hundred acres of fluff.”
It was off to Mansfield next for some Gondola runs. We started with a run in which I introduced Ty to a full trip through the Hazelton Zone. With the snowpack at the Mt. Mansfield Stake above 60” now, there are no concerns about coverage. We just let our noses guide us through the terrain, and it was powder-filled adventure through streambeds, powder fields and steep river banks. We didn’t see another soul, and we didn’t even run into any tracks until we got down toward the main line in the bottom half of the area. It was just me and Ty, and a couple hundred acres of fluff. Depth checks revealed powder close to two feet on north and other protected aspects, and while that crusty layer from a couple of weeks ago was presumably in there, it’s so deeply buried now that you’d never know. South facing chutes were where that crust was evident though – there featured conditions with more like six inches of powder with a crusty base underneath. Once we found that out though, we stuck to the north facing terrain and other aspects where there were no problems. Ty said he loved the explorations and skiing in the area, along with the roller coaster exit traverse at the end. One comment he made was that the run seemed sort of long, which I’d argue is a nice problem to have. Our next run was through the Tombo Woods followed by some of the Switchback Trees, where the snow was great all the way to the bottom. When I did a depth check around the 2,000’-2,500’ mark on Switchback, I got a reading of 6 inches for the new snow. Ty noticed that his fat skis were serving him well, keeping him planing atop the snow and moving even when the terrain flattened out.
In the morning it was Ty and I getting to rip up the powder on Mansfield together.
Ty and I headed in for lunch at the Great Room Grill, getting sandwiches from the deli area, and then met up with Luc and Jack for our afternoon session. We started them off with the run that Ty and I had skied in the morning, and Ty like the fact that he’d had both first and third tracks through the Lower Smugglers Trees for the day. Back over on Mansfield, we took a great run through the Kitchen Wall area, and worked our way all the way through the Goatdive Woods and some of the Liftline Trees. Jack hurt his leg a bit on a run through the Sunrise trees, so we made our way back to Spruce, where he took it easy for the last hour in the lodge while the rest of the group finished off with some runs on Sensation. Main Street was an interesting mix of hard manmade racing snow below the fresh stuff, but outside the racing fences was some really good powder. We’ll definitely be back to check out some of the new routes we learned there. This was definitely one of those sleeper Stowe powder days that sneak in under the radar – we were psyched to have it on a Sunday.
Nikki, up for a visit and enjoying some powder at Bolton Valley today
As we enter March, the polar vortex continues to flood Northern Vermont with unseasonably cold air. It’s great for preserving the snow, but it’s also pushing synoptic storms southward, and it’s been two weeks since we’ve had a major storm cycle. Fortunately, smaller impulses have rotated their way around the base of the vortex to the tune of roughly one per day over the past week, and thanks to those events, the Northern Greens have picked up almost a foot of snow since Monday. I’d been curious about how the powder was building up off piste with all those little events, but when I saw Powderfreak’s deep pictures from Stowe yesterday, it was obvious that conditions were getting good.
“Conditions were good, with the only thing keeping them from being great was that crust looming below the powder.”
E’s sister Tina and her family arrived last night for a visit and some skiing. With Dylan under the weather, they decided to maximize his peace and quiet and stayed at the Best Western in town last night, but stopped in this morning to get together before we headed up to Bolton Valley. We didn’t rush too hard, since we were happy to let the temperatures warm. They’d actually picked the perfect day for skiing with respect to temperatures, because the single digits and teens that the polar vortex has thrown this way all week were finally giving way to temperatures in the 20s F thanks to southerly winds from an approaching storm.
Tim had to rent some equipment, so we started off at the main mountain with a trip down Deer Run from the Mid Mountain Chair. I wanted to make sure that Riley and Nikki were comfortable on the terrain, but they were ripping it up, so we moved right on to the Vista Quad. In the overall scheme of the mountain tour, my plan was to bring them down to the slopes of Timberline, which looked quite nice from what we saw on our drive by this morning, so we hit Cobrass and took the long run all the way to the base of the Timberline Quad. Along the way, we didn’t do a lot of exploring or traversing with Riley and Nikki being on snowboards, but I did bring Tim on one of the crossovers to Spell Binder to check out the snow. They resort had done one pass on Spell Binder with the groomer, but the rest of the trail was powder. The depth of the powder down at that elevation was enough to keep you off the subsurface for a good portion of the turns, but you would definitely touch down on a certain percentage as well. The turns were definitely nice though, and having my fat skis might have made it even better.
