Tag: Powder

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Stowe, VT 22NOV2014

An image of Ty skiing powder on the Switchback trail at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont
Back to back surprise storms have left us with plenty of powder on Mt. Mansfield.

On Wednesday, Mt. Mansfield managed to pull an impromptu foot of snow from the sky, basically catching everyone off guard. The potential for some accumulation was definitely out there thanks to spillover from the big lake-effect snow event taking place in the Great Lakes off to the west, but the forecasts weren’t calling for that much snow. It was even more surprising though when the same thing happened again yesterday, just two days after the first event. The lake-effect snows were essentially over by that point, so it’s hard to figure out exactly where that moisture had come from. Somehow Mt. Mansfield just makes this sort of stuff happen. Whatever the case, Powderfreak gave us the usual heads up in the Northern New England thread at American Weather. Powderfreak tells it like it is, and the pictures don’t lie. When he says that “Snow is going over the windshields of snowmobiles up there.” it’s time to take notice, grab those skis, and head for the mountains.

With this new snow on top of the already decent snow I saw on my trip to the mountain Thursday, it sounded like ski conditions were going to be even better than what I’d experienced. E and Dylan and I headed north to BJAMS in Morrisville to help with the moving of some school library books and to pick up Ty from an overnighter at Kenny’s, so we got to see the changes in snowpack throughout the local mountain valleys. These last couple of storms that have targeted Mt. Mansfield have also targeted Stowe Village and points north, so from snow depths of an inch or two in Waterbury, the snowpack more than doubles in the Stowe/Morrisville area. After helping move some bins of books into the school’s new library area, we got Ty suited up, and he joined me and Dylan for a trip to Mt. Mansfield. Unfortunately E’s back has been a bit sore the past few days, so she decided not to stress it with skiing and stayed at school to work. Thus, it was just us boys for today’s ski tour.

Temperatures were a bit below freezing as we approached the Midway Lot at ~1,600′ near the base of the Gondola, and we could see plenty of activity over at the main Mansfield Base Area since it was Stowe’s opening day for lift-served skiing. The snow we found on the ground was definitely deeper than what I’d found at Midway on Thursday – a general 3 to 4 inches had turned into 5 to 6 inches. For today, I outfitted the boys with their alpine powder skis and Alpine Trekkers for skinning. We’ve still got to get skins for Ty’s new Telemark setup, but I’d prefer that they get a chance to ski on their alpines to get their season going anyway. The early season powder can be tricky, and I’d rather they just get the chance to have fun and not take on the added challenge of working on Telemark turns. I went with my fat Tele skis; they had worked quite well on Thursday, and the conditions were even more optimized for them today.

We followed a similar ascent route to the one I’d taken on Thursday – up Chin Clip Runout, onto Switchback and Gondolier, with some Perry Merrill thrown in as well. We finally stopped at around 3,500′ on Switchback because it didn’t look like there was much above that in the way of great snow. But, the boys had made the entire ascent, perhaps incentivized a bit by the fact that I told them they’d earn some sushi from Sushi Yoshi if they could manage it. That prize is sort of a win-win for everyone in the family, and they’re definitely at the stage that they can easily make that ascent now, but having that incentive there sure does keep everyone’s spirits high! While the snow surface contained a lot of wind slab where we stopped, just below that, the snow was deep and soft. The depth of the powder had increased by about an inch for every 500′ of vertical during most of our ascent, getting up to around the 8 to 9 inch range by 3,000′ or so, but above that it really jumped up. In areas out of the wind on the upper part of Switchback, we were finding 14 to 15 inches of settled snow, with pockets over two feet in depth. We knew that was the kind of snow where we’d really be able to lay into those powder turns and not worry about touching down on anything.

After a break at the top of our ascent, in which the boys took part in their nearly requisite play in the snow (this time in some deep stuff off in some nearby trees), we started down. That deep snow we’d seen up there on Switchback offered up some great powder turns as expected, and below that we just worked our way down the mountain choosing the best covered and least tracked routes we could find. We hit some nice powder on the skier’s left of Gondolier, and found a lot of good turns even lower down on Switchback. Coverage was indeed improved over what I’d seen Thursday, and the powder was staying fairly fluffy even though it was a day old. On the lift-served side of things, Stowe was offering 20 trails today, and it sounds like conditions were pretty decent due to the recent cold and snow. We’ve had some nice November conditions so far, and it looks like there may be some continued storminess this month – hopefully the snowpack can continue to grow.

