Ty takes off as he blasts through another line filled with the powder from our recent March storm cycle.
As our most recent storm cycle progressed into its second half yesterday, it brought prodigious upslope snowfall, but heavy winds also pounded the upper mountain areas at Bolton Valley. That meant that the Vista Quad Chair never ran, so all that fresh snow would still be sitting there for today.
For Ty, today was one of his days off from work, so the two of us headed up to the mountain for a ski session. At this point in the ski season, we’re well past President’s Day and school vacation week; it’s mid-March, and today was just a random midweek Tuesday, so we didn’t expect a lot of visitors to the mountain. Apparently nobody told the skiers about that though – we arrived up in the Village within a half hour of lift opening, and we were already having to park all the way down by the Sports Center in an impromptu middle lane of cars. Where did all these people come from? What we eventually discovered was that every parent in the state had decided to pull their kids out of school for the day to get in some skiing. On our Vista lift rides, we literally paired up with multiple dads and their kids who had done this, so apparently it was the thing to do!
Winds had hit the mountain overnight on the back side of the storm cycle, so it was important to visit sheltered areas today for the most pristine powder and highest-quality turns.
The weather today was clear with brilliant March sunshine, so it was quite a contrast to yesterday’s snowy maelstrom, but winds were still brisk near the summits. Despite the bit of remaining wind, overall, today had that feel of the “day after” the storm. The new snow from the storm had been pounded and scoured in exposed areas like the tops of trails near the Vista Summit, but thankfully most terrain was protected enough to hold onto quite an excellent bounty of soft accumulations from the storm. There was a bit of wind crust in areas depending on exposure, but nothing that ruined the skiing aside from reducing the explosiveness of the powder relative to yesterday’s consistency in the more exposed areas. My snow depth checks revealed the same roughly two feet of accumulation that I’d found near the middle of day yesterday, so there was probably some additional accumulation and continued settling that left things about where they were.
Ty works his way down through another powder line left by our most recent March storm cycle.
We prioritized hitting some of the steepest terrain to really make use of the resurfacing that the storm brought us, so we visited areas like Devil’s Playground and the Vista Glades, which I hadn’t yet visited at all this season. There were still a lot of nice areas of untracked snow, and areas that had seen skier traffic still provided top notch conditions. The storm was so potent that even the steepest terrain has the coverage to keep you from encountering the old base snow, so you can just drop into anything and anticipate your edges biting into packed powder without the worry of touching the crusty stuff underneath. Along with the steeps, we also visited some of our favorite areas for powder turns, and as long as the snow was protected from the winds, it was still delivering that cold smoke that we enjoyed yesterday.
Ty launches into some fresh powder off a jump in the Moose Glen area.
With the off piste conditions being so much better than what’s available on the trails right now, Ty and I had plans to take a ski tour up to Stowe View today and hit some of the Moose Glen terrain at Bolton Valley. I was just up there a couple of weeks ago, and there are many acres of high elevation glades that I’d expect to have fantastic snow with the way the spine has recently been getting round after round of heavy snowfall.
It was dumping huge flakes at the house when we left this morning, and 1”/hr. snows in the valley turned to 1-2”/hr. snows as we ascended the Bolton Valley Access Road. The snow was falling so hard and fast that the access road was absolutely covered. Even down by the Catamount Trail parking area before the big S-curve below Timberline, vehicles were already lined up due to some cars not being able to get enough traction on the grade. I’m not sure where they were in the plowing cycle for the road because there wasn’t a plow around that we saw, but with the rate the snow was falling, it almost wouldn’t have mattered. Cars were turning around to descend, and some were evening having to back down in the downhill lane because they couldn’t turn around. Descending cars were moving at an absolute crawl to avoid sliding, and some still struggled with sliding just due to the crown of the road. After about 15 minutes we made it up to the base of the S-curve and started the ascent there, and I saw that a line of cars were stopped about halfway down from the top of the grade. That’s one of the steepest parts of the access road, and you don’t want to have to restart there from a dead stop if you can help it.