Riding the Timberline Quad, we could see plenty of untracked snow on Showtime, so we gave that a shot first. They had a strip of grooming, which was good, because the powder was nowhere near as consistent as what was on Spell Binder. There were areas with 4 to 5 inches of powder, and then areas that looked like powder but were actually just crust with a little snow on top. That made the skiing very tricky there, and it just didn’t seem like it was worth another run. Twice as Nice was a little more protected, so it had some better areas of loose snow among its bumps. I also brought everyone for a trip down Sure Shot to get them all to the powder on Tattle Tale and Spell Binder. It meant that the snowboards had to click out of their boards for the traversing, but the snow was definitely worth it. We had lunch at the Timberline Base Lodge, and it was a quiet scene with a few families at some of the tables. Nikki and Riley really enjoyed their food. I took everyone on an adventure through Wood’s Hole with more powder on Spell Binder after that, and then we headed back to the main mountain.
Cruising through the snow on Spell Binder
During the rest of the afternoon we finished the tour by catching the lifts we hadn’t, like Snowflake and Wilderness, with a good run that everyone enjoyed through the Wilderness Woods. We mixed things up near the end of the day with visits to see Tina in the lodge and some runs off Mid Mountain and the Vista Quad. Tim was amazed at how quiet the resort was for a Saturday, and it was quiet, but nothing too atypical. Conditions were good, with the only thing keeping them from being great was that crust looming below the powder. It wasn’t an issue where snow had been groomed, and there was indeed some nice packed powder in spots, but we’ll need a bit more snow to fully bury that crust. We’ve got yet another system coming in tonight, so that will aid in burying that crust deeper still.
Waterbury snowfall for the 2012-2013 season – broken down by month
The last snowstorm of the 2012-2013 winter season extended all the way out to Memorial Day weekend to produce some great late season skiing, but now that we’re well into summer and all the snow has melted, we can look back at how the winter went down at our location in Vermont’s Winooski Valley. The main focus in the seasonal analysis below is on snowfall, but snowpack and temperatures will be discussed as well. In this post I’ve hit on some of the highlights that came out of the data, and attached our various plots and graphs, but to get to the full data set, you can use the following link:
Thankfully, this past season’s snowfall (144.2″) marked a notable increase over the previous season (115.3″), but the total snowfall for 2012-2013 was still less than 90% of average, so that’s not likely to lift the season into the category of “great” winters. In addition, the amount of snow on the ground at the house last season didn’t help to improve the winter’s standing. Using the value of snow depth days as an integrative way of representing the season’s snowpack, one finds the 2012-2013 winter season producing a value of 729 inch-days, less than half the average value, and right down there in the basement with the well below average 2011-2012 season (688 inch-days). And, if the overall snowpack depth hadn’t already undermined any chances of redemption to an average level, the 2012-2013 snowpack secured the season’s ignominy by reaching the lowest value we’ve seen in January and February (3.0″), and coming within a hair’s breadth of melting out in the area around our measurement stake at a record early date in mid March:
This past season’s rather meager snowpack at our location in Waterbury (red line) relative to average (green shading)
Often, each month of the winter/snowfall season has its own unique flavor with respect to the weather, so one method I like to use to get a feel for the winter is to look at it on a month-by-month basis. Again, the focus below is on snowfall at our location, but snowpack is also considered, as well as mountain snowfall/snowpack and the associated effect on the local skiing. I’ll have a separate 2012-2013 ski season summary coming up, so I’ve kept the ski discussion minimal here in anticipation of a more thorough discussion in that report. The month’s total snowfall is listed at the start of each section below for reference:
Snowfall: 0.1″ – October snowfall isn’t reliable enough down at our elevation to be factored much into the seasonal assessment, but this October was on the weak side, with just a tenth of an inch of snow, vs. the mean of roughly an inch. Regardless of this, there was still enough for the needs of companies like https://divisionkangaroof.com/areas-served/gainesville/ with the weight of the snow causing damage to some roofs. One small feather in the cap of 2012-2013 is the fact that the first accumulating snow fell on October 12th, which beats out 2010-2011’s October 15th snowfall by three days, and now represents the earliest measurable snowfall I’ve recorded here at the house since I started monitoring the weather in 2006.