Today’s tour gave us the first chance to out the Canon EOS 7D Mark II DSLR camera that we’d brought along. The 7D Mark II is Canon’s new APS-C sports shooter, and it’s weather sealed extremely well, has a 65-point autofocus system that is among the best in the world, and is built like a tank… just the way you’d want a camera to be made for dealing with the elements. It’s got twice the frame rate, two and a half times the number of pixels, and usable ISO values roughly ten times higher than what my Canon EOS 30D has, which is not surprising considering it’s about five generations newer and a step up in Canon’s performance lineup. It really is built for just the type of shooting we do, and it certainly seemed to live up to its reputation today. Late afternoon light on a cloudy Vermont day in November will give the light sensitivity of any camera a challenge, but I was still able to shoot the boys at 1/1,600 of a second due to the high useable range of the ISO. And, the ability of that focusing system in the low light conditions was very impressive. I also got to test out the video with a short clip of the boys playing in the snow, and my Canon EOS 30D doesn’t even have the option of video. We’ll hopefully have many more chance to put the camera to use this season as we learn all of its nuances and find the settings that fit our needs.

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Stowe, VT 20NOV2014

An image showing ski tracks in powder below the Chin Clip trail at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont
Getting out this morning to experience some of the powder at Stowe

Areas downwind of the Great Lakes such as Buffalo have been making headlines due to feet upon feet of lake-effect snow falling in rather short order, and in Northern Vermont we’ve picked up an inch or two of snow here and there thanks to being downwind of Lake Ontario. On Tuesday evening though, we got into the action a bit more as things aligned correctly to drop roughly a foot of snow on Mt. Mansfield. We only picked up about an inch and a half of snow at our house in Waterbury, in association with that event, so I didn’t even suspect that Mansfield had been lit up with that kind of snowfall. However, mountain valleys farther to the east of the Green Mountain spine picked up a few inches, and that was a bit of a tip off that something was up. When Powderfreak started sending in powdery pictures to the American Weather Forum noting the substantial accumulations at Stowe, it was becoming clear that there was some nice powder skiing out there.

I didn’t have time to check out the snow yesterday, so this morning I headed out for an early ski tour on Mansfield, and found 3 to 4 inches of snow at the Midway Lot near the base of the Gondola. I followed a well established skin track that headed up Chin Clip Runout, and then diverged to follow Switchback for the next part of the ascent. When I reached Gondolier I decided to just finish out the ascent to the base of the big Gondola waterfall on the skin track I saw there. I didn’t have time to travel any higher, but up at that ~3,200′ elevation there was roughly 6 to 7 inches of powder, which sat atop a few inches of dense base snow.

An image of tracks on powder snow from a November storm on the Gondolier trail at Stowe Mountain Ski Resort in Vermont
Enjoying the powdery view today at Stowe up around the 3,000′ elevation mark

The snow depths I observed for the powder above the base today were as follows with respect to elevation:

1,600′: 3-4″
2,000′: 4-5″
2,500′: 4-6″
3,000′: 5-6″
3,200′: 6-7″

I dropped in for the descent on Perry Merrill, and there were just a couple of additional tracks there, so plenty of fresh powder was available. I’d pulled out the fat skis, and they were the perfect tool for the occasion – they kept me floating and gave me some really great stability. I did have to watch out for a few rocks here and there, and at times I switched to alpine turns when it seemed like the base was a bit thinner or the rocks a bit bigger. I found that alpine stance kept me floating a bit higher, and today I really noticed how the AMPerages actually seemed to make it easier to ski alpine style in Telemark bindings. It’s not always easy to ski alpine with a loose heel, but I was very surprised at how stable it felt in today’s conditions. I think the stability and rocker of the fat skis were really playing their part. I eventually made my way back over toward Switchback and connected to Chin Clip Runout to finish off my run, and the grassy slopes down there were perfect for where the powder and base was a bit shallower. It was still fantastic skiing though, and some of my favorite turns of the outing were down there below the 2,100′ elevation. That terrain is so grassy with few rocks that it was easier to just let it ride without worrying about rocks. Rock skis would give you a bit more ease of line selection out there and more peace of mind, but you can certainly get by and have some fantastic turns with regular skis as well.

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Stowe, VT 08NOV2014

An image of ski tracks in powder at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont after a November snowfall
Out for some early season turns at Stowe on the slopes of Mt. Mansfield

With the recent snow I headed up to Stowe this morning to check out the conditions and make some turns. The weather had cleared out since yesterday