Traffic was at a total standstill on the steep parts of the Bolton Valley Access Road this morning due to heavy snowfall that made the road too slick for most vehicles.
I could see that the whole situation was going to be trouble, and there was no immediate sign of the next plow, so we made the split second decision to turn around and simply park at the Catamount Trail parking area about 100 yards below us. We were going to be ski touring anyway, so we figured we’d just start our tour from there instead. It does add a couple of extra miles to the route, but we had the time, and it was far better than sitting in traffic and risking an accident on the road. And as bad as the driving was at that point, the snow simply continued to pound down and make the road worse. While gearing up for our tour at the car, we met another couple of guys who had decided on the same plan. They weren’t too familiar with the resort, but I assured them that the Nordic and Backcountry Trail Network connected right up to the Nordic Center and Village, and from that point they could head wherever they wanted on the network.
Heavy snowfall envelopes us near the start of today’s ski tour as we pass a cabin near the parking area for the Catamount Trail.
The ascent to the Village was beautiful along the Nordic trails, and the very heavy snowfall was with us for the first mile or so before it tapered down at least a bit. I’d actually never skied that full connection before, so it was great to be able to experience the route. We didn’t need to stop in at the Nordic Center, so we simply cut right up to the Bryant Trail along with a couple of women who were out on a similar tour. From there, it was just the usual route on up to Stowe View with some water and snack breaks. Ty hadn’t had any breakfast, so with the extra distance, he quickly made use of the snack he’d brought, and I dove heavily into the reserves in my pack to get him additional calories. It was about 4.5 miles and over 2,000’ vertical up to Stowe View by that route, so that’s roughly double the vertical and triple the distance relative to a typical tour to that area starting in the Village. That increase definitely required more calories.
Ty slices through another powder turn as we make our way through the Branches glade area of Bolton’s Nordic and Backcountry Network during part of today’s ski tour.
We skied various parts of the Moose Glen glade areas as planned, and the powder was simply fantastic. Even down at 1,200’ there was a solid 12” of settled powder, and up around 3,000’ it was typically in the 17-18” range. It was champagne light, so it actually worked well on a variety of different slope angles. As long as you had first tracks, even steeper terrain was in play for bottomless turns. We had a long, long run, with glade after glade of powder, down through areas like White Rabbit and Branches, and eventually we reached the Village where we could take a quick break and plan our next move.
We were on contact with Dylan, who had parked at Timberline and we decided that instead of heading back to the car via the Nordic and Backcountry Network, we’d complete our tour using the alpine trails. We got a lift assist off the Vista Quad, and made our way from Cobrass to Maria’s where there were still plenty of untracked lines to ski. Lower Tattle Tale was also still really good along the edges where we found untracked snow.
Another round of very heavy snowfall was pounding the resort today as we were finishing up our ski tour near the Timberline Base area – Mother Nature has really been on a roll with the snowfall in the Northern Greens over the past couple of days.
We found Dylan at the Timberline Base Lodge and caught up over some El Gato burritos. We’d planned to ski down to our car at the Catamount Trail parking area if necessary, but we just caught a ride with Dylan and it made for pleasant finish to a tour that was almost 10 miles in total and brought us literally from one end of the resort to the other using the Nordic, backcountry, and alpine trail networks. It was a great way to make use of all the recent snows and great powder conditions that have developed.
The map of today’s ski tour on the Bolton Valley Nordic and Backcountry Network with GPS tracking data on a Google Earth map
Winter Storm Heather blasted into the are this morning, with up to 8 inches of new snow already down by midafternoon to set up some great powder skiing at Bolton Valley
It wasn’t even snowing this morning when Ty and I headed off to Burlington for an early appointment, so we knew we’d be giving Mother Nature some time to get rolling and freshen up the slopes. The snow from Winter Storm Heather started up a couple hours later, and by midafternoon we decided to head up to Bolton Valley for some turns.
We were happy to see that the Timberline Quad was running, so were able to park and start our session right there. Snow was simply pouring down at that point, and my initial measurements revealed storm totals of 4-5” at 2,500’ and 6-8” at 3,000’.
