Stowe, VT 26MAY2013

An image of ski tracks in powder on the Perry Merrill trail at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont during a spring storm on Memorial Day Weekend
Visiting Mt. Mansfield for some glorious Memorial Day Weekend powder today

For the past several days, the meteorologists and weather enthusiasts in the New England Regional Forum at American Weather have been talking about a late-season snowstorm with the potential to unload on the northern parts of New York and New England.  Around mid month, a thread discussing the Memorial Day Weekend weather was started, and even at that point there was a suggestion that the weather could be cool.  However, by Thursday, just a couple of days before the weekend, it was obvious that a late-season snowstorm was developing, and the discussion began to focus on just how much snow the Northern Greens were going to get.  I hadn’t been following the weather too closely, but when I stopped in to check the board and found out about the impending snowstorm in the local mountains, my interest was definitely piqued.  We spent last weekend skiing in spring snow on Mt. Washington, and it began to look like this weekend would bring winter skiing on Mt. Mansfield.

“…you didn’t have to
 worry about hitting
anything underneath
and you could just let
it rip.”

Saturday arrived with a nor’easter developing just like the weather models had suggested.  For folks that had outdoor, warm-weather plans for the big holiday weekend, you almost couldn’t find a nastier combination of weather.  Temperatures were in the 40s F, and there was plenty of wind and rain.  We wondered if we were going to have to turn the heat back on in the house.  Reports began to come in about the snow in the mountains, and by mid afternoon, Whiteface was already reporting that they had received 18” of new snow.  As the afternoon wore on, even valley temperatures fell down well into the 30s F in many places in New England, and fairly low elevation spots began to report snow mixing in with the rain.  Although we weren’t getting any snow down to the low elevations in our area, we lost power from about 8:30 P.M. to 9:30 P.M. for some reason, so we headed off to bed early and decided to see how things were going in the morning.

An image of ski trails and a status sign for Route 108 through Smuggler's Notch in Vermont indicating that the notch road was closed due to snow over Memorial Day Weekend
Snow closed down the road through Smuggler’s Notch today.

I made my morning CoCoRaHS observations at 6:00 A.M., and after checking back in on the weather board and looking at some of the mountain web cams, I decided to head to Mt. Mansfield for a ski tour.  I couldn’t tell quite how low the snow line had gotten, but it was still below freezing in the higher elevations, and the precipitation had continued through the night.  There was a good chance that a nice shot of snow had accumulated on Mt. Mansfield.  I didn’t try convincing E or the boys to try to join me, since they were all still in bed, so I got into my ski clothes, let E know that I was on my way, and loaded up the car with my gear.  I don’t typically find the ski gear vying for space with the baseball stuff in the back of the car, but it definitely was today.  I headed off to the mountain around 7:30 A.M. or so, and temperatures throughout the mountain valleys in the WaterburyStowe area were in the lower 40s F on my drive.  The precipitation was generally light rain until roughly the point where the electronic sign indicates the status of Route 108 through Smuggler’s Notch, and not long after that, the rain became much heavier.  The sign, by the way, read “NOTCH ROAD CLOSED… DUE TO SNOW”.  The road through the notch tops out near 2,200’, so clearly the snow was accumulating at that elevation on paved surfaces.  The temperature remained in the lower 40s F until that final rise above The Matterhorn to Stowe Mountain Resort, where they dropped into the upper 30s F.

“You could do laps
up there from 2,500’
to 3,600’ and think
it was midwinter.”

I parked at the Midway Lodge (~1,600’), where the temperature was in the mid to upper 30s F, and the precipitation was generally snow, but certainly some rain as well, and the snow that was falling was of course incredibly wet.  It was pretty nasty at that point, with 25 MPH winds and driven wet snow/rain.  The snow wasn’t quite accumulating there, but it was close, and you could see the accumulations just a few hundred feet up the trails.  The weather was nasty enough that I left my lens hood on my camera in its protective orientation, even when it went back in my pack.  I rarely feel the need to do that, and typically flip it back around for storage, but that speaks to just how wet and windy that snow was to make me take that extra step to minimize the amount of precipitation getting on the lens filter.