Snowfall: 6.3″ – November snowfall came in just a bit below average this past season, so certainly not remarkable, but notable in that it was probably about as average a November as we’ve seen. November has typically been feast or famine when it comes to snow. We actually had a total of five snowstorms in November, but a small to moderate storm of 4.4″ at the end of the month contributed the bulk of the monthly total as well as some of the first great skiing of the season in the mountains.
Snowfall: 49.5″ – December held the first lengthy, redeeming snowfall period of 2012-2013. Although the first half of the month was extremely poor on snowfall (just 2.2″ of snow at the house), from the 16th of December onward, temperatures got cold and snow came in for a dramatic change; close to 50″ of snow fell on us in the second half of the month, and as a whole the month actually wound up several inches above average. Those in homes with faulty or no heating in place are likely to struggle with the crushing cold at this time of year which is why it’s so important to conduct regular maintenance on heaters so you’re not left to suffer over winter. Reaching out to the likes of these professionals could help with this – siriuspac.com/heating-repair-service/. A problem left unaddressed could snowball into substantial damage and become more costly to repair over time so it’s well worth acting on it as early as possible. We received our second (15.5″) and fourth (11.7″) largest storms of the season during that stretch, right near Christmas and just a few days apart, so needless to say, the snow was there to set quite the holiday mood in the valleys and up above on the slopes.
Snowfall: 21.9″ – January continued that good, snowy weather pattern in its first week, albeit to a lesser degree than December, but unfortunately that modest first week ultimately wound up representing roughly half of the month’s snowfall. The second week featured a couple of substantial thaws with no measurable snow, and in fact we received no accumulating snow at all for the period between January 7th and 16th, a very long stretch for the mountainous areas of Northern Vermont during the winter. The third week of January offered just a few small systems, and the fourth week was arctic cold with minimal snow. The final week attempted to recoup the losses with a modest half foot storm, but it was too little too late – the month ended with just 21.9″ of snow, by far the lowest January in my records. The combination of very low snowfall and two January thaws was very deleterious to the valley snowpack – after coming down from the depths achieved in December, the snowpack depth at our location never even reached 10 inches again during the month, and got as low as 3.0 inches. That is ridiculously close to losing the winter snowpack in January, definitely the closest we’ve come based on my records since 2006.
Snowfall: 31.4″ – February was again below average in snowfall, partly due to the continuation of the dry arctic pattern in the first week, and it wound up missing the mark for the lowest February in my data set by less than an inch. Although that persistent dry pattern didn’t make for a very snowy first half of the month, our third largest storm of the season (12.6″) hit in the second week. It was still a rather modest storm, but at least it did break that one foot mark for accumulation at the house. By the end of the third week of February, the snow depth at the Mt. Mansfield stake actually poked above average for the first time in about a month and a half – but it was only by a couple of inches, and it quickly went back below average as the snowpack sat there essentially stagnant for an entire month. On February 21st, the snowpack was at 65″, and roughly a month later on March 18th, it was still at 65″, without any major consolidation of more than a few inches. That’s stagnant. Our snowpack at the house languished similarly, never even getting above 10 inches of depth during that stretch – and that’s a time of year when it is usually building to its peak of the season. The carryover of the low snowpack from January also set the lowest mark (3.0″) for snowpack that we’ve ever seen in February.
Snowfall: 4.2″ – April was even a couple inches below average for snowfall, but temperatures stayed cool enough to keep the winter season rolling along, and that’s what really helped make the period wintrier. We didn’t have any notable April snow accumulations down at our elevation, just a couple of small ones on the 2nd, and again on the 12th – 13th, but the mountains continued to get fresh snow right into mid month to keep surfaces in great form and the Mt. Mansfield snowpack robust.