Thanks to the arrival of Winter Storm Heather, snow was simply pouring down out of the ski at 1 to 2 inches per hour when we arrived at the Timberline Base today, and it just kept going like that all through the afternoon and into the evening.The tree skiing was excellent today with constant refills of fresh powder thanks to heavy snowfall from Winter Storm Heather.
The snow was light and dry (my past couple of liquid analyses from down here in the valley averaged right around 4% H2O), so it was very high quality powder. With such cold smoke snow, you weren’t getting bottomless turns on steep terrain, but you could on low and moderate angle terrain, and the turns were great even if you were contacting the subsurface.
It was pounding 1-2”/hour snow the entire time we were on the mountain, so one could easily tack on another couple inches or so to the storm totals by closing time, and it even kept snowing into the evening.
Dylan and Colin blast their way down the Wilderness Liftline today amidst continued heavy snowfall from Winter Storm Sage
Continuing on overnight, Winter Storm Sage brought an additional resurgence of heavy snowfall into the area this morning. So, combined with somewhat limited lift service at Bolton Valley on Tuesday due to power outages, today was an obvious day to get out for turns. Dylan was off from school for his second snow day in a row, and since it initially didn’t look like Colin would be able to join him for skiing, he and I headed up to the hill to catch the opening of the Vista Quad. Snowfall was probably in the inch per hour range at that point, so the Bolton Valley Access Road was a bit slick, and we encountered a couple of vehicles having trouble on the ascent.
Colin sends up a wall of white as he slashes his was down the steep headwall of the Wilderness Liftline today
Areas up around the ridgeline of the resort were getting hit pretty hard by the wind, so the new snow was heavily wind packed up there, but once you were down a couple hundred feet, most areas were fine. Surface snow depths I measured were generally around 20 inches on the low end, up toward 30 inches on the high end, and that seemed to fit pretty well with the resort’s reported 32” storm total. While the initial forecasts for Winter Storm Sage looked fairly lean in the Northern Greens, accumulations ultimately approached 3 feet, and the snowpack depth at the Mt. Mansfield Stake took a healthy jump up to 90 inches. Winter Storm Sage wound up being a solid storm cycle up and down the spine of the Green Mountains, with roughly 3 to 4 feet of accumulation. The north to south listing of available storm totals from the Vermont ski areas tells the tale:
At times on the mountain today, especially late morning, we were getting hit with larger flakes for increased loft in accumulations, but there was still plenty of dense snow present as well. When you’re nearing 3 feet of dense snow like that, the name of the game was still to hit steepest terrain for the best turns, so Dylan and I started off with a run of Vermont 200. After only that one run, we ran into Colin at the base of the Vista Quad, and our posse just continued to grow as the morning went on to include Parker, Parker’s dad, and Jesuin. We found excellent conditions on Cobrass, and Maria’s was outstanding – most specifically the initial steep section due to the pitch being a great fit for the substantial depth of the moderately dense snow.
With almost three feet of snow from Winter Storm Sage, the steepest terrain was the place to be today, as Dylan demonstrates on a steep pitch of Maria’s glades.
While the Wilderness Double Chair was schedule for a midmorning opening, it wasn’t until midday or so that it actually opened. Wilderness offered up the clear highlight of the day in the form of the headwall of the Wilderness Liftline. That terrain isn’t usually open, because it’s very steep. It’s so steep, ledgy, and exposed to the wind that it rarely holds snow. I don’t believe it’s even officially a trail. Although the very top is usually roped off by patrol, you can access lower parts of it by traversing in from the surrounding trees. As we passed over it on the lift, it was clear that coverage below the first several yards was excellent, so we traversed in below that point to check it out. It delivered some classic steep and deep, and more than once I heard some of the boys proclaim that was the steepest powder they’d ever skied. Ski patrol clearly felt that the entire slope was safely skiable, and by our next run, the rope was opened and everyone was diving in from the very top. The energy and excitement of the folks on the slope, and those right above you on the lift (the snowpack is high enough that you needed appropriate timing to stay clear of people on the lift at the entry) was quite palpable.