An image of the 2,100' snow line on the Nosedive trail at Stowe Mountain Ski Resort in Vermont during the Memorial Day Weekend Storm of 2013
Snow line in sight on Nosedive at 2,100′

In the Midway parking lot there were a few dozen vehicles belonging to skiers, and most of the people were heading up Gondolier, but my initial ascent was via Nosedive; it’s often a good bet for decent snow coverage and preservation in these early and late-season storms.  Also, based on what I saw in the report from AdventureSkier.com last Sunday, it looked like there would be some decent base snow left in case the new snow depths were marginal.  The first traces of snow accumulation on the ascent were at 1,800’, by 2,100’ there was generally complete coverage of the trail, and by ~2,200’ the depth was a couple of inches and it was consistent enough that I switched from hiking to skinning.  Even with those couple inches of snow, I was beginning to experience some occasional slipping as I hiked, so it was nice to get the skis off the pack and on the snow where the skins had beautiful traction.  There was a faint skin track from an earlier ascender, but it was intermixed with some of the descent tracks of skiers and a bit hard to follow.  I met up with another guy that was making the Nosedive ascent, and we chatted a bit about skiing as we made our way up the mountain.  He was just hiking in his boots with his skis on his back, which seemed like a bit more work as the snow got deeper and deeper, but it didn’t appear to slow him down too much.  Listed below are the snow depths I found on the ascent of Nosedive with respect to elevation:

1,600’:  0”
1,800’:  Trace
2,100’:  1”
2,200’:  2”
2,500’:  4”
2,600’:  5”
3,000’:  8”
3,300’:  10” – 12”-15”

We stopped our ascent at 3,300’ because as we approached the switchbacks at the top of the trail we got some beta from a couple of skiers coming down Nosedive – they indicated that everything above that elevation in the switchbacks was scoured and really not worth it, and indeed that was obvious once we got to the landing below that final switchback at 3,300’.  I’m going to call the average snow depth there 10” to be on the conservative side, but there were plenty of areas with 12”-15” of snow; there was just variability due to the effects of wind deposition.  I stuck my measurement pole right in the snow in the center of that landing, and found 15” of snow depth.  The guy that had ascended with me headed up just a bit higher to catch some turns along a drift of snow, so I pulled out the camera and got some action shots as he made his way down.

An image of a skier  on the Nosedive trial at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont during a Memorial Day Weekend snowstorm
I didn’t get his name, but he had quite a blast ripping up the powder on Nosedive today.

An image of Vanilla Bean GU Energy Gel

Before beginning my descent, I downed a packet of GU Energy Gel to see if it would provide that extra boost of energy to my legs to permit proficient and aggressive Telemark turns.  I’ve noticed that after fairly long and/or quick ascents, my legs are often still recovering, and not to the stage where they can handle a lot of rigorous Telemark skiing right away.  Alpine turns are typically no problem, since they’re easier and more stable to begin with, and after decades of alpine skiing, my muscles have the memory to really let them do it efficiently.  But those Telemark turns take a lot more work, and it seemed like a little extra boost of quick energy would get me where I needed to be.  So, I took a cue from the boys, who like to have a GU when they’re starting to fade while we’re biking or skiing – the Vanilla Bean flavor is a favorite among all of us.  I usually don’t find that I need to worry about having enough energy on outings with the boys along; the pace is so slow that E and I usually don’t get drained.  The boys certainly push themselves though, often needing some sort of recharge due to their smaller energy reserves, and when that’s the case, it’s GU to the rescue.  On bigger, faster paced outings by myself though, I also feel the drain, and today I wanted to give a recuperative GU shot a try.  I had the GU just a few minutes before my descent, and it absolutely worked.  It helped give my legs that quick energy that they craved, and they had no trouble making Telemark turns.  It was great having maximum powder to drive the legs, and while there’s no way to know exactly how my legs would have performed without the shot of GU, it was certainly my hero for today.  I can still remember when I first learned about those energy gels back in the early 2,000s when Scott and Troy and their Dirtworld.com mountain biking team would use them.  They’d strap them to their handlebars and down one on each lap to keep their energy up.  With the way it performed today, I think a shot of GU before each earned descent is going to become part of the routine.