Snowfall: 0.0″ – There was no accumulating May snowfall down at the house this season, but that’s not too much of knock on the Month, because not getting snow in May is more the norm than actually getting snow. The mountains did get that beautiful Memorial Day weekend storm though, and the late season powder skiing was mighty fine. Although I can’t factor that directly into the analysis for the valley, it was quite cold in the valleys at the end of the month, and close to even snowing there.
There were a couple of other interesting notes with respect to snowfall this season:
1) Storm frequency and average storm size: Despite coming in below average for snowfall, the 2012-2013 season offered up a healthy 51 accumulating snowstorms, almost up there with the 53 storms we received in 2007-2008. Of course, to come in below average for snowfall with that many storms indicates that the average snowfall per storm was down, and indeed it was. At 2.8″/storm, 2012-2013 ranks down there with 2011-2012 (2.6″/storm), the only odd seasons out compared to the more typical seasons up near 4″/storm. For whatever reason, this season’s average came in on the low side. This is presumably due in part to many of the everyday events being on the small side, but also due to the lack of bigger storms, which is covered in point #2 below.
2) Storms with double-digit snowfall: It’s certainly an arbitrary and subtle distinction, but after looking through my data, I noticed an interesting trend with respect to each season’s largest storms for our location. In my season summaries, I always make a list of the top five storms of the season, and when the season seems to have gone well, all of those top five storms have been in the double digits for snowfall. In fact, the “best” seasons thus far have been able to surpass that five-storm threshold. For reference, here’s the top five list for this season, with the links to the detailed web pages for each storm:
Indeed, if we look at the number of storms with double-digit snowfall by the seasons, we see an obvious trend. With the number of double-digit snowfall storms listed in parentheses after the season, one notes those “good” seasons – 2007-2008 (6), 2008-2009 (7), 2010-2011 (7) seemed to find a way to exceed five double-digit storms, whereas the poorer snowfall seasons – 2006-2007 (4), 2009-2010 (2), 2011-2012 (3), 2012-2013 (4) just didn’t. Surely the law of averages comes into play here to some degree – seasons with patterns producing lots of snow likely have a greater chance of getting a big storm in here, but that’s not a given. It’s also very suspicious that those seasons that come in sort of in that middling ground like 2006-2007 and our season of interest for this summary, 2012-2013, fall just short of making the cut. I suspect this trend may be more intact in a location like ours because of the relatively high number of storms and snowfall, and upslope snow (which was on the low side this season) as an extra protection against huge snowfall variance, but this is going to be an interesting trend to follow into the future as a gauge of snowfall seasons.
In sum, while snowfall was certainly a bit below average, and snowpack was well below average, I’d still give the season a reasonable grade. If C is average, I’d go with a C- for 2012-2013, just a bit off from making the average. Were snowpack a more significant factor in my winter preferences, one could argue for going a bit lower, but at least minimal snowpack was maintained throughout the entirety of the winter to keep everything white. Overall it could have been a lot worse, and with the amount of snowfall we did get, it’s hard to drop the season into the D range, which, based solely on snowfall and snowpack at the house, is where I’d put a season like 2011-2012.
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:
Low snowfall last winter meant back to back seasons with below average snowfall at Bolton Valley.
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 21st, the snowpack was at 65”, and roughly a month later on March 18th, 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.
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 12th ± 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 3rd (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:
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 22nd, 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 23rd at Bolton Valley. It should be noted though, that while the 24” mark was attained on December 22nd this season, the 40” mark was attained the very next day on December 23rd. 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 23rd and 24th, the snowpack settled back to 36” for a couple of days before rebounding to 45” on the 27th.
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 7th, 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 11th, 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 4th (on the 14th of the month) and 5th (on the 16th 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.
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 2nd. 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 12th saw Ty and I enjoying close to a foot of dense powder out in the Bypass Chutes at Stowe on the 13th. 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 10th 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 10th 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 18th. 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.