With storm after storm affecting the area, the mountain snowpack is getting deep and buildings like the Mountain Market in the Village are starting to disappear as the snow on the roofs begins to merge with the snow on the ground.
Although the lower slopes of Wilderness are too shallow in pitch to support skiing in 2 plus feet of dense powder, they did offer another highlight of the day. The parts of the Wilderness Liftline that had been groomed were substantially lower than the surrounding areas of the trail that had not been groomed, so it provided a kicker to use if you wanted to jump into the powder. The boys started launching powder bombs as they threw themselves off the side of the trail, and eventually everyone got into it and was burying themselves silly. It was great fun all around and made for lots of hilarious GoPro footage. Action photography was definitely tough yesterday with the heavy snowfall, but we still our best to document the great outing in one of the top winter storms of the season thus far.
We had initially planned to stay mostly on piste for today’s outing, but the powder ended up being so good that Ty got in an excellent Telemark practice session spanning the entire alpine area of the resort both on and off the trails.
After a couple of great outings in the new snow on Friday and then again yesterday, I wasn’t really sure if I was going to ski today. I figured the snow would be settling or warming, at least in the lower mountain elevations, and combined with skier traffic, that would bring the conditions down a notch. Ty was still at the house for the weekend though, and when he was eager to get out for some turns, that easily tipped the balance and we decided to head up to Bolton Valley.
It was late morning by the time we hit the mountain, and they were already running out of parking spots at Timberline, so people were clearly eager to get out today. Once we hit the hill, it was easy to see why. Winter Storm Quest had departed, the weather was pleasant, and the quality of the snow seemed like it hadn’t changed at all. There had been some additional snow on the back side of the storm cycle, but even the earlier snow seemed like it was in great shape. Amazingly, it almost felt like it had dried out a bit more and the powder seemed notably less dense.
Skis filling up one of the racks at the Timberline Bae Lodge today
We had planned on a mellow day on the Telemark skis enjoying the groomed and packed runs, but that plan fell by the wayside a bit when we found that there was still plenty of untracked powder around, and it was of such good quality. We had a great time touring around the mountain and managed a big loop that hit every chairlift at the resort and concluded with a big long run down from the Vista Summit to the Timberline Base. Temperatures were very wintry and chilly up above 3,000’, and remarkably pleasant down around 1,500’, but still cold enough to continue preserving the snow.
We were most impressed by the durability of the recent snow. The surfaces just continued to hold up with incredibly soft composition and no signs of ice, even in high traffic areas. I know that we’re really skiing on snow from more storms than just Winter Storm Quest, but even the packed runs were just so enjoyable because on every turn you made, you could rely on encountering only soft, yielding snow. We’ve reached a point where the quality of the snow is so good that it’s actually dropped the difficulty of every trail down a solid notch. Skiing advanced runs feels like skiing intermediate runs, and you can definitely enjoy the steeps without having to dodge patches of hard snow. This aspect of the skiing was displayed prominently on the steepest pitch going down into Maria’s, where tight, high-angle, moguled terrain just seemed to flow because you never had to avoid ice or other obstacles. It was a great day for Ty to push himself with his Telemark skiing on challenging terrain, so I’m definitely happy he tipped the scales and got us out for those turns.
Ty blasts his way through some of today’s fresh powder in Bolton’s Timberline area today. Thanks to plenty of liquid equivalent in this recent snow from Winter Storm Quest, you could charge as hard as you wanted on even the steepest terrain and get soft, reliable turns.
I’m not sure exactly when the snow from Winter Storm Quest started up around here, but it was well into the overnight hours, and I’m not even sure if I saw any accumulation before midnight. So, waking up this morning to find over 8 inches on the boards for 6:00 A.M. CoCoRaHS observations meant that the snow must have been coming down in the 1 to 2 inch per hour range. There were plenty of large flakes falling at that point, and this morning’s liquid analysis revealed that the water content in the snow was 8.5%, or a snow to liquid ratio of approximately 11 or 12 to 1.