“There were plenty of
untracked lines to ski,
and it was dense, wall-
to-wall snow…”

As for the snow conditions, indeed there was some leftover base snow on Nosedive, and that offered up great turns, but the new snow itself was extremely dense (probably 12-14% H2O or so) and as long as there was enough of it, there was no need for previous base because it kept you off of anything below.  I caught some beautiful bottomless powder on the skier’s left below the switchbacks, and then a lot more on the skier’s right along the edge of the trail.  The Telemark turns were definitely flowing, and despite the fact that it was dense snow that could easily have been challenging to ski, it wasn’t.  I immediately thought back to that storm last year on April 10thMt. Mansfield picked up more than two feet of dense snow that covered everything, but it was quite a challenge to ski on the Teles.  Sometimes you would punch through the snow too far, perhaps with one ski, making lateral balance tough, and fore-aft balance was also extremely challenging.  It’s possible that there was snow of varying densities in that storm, with some less dense snow underneath the topmost layer.  That’s “upside down” snow, which is typically more challenging to ski.  It was after that storm that I really decided that I wanted some fat, rockered Telemark skis for powder, and eventually got the Black Diamond AMPerages.  I can only wonder how they would have performed in that storm – they would have been nice today, but being unsure of the snow depths I went with my older Atomic RT-86 midfats, and there were no issues.  Really, the most challenging aspect of today’s skiing was negotiating areas of thinner snow as you dropped in elevation.  I was actually quite impressed with the quality of some of the powder skiing on Nosedive today, but little did I know it wasn’t even going to hold a candle to what was in store over at the Gondola.

An image showing a ski measurement pole indicating 22" of snow at the Cliff House at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont on Memorial Day Weekend
22″ of new snow up at the Cliff House today

I had no time limits, and plenty of energy left in the tank with the shortened ascent, so I skied down to the junction of Nosedive and Cliff Trail, and continued my tour by skinning up Cliff Trail.  Within a few moments of starting my ascent, it was obvious that snow depths were substantially greater on Cliff Trail than they were on Nosedive at equivalent elevations.  I wasn’t sure if it was because I was heading toward the Gondola, or because Cliff Trail offers better protection from the wind, but coverage was deep, wall-to-wall.  Unlike what I’d seen on most of Nosedive, there were no signs of whatever lay beneath the snow.  It wasn’t an illusion either; the depth at 3,000’ on Cliff Trail was 11”, vs. the 8” on Nosedive.  The snow just continued to increase as I ascended toward the Gondola, there was 12”+ by the junction with Perry Merrill at 3,400’, and 12” – 15” easily up at the Cliff House.  That’s on the conservative side for what you could find up there, and in general the snow depth was somewhat deceptive because you didn’t sink much into the dense snow.  But right in the middle of Perry Merrill just beyond the Cliff House I measured 22” of new snow in flat terrain with no drifting.  The usual measurement off the top of the picnic tables was deceptive as well – there was about a half foot of snow on the tables, but you could tell that the snow was much deeper because the table’s seats were just about buried.  I measured in the open space between the tables and got a depth of 18”, so presumably the tops of the tables didn’t accumulate the snow well due to wind, melting, or some other effect.  Here’s the summary of the depths I found on the Gondola side ascending via Cliff Trail:

3,000’:  11”
3,400’:  12”-15”
3,600’:  12”-15” – 18”-22”

“…at times it was dense
enough that you’d be
smearing turns right
on the surface.”