Ty and I got up to the hill just about the time of the opening of the Timberline Quad, and had a great bunch of runs while we waited for Dylan and Colin to join us. During those morning runs, it was quickly obvious that the new snow that had fallen had laid in a massive resurfacing of the slopes. The snow was actually on the dense side due to fairly small flakes up at Bolton Valley, and I’d say it was running a bit above 10% H2O up there. The snow was dense enough that you wanted terrain on the steeper side to really have a good flow on the descent, and that was fine, because in terms of sufficient coverage of the base snow and any underlying obstacles, it didn’t matter how steep the terrain was. On piste, off piste, it didn’t matter; just pick the steepest lines you could find, ski as aggressively as you wanted, and you weren’t hitting the subsurface. We tested many of the steepest lines available on Timberline like the Spell Binder headwall and the Tattle Tale Headwall, and they skied beautifully. We hit steep off piste lines that I don’t usually find to be that great because their pitch is often too much for the quality of the snow or achieving bottomless skiing, and it just didn’t matter.
Dylan tweaks some style into one of his jumps in Doug’s Woods during today’s ski outing at Bolton Valley
In terms of surface snow depths, our checks in the 1,500’ to 2,500’ elevation range were about 15 inches if we had to pick a best estimate, but it was really hard to tell exactly how much snow came from just this storm. The new snow was sitting atop snow from other recent storms, and it all just continues to stack and set up excellent surfaces. It snowed all morning, so that kept piling on new snow to the accumulations as well. Total snowpack depth is 40 inches or more above 2,500’, and the snowpack depth at the Mt. Mansfield stake being over 60 inches speaks to that.
Colin spraying around some of that powder on today’s excellent ski outing
Later in the morning we finally met up with Dylan and Colin, and we just went around hitting some of our favorite steepest off piste lines all over the mountain. Timberline had no lift queue for essentially the whole morning, but after about midday, the temperature at those lowest elevations seemed to creep up toward freezing and the snow became even a bit denser. It was somewhat subtle, but you could tell when you skied a run that the powder in the lowest elevations was a bit thicker than it was above 2,000’. After most of the morning at Timberline, we focused on the main mountain for the early afternoon where everything was above 2,000’, just in case Timberline continued to warm and the powder got wet.
Today’s powder had plenty of substance to it, but as Ty shows, it you could still spray it around with ease.
We joined up with Parker and his dad for a final run on the main mountain before making a big long run all the way down from the Vista Summit to the Timberline Base. Temperatures clearly hadn’t gotten too high to really ruin the powder because it was still fine all the way to the Timberline Base at 1,500’. Ty, Dylan, Parker and I finished off our day around midafternoon with a visit to the Timberline Base Lodge and some great food from El Gato, and we definitely felt like we’d earned a good meal with the energy we’d put into the day’s skiing.
It continued to snow most of the day, and after a bit of a lull around midday, the snowfall picked right back in the afternoon to the level it had been in the morning. So, we knew there was definitely more accumulation on the way. Back down at the house at 500’ that afternoon we could see that temperatures had definitely gone above freezing because some of the new snow had settled, but the mountain elevations seemed to fare quite well with respect to any melting or settling.
Parker surfs along through some of that bottomless powder out there today at Bolton Valley
Today had been looking like a good ski day for quite a while. The cold air was moving out to bring our temperatures back up into the 20s F, and low pressure from the Ontario/Quebec border passing southeast across our region looked to bring us more fresh snow. The weather models had been showing a nice shot of liquid equivalent coming into the area, and it seemed to hold some potential for a nice topping off of the current powder that’s out there.
I was working on some exam questions in the early morning in my home office and had the blinds closed, but I eventually finished off a section and decided to take a break. I opened the blinds to find that we were getting hit with heavy snowfall made up of some massive flakes that were nearly 2 inches across at times. The forecast did call for some snow starting around 10:00 A.M., but this was a bit early, and the intensity was impressive. A quick measurement out back revealed that the snow was falling at a rate of around 2”/hr., and it was stacking up fast and dry with that typical consistency of upslope champagne.
Colin catching some air in one of our tree lines today.
For today’s ski session, the plan was to head out with Dylan, Colin, and Parker, and there’s nothing like seeing the heavy snow pounding outside your window to kick the mood up a notch. I didn’t wake Dylan up immediately because I wanted to make sure he had the sleep he needed, but when I did check on him a bit later it turned out he’d been up anyway. He hadn’t opened his blinds, but he’d already gotten a text and picture from Colin; the same huge flakes had been pounding down at his place as well.
With the new snow not coming in until mid-morning, we’d planned on a late morning start up at Bolton Valley. That timing worked out well, because they’d already picked up a few additional inches from the intense snowfall. And, the snow that had just fallen was the perfect consistency to top off all the powder that was already out there – my morning liquid analyses from the house revealed that the snow came in at just 1 to 2% H2O. So, it was incredibly dry and set up some excellent right-side-up, bottomless powder skiing.
Dylan slicing and dicing his way among today’s fantastic powder up at BoltonParker blasts his way through one of the many tree lines we hit today among all the new snow at Bolton Valley.
I had a tour planned that brought the boys around to some of the lesser used areas of the resort, so they had a great time and got to ski plenty of untracked powder. I’d say powder depths we encountered were generally in the range of about a foot, and there’s well over an inch of liquid equivalent in that surface snow now. With the new champagne on top, it skied quite well and was typically bottomless in the case of first tracks. You’re still hitting bottom at times on the steepest slopes, but that old base is becoming more and more distant with every one of these storms that comes through the area. On that note, it appears as though we’ve got another storm cycle on the doorstep for tonight into tomorrow.
Winter Storm Landon’s potential was enough to lure Dave up north to Bolton Valley today, and the powder didn’t disappoint!
From several days out, the weather models suggested that Winter Storm Landon was going to target Northern New England with more than a foot of snow. Unlike last weekend’s Winter Storm Kenan, this wasn’t a coastal system that needed to line up perfectly and might affect only a small geographical area; this was a large overrunning system stretching up all the way from the Southwest, through the Midwest, and into the Northeast with an almost nation-wide swath of wintry precipitation. By Wednesday, it was obvious that Northern Vermont was on track for a solid snowfall, and late in the afternoon, I got a quick text from Dave that led to the following exchange:
Dave: “Any thoughts on this storm?”
Jay: “I would say 12”+ is a good bet for around here.”
With that, the plan was on. Dave was heading to Killington to ski on Thursday, and then he’d make his way up to our place to stay Thursday night, with the hope of being able to get some turns together on Friday. This was exciting, because Dave’s schedule and obligations haven’t really lined up for a visit in a while. A search on our website revealed that his last trip up for skiing was in 2018 when we skied Stowe on March 14th and Bolton Valley on March 15th.
When Dave got to our house late yesterday afternoon, he said that he’d almost bailed on skiing at Killington when he arrived there in the morning to find it raining. Thankfully, it was much more wintry up high on the mountain, and the conditions just got better as the day went on. He met up with another guy that was skiing solo, and ended up having a fantastic time roaming around and even getting some video shots with the guy’s camera.
“At our site, I recorded 6.0 inches of new snow from 6:00 P.M. to 12:00 A.M., and then another 5.2 inches between 12:00 A.M. and 6:00 A.M. Our storm total at that point even down at the house was over a foot of new snow, and 1.4 inches of liquid equivalent, so it was clear that the storm was putting down a very solid resurfacing of the slopes.”
There were no concerns about rain for Friday at Bolton though. Here in the Northern Greens, it had already been snowing at elevation for a while, and Stowe had flipped to snow even at the base elevations as of midmorning yesterday. The precipitation had switched to snow even at our house in the Winooski Valley by midday. When Powderfreak sent in a report with Stowe’s accumulations at the end of the day, he said there was 5” in the higher elevations, 3.5” at the top of the Lookout Double, and an inch at the base elevations. My 6:00 P.M. observations at our house revealed that we’d picked up an inch of snow even down at the 500-foot elevation. The snow just continued to pick up as the evening wore on. Dylan was up at Bolton for some night skiing yesterday evening, and he said that his drive down the access road was hairy – with a number of cars off the road. That was some great winter driving experience for him though. From his report, it was obvious that the storm meant business, and with everyone in the north over to 100% snow by that point, the only things to wonder about were snow density and just how much we were going to get.