I had another GU and got ready for my descent.  Even that first steep pitch of Perry Merrill had great coverage comprised of that dense snow.  Typically you’d sink in a few to several inches, but at times it was dense enough that you’d be smearing turns right on the surface.  It took a moment to adapt when that was happening, but somehow the variability in the turns didn’t seem to disrupt the flow of the skiing – it was just really fun.  I almost headed back down Cliff Trail since the coverage was so complete, but there were already a couple of tracks on it, and it’s fairly narrow, so I opted to check out Perry Merrill instead.  I was hoping it would live up to the coverage I’d seen on Cliff Trail, and indeed it was just as good, if not even a bit better.  There were plenty of untracked lines to ski, and it was dense, wall-to-wall snow, all the way down to 2,500’.  You could do laps up there from 2,500’ to 3,600’ and think it was midwinter.  The snow certainly wasn’t fluffy Vermont Champlain Powder™, it was dense Sierra Cement, but it wasn’t wet or sticky.  It made for plenty of base and just skied really well – it was right near the top on quality that I’ve experienced relative to many similar early and late-season dense-snow events.  Sinking into the snow only a few inches or so was inconsequential compared to the fact that you didn’t have to worry about hitting anything underneath and you could just let it rip.

An image looking down at the base area of Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont from a snowy Perry Merrill trail down toward a snowless base area during a Memorial Day Weekend snowstorm
The view from white to wet

I stopped my descent at around 2,300’, as the snow was down to about 4” and it was getting notably wetter.  You could probably go down to around 2,100’ easily if you had your rock skis.  I hiked down the last 700’ back to the Midway Lodge, and the last vestiges of snow disappeared right around 1,800’ just like I’d seen over on Nosedive.  The precipitation was snow down to just a couple hundred feet above the base, and back down at the lodge it was mostly rain with some snow mixed in at times.  There were some really good bursts of snow on my descent, even in the lower elevations.  The temperature had increased a few degrees to ~40 F at the base, but it was midday at that point, so that was still quite impressive.

Overall, I was really excited about how my equipment and supplies performed on this tour.  My Gore-Tex did its job in keeping me dry, despite the driving rain and snow.  My skins held like glue even in the wet snow, and hiking both up and down in my Telemark boots was a joy.  I remembered to put them in walk mode for the walking sections (and put them back in ski mode for the descents) and it was almost like being in my hiking boots.  And then there was the GU.  It really quickened my recovery for the descents, and I’m going to be keeping that on the tour menu going forward.  The boys won’t be able to borrow GU from me as easily though when they need it.  While the GU certainly did its thing, I’m sure my stop off at Dunkin Donuts to fuel up before the tour also helped.  I was feeling so great when I got home at midday, that I was ready to go for another round of skiing if E and the boys wanted to.  It was still nasty and rainy outside, and not really conducive to doing too much else, but we had some fantastic winter powder skiing sitting up there in the high country.  I couldn’t convince them to go though, so they unfortunately missed out this time.  We did get some quality time indoors though, which I’m guessing a lot of families were doing this weekend.  Ty, Dylan and I had a great round of “The Settlers of Catan” while E did a bit of shopping.  It was quite a storm though, with Whiteface and other areas of the high peaks really cleaning up and putting out some amazing pictures.

An image of snow-capped Mt. Mansfield in Vermont from the west after a Memorial Day snowstorm
…and this is what you get for Memorial Day

Monday update:  The clouds cleared out today to produce crystal blue skies, and naturally that revealed some amazing vistas of the spring foliage and snow-capped peaks everywhere.  Mt. Mansfield and Camel’s Hump were topped with white, shimmering in the strong sun of late May, and the high peaks of the Adirondacks were brilliant.  We traveled around from Waterbury to Vergennes to Cambridge doing various activities, so we took in numerous vantages of the Greens and Adirondacks.  It turned out to be a spectacular Northern New England Day for the holiday, almost as if Mother Nature was trying to strike as sharp a contrast as possible against the recently departed storm.

Stowe, VT 21APR2013

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stowe, VT 03FEB2013

An image of a ski track in powder in the Tombo Woods area at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont
Mt. Mansfield somehow still delivering that good snow

Since the roughly half foot of snow that the mountains picked up at the start of the midweek period, there really hasn’t been much in the way of additional snow.  Temperatures aren’t nearly as cold as they were when that arctic air was here a week or so back, but we’re in a similar dry, zonal flow weather pattern.  We’ve had just an inch of new snow at the house this past week, and the mountains haven’t had much more.  There certainly hasn’t been enough moisture for a full resurfacing of the slopes since the warm temperatures that came through midweek, so there wasn’t a lot of incentive to head out yesterday for turns.  I did get a lot of stuff done around the house though, and that’s a typical benefit of these snowfall lulls.  Today was a different story though – we had our BJAMS ski program at Stowe in the afternoon, and with temperatures predicted to be near 20 F at the base elevations with minimal winds, there was no reason to cancel like we had to do last weekend.  I wasn’t too optimistic about the snow conditions though – I actually pulled out my diamond stone and ran it along the edges of my Salomon Scream Hots just to make sure they were ready to hold an edge on firm surfaces.  I can’t remember the last time I was tempted to do a mid season sharpening of my edges, but today definitely had me worried.