As expected, the snowfall really turned on around here yesterday evening. At our site, I recorded 6.0 inches of new snow from 6:00 P.M. to 12:00 A.M., and then another 5.2 inches between 12:00 A.M. and 6:00 A.M. Our storm total at that point even down at the house was over a foot of new snow, and 1.4 inches of liquid equivalent, so it was clear that the storm was putting down a very solid resurfacing of the slopes. Between getting gear together, snow blowing the driveway, solidifying Dave’s ski plans, getting his ticket, and everything else that goes into a storm morning, it was quite busy. But we easily made it to the Vista Quad lineup for the planned 9:00 A.M. opening.
A powder morning in one of Bolton Valley’s parking lots as eager skiers get ready to experience the snows of Winter Storm Landon
It was chilly out there on the mountain, with temperatures probably in the 10 F range. We were happy to discover that winds weren’t strong at all though, so there were no wind holds, and the lifts seemed to start right up at their planned times aside from the usual smaller delays of getting the later lifts rolling on a storm day. We were all set to head over toward Timberline on our second run, but we ran into a patroller on Cobrass who said that it wasn’t quite ready yet, so we gave it one more run and the timing worked out beautifully.
E was out on her fat skis today enjoying the powder of Winter Storm Landon
The new snow was undoubtedly a solid resurfacing of the entire mountain at all elevations. Indeed, that 1.4 inches of liquid equivalent that we’d picked up at our house meant that the resort had at least that much, and you could feel it by the girth of the massive cushion beneath your skis. The snow had started out quite dense at the very initial stages of the storm as temperatures were still coming down, and then it seemed to settle down to roughly medium-weight powder for the bulk of the overnight accumulations. My 6:00 A.M. analyses revealed snow density at 9.4% H2O, which is solidly in that medium-weight powder category. There hadn’t really been any fluff at that point to set up an impressively right-side-up powder accumulation, so you were generally riding in that medium weight snow, and we found the best skiing on steeper terrain. Low angle slopes were just a bit on the slow side with the available snow density. Thankfully, with that 1 to 2 inches of liquid equivalent down, it was game on for even the steepest terrain, and steep areas that we hit such as Vermont 200, the Spell Binder headwall, and the Tattle Tale headwall all delivered. You could attack those pitches as aggressively as you wanted, without concern. Another great example of the resurfacing was hitting Cobrass on our second run to find that even the usual ledges and ice bulges were covered. Initially, I’d gone in with the usual strategy of negotiating those obstacles, but quickly saw that they were irrelevant, and I was able to ski like they weren’t even there. That’s the sign of a solid resurfacing. With depth checks, I was generally finding settled accumulations of about a foot at that stage of the storm, which I think was right in line with what the resort had noted in their morning report.
We actually skied with an associate from PeakRankings.com who was getting info for his report on Bolton Valley, so we showed him around for a few runs. His ski jacket has something like “WE RANK PEAKS” written in huge letters on the back, which quickly gets your attention and lets you know what he’s up to. We hooked up with him just as we were finally planning to head over to Timberline, so we showed him the Maria’s route to get there.
“NO” Mom, we’re not up here at Bolton riding the lifts, so pay no attention to this picture.
I had to head out around midday, but Dave and E did eventually catch up with Dylan and his friends out on the mountain for some skiing. When E texted to see if the boys were on the mountain, they couldn’t help but have some fun by replying with a picture saying “NO” that was an obvious shot of them riding the lift. The boys waited at the Vista Summit for the others to catch up, which shows a nice touch of class on a powder day. Dave and E said they had a great time that afternoon, and E even had a some sense of where they were going on the mountain. She recalled some trail names, and was remembering the character of many trails enough to give people an idea of what they were going to ski.
I have to give the boys a hard time for not getting out right at the start of the morning, but Dylan’s friend Parker did pull off a classic dual resort visit to really maximize a powder day. He headed to Stowe first thing for the typical “hour of power”, where you can get some good fresh runs before it’s all tracked up and the lift queues grow, and then he headed to low-key Bolton where you can enjoy powder for the rest of the day in peace. I’d say he’s wise beyond his years.
A snowy truck at Bolton Valley reveals some of the accumulations from Winter Storm Landon
Dave said that his drive home to Boston was fine on I-89, but I-93 was tough with lots of people off the road. Those areas to the south apparently got a lot of mixed precipitation and it was quite a mess. We were all happy to be well north of that stuff up here.
Dylan out today at Bolton Valley enjoying some of the powder off piste on Maria’s
Today started out very cold. We bottomed out below -15 F here at the house, so nobody was really in a rush to get out skiing this morning. Last Saturday, Dylan and I skied in temperatures around 0 F to catch the fresh snow from Winter Storm Kade, but today we took our sweet time and waited well into the afternoon when temperatures were predicted to be up around 20 F.
It was a bit after 3:00 P.M. when we arrived up at the Village, and we were able to grab a parking spot in the first tier and load right on the Vista Quad. We headed toward Maria’s for some powder, and a chance for Dylan to try out his new Rossignol Sky 7 skis for the first time. His skis were supposed to arrive last weekend, but in a nice piece of irony they were delayed because of Winter Storm Kade.
“We probed total powder depths above the old base and generally found 20 to 22 inches.”
In any event, Dylan’s skis were a great tool for today’s snow. The powder currently consists of snow from Winter Storm Kade last weekend, topped off with snow from four additional storms that included Winter Storm Lamont on Sunday into Monday, and Winter Storm Mabel that just hit the area at the end of the week. We probed total powder depths above the old base and generally found 20 to 22 inches. There was a breakable crust present within the snow from some mixed precipitation that occurred during Winter Storm Mabel. In some areas the crust was absent altogether, and in others it was anywhere from 2 to 8 inches down in the snowpack. The presence and depth of the crust depended on things like aspect, wind effects, and protection from that part or the storm by trees or other terrain features.
Dylan in the powder on Maria’s testing out the float of his new Sky 7 skis
Overall the powder skiing was good, although of course not up to the level of last Saturday with the fresh snow from Winter Storm Kade. The crust is thin enough that it’s breakable, and buried enough that it’s inconsequential in many spots, but it definitely makes the powder skiing variable enough that you have to be on your toes. Putting down some additional fresh snow and burying the crust deeper will definitely help the off piste conditions, so we’ll have to see how the expected storms this next week play out.
Dylan and I were very impressed when we tried to check on the depth of the new powder from this week. We couldn’t quite a good measurement because the new snow simply blended in with old, but we were impressed with the fact that we could stick our poles into the snowpack right up to the handle and beyond. The Bolton Valley snowpack is deep!
This week wasn’t especially snowy, but we had at least some modest accumulations, with Bolton Valley reporting 9 inches during the period. Overall ski conditions have been quite good as of late though, so we expected there to be plenty of good powder skiing in the usual stashes with just these recent rounds of snow.
E and Ty were both a bit under the weather, but Dylan and I headed up to the mountain with our Tele skis for a good session of powder turns and exploration. Temperatures were really nice, well into the upper 20s F for our midmorning arrival at Timberline.
D and I put together what was essentially a truncated version of the great session that the family had last Saturday. We hit the whole breadth of the mountain, traveling all the way from the bottom of Timberline over to the top of Wilderness, and back again. We hit powdery favorites like White Rabbit, Snow Hole, The Crack, and Maria’s. Dylan was skiing really well on his Telemark skis, and it was fun to watch him developing the wherewithal to throw in alpine turns among his Tele turns whenever he’d be in a tight space that called for it.
Dylan enjoys surfing some of that powder out there today in the trees at Bolton Valley.
We caught some really nice powder turns, and it was hard to say exactly how much of the surface snow was new, but it was certainly several inches. We had fun checking snow depths around the 3,000’ mark, and you could simply push your pole down into the snow right up to the handle… and then keep going deeper if you wanted to. While the powder today wasn’t quite as fresh as what we experienced last weekend, it’s all just great skiing at this point.