“To my amazement, it was
far more than just good, it
was great. It was again that
2-3 inches of powder over a
fairly spongy base.”

It was partly cloudy and looked quite pleasant as we arrived at the mountain around midday.  The Spruce Peak parking lot was rather full as usual, and there was a race going on, but it certainly didn’t seem too busy.  We were able to grab one of those parking spots just a stone’s throw from the old Day Lodge, as there seemed to be a lot of people leaving midday.  I suspect anyone from Southern New England that wanted to get home to catch the Super Bowl would probably want to leave around that time.  I know that the resort has been making snow this week, so I figured trails that had seen some snowmaking might be the best bets for some reasonably soft ski surfaces.  I inquired about snowmaking at the guest services desk, and they knew that Perry Merrill had seen some, but they gave me the number for the snow phone and suggested that I call it to get the rest of the snowmaking information.  I can’t remember the last time I called the snow phone, but I dialed it up and I got to hear all the details.  It was a noontime update, and snowmaking had most recently been done on Upper Perry Merrill, Gondolier, and Centerline last night.  I think it may have even been Powderfreak on the other end that was giving the message.  Anyway, that was just the information I was looking for, so I put those trails on our hit list for the day.

“…it marked a big change
in our ski plans. I’d been
thinking it was going to
be an on piste day prior
to that, but clearly the
off piste was in play.”

Our ski group was large today, with the addition of Sam, Ethan, Luke, Julia, Joanna, Ken, and Joe, we had eight students and four coaches.  With the snowmaking information in hand, we headed right over to the Gondola for a run on Perry Merrill.  Conditions turned out to be far better than I’d imagined.  Up at the top of the Gondola I did a quick check on the depth of the unconsolidated powder snow, and found roughly three inches over the old base.  On top of that, the subsurface wasn’t even that firm; it had that spongy character that I’ve been finding at times lately, possibly due to assistance from the dry air.  The top steep pitch of Perry Merrill did have some good snow, but there was certainly a lot of ice as well.  Down below it was much better though, there was plenty of packed powder, although certainly some granular snow in areas as well.  That seemed to be most prevalent in the center of the trail where traffic was high.  However, the minimal natural snow that has come down in the past few days, plus whatever snowmaking had been done, plus the snow that people had pushed to the sides of the trails after a morning of traffic, made for some really nice turns overall.  Short radius turns along the skier’s right tree line of Perry Merrill were generally excellent – far, far better than I’d expected.

For our next run we did the same start and then moved over to Gondolier.  The skier’s right there was even better than Perry Merrill, with lots of loose snow and shots holding a couple inches of powder when one would dive in and out of the trees along the edge.  About halfway down the trail, Ken’s son Luke inquired about heading into some of the Gondolier Trees at an obvious line he noticed.  I was definitely leery of going in there; I couldn’t imagine that it would be that good with a fairly steep pitch and not much new snow.  I agreed that I’d check it out though, we could pop in briefly and any students that wanted to go could go with me.  Well, almost everyone came in because they wanted to see what it would be like.  To my amazement, it was far more than just good, it was great.  It was again that 2-3 inches of powder over a fairly spongy base.  Based on the weather we had during the middle of the week it’s hard to say how it was so well preserved, but as is often the case, Mansfield delivered again.  Dylan took his own line high along the skier’s left wall and got into some great powder.  All the boys twisted and turned their way down through the gulley, until I finally called for an exit back onto Gondolier.  The gulley did continue on, but I knew it got narrower down there and the exit more difficult, and I didn’t want to push our luck.  Everyone was excited by that run though – Sam commented how he loved going up and down the steep walls of the gully, and I told him it was one of nature’s half pipes.

“Based on the weather we had
during the middle of the week
it’s hard to say how it was
so well preserved, but as is
often the case, Mansfield
delivered again.”

I have to credit that snow discovery to Luke, and it marked a big change in our ski plans.  I’d been thinking it was going to be an on piste day prior to that, but clearly the off piste was in play.  The goal was to next head over to the Fourrunner Quad from the top of the Gondola, and I said that we could check out the north part of the Nosedive Glades (a.k.a “The Middle of Nowhere”) en route.  The snow wasn’t quite as good in there as it had been over by Gondolier, but it was certainly decent and easily held an edge.  There was the occasional icy patch in there, presumably where skiers had pushed away the new snow in higher traffic areas, but some of those lines were pretty steep, so the fact that they weren’t simply hard park was impressive.  Connecting onto Lower Nosedive we found the snow in the middle of the trail horribly hard packed, but fortunately the skier’s left held a good amount of soft snow that had been pushed there by the day’s skiers.

After flying down to the base of the Fourrunner Quad, Dylan said that he was just too cold for a ride there, so Ken headed up with the rest of the group, and I took Dylan back toward the Gondola base.  We warmed up by poling our way over, and he was in good spirits at that point and wanted to take a run on the tow to hit the Midway Terrain Park.  He was still feeling good after that, and was keen to do a Gondola run, where the ride would be warmer than sitting out on the quad.  I also asked if he’d show me all that powder he’d found in the Gondolier Trees, and he was excited to get back to that.  On our way down Perry Merrill, we stuck to the skier’s left and explored a lot of off piste shots at the bottom of the Tombo Woods area.  There was certainly some nice snow in there – just those 2-3 inches over the base, but that base was quite soft.  Back down in the gulley along Gondolier Dylan took me though his powder stash, and indeed we had some good turns.  We both stuck our poles into the snow and beyond the powder, you could push right through the spongy subsurface and get to softer snow below.  There really is a lot of good snow down there that doesn’t seem like it was affected by the recent warm temperatures, so that’s probably helping keep the quality of the off piste skiing reasonably good if people do get down and start busting up the subsurface.  Another nice aspect of the current conditions is that the snowpack at the Mt. Mansfield Stake, while certainly below average, is still right around that 40-inch mark.  That means that coverage is quite good in most off piste areas.  I’m sure some areas that are more exposed to the elements could have an icier subsurface that what we experienced, but with the off piste in decent, skiable shape already, it’s primed to be really good as soon as we get a decent storm in here.

An image of Dylan skiing a steep line in the Gondolier Woods at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont
Dylan drops in on his stash.
An image of Apres Ski time in front of the fire at the Spruce Camp Bar at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont
Spruce Camp Bar

Dylan and I called it a day after that, and headed back to Spruce Peak for s’mores and hot chocolate at the fire pit.  Dylan loved the late day atmosphere and the fact that he and I were getting gondolas to ourselves.  I think those rides in the cabins really helped him to ward off the chill that he’d been building.  We caught up with Ken and the other boys outside the Spruce Camp Base Lodge, and I found out that Ken had been working with Ty and the others on tip stands.  Ken has done some freestyle/ballet in the past, and he said Ty was quite taken with working on the tip stand.  That sort of stuff is indeed right up his alley, so we’ll have to work on that some more with Ken.  We had a good Après session by the fire at the Spruce Camp Bar with Claire and Sue, as E and Claire debriefed each other on the logistics of the day.  We actually had the entire place to ourselves today; I bet it was because most folks were heading home to check out the Super Bowl.  I’m more optimistic for snow this coming week, it seems like we’ve got a shot at snow tonight into tomorrow, another one midweek, and then a potentially larger one at the end of the week.  With conditions as decent as they already are, even a half foot of snow this week will elevate the off piste a lot.  It would be great if that system at the end of the week could do a bit of magic in the Greens and produce something a bit more substantial as some models are hinting at, but we’ll just have to watch and see how the models develop it throughout the week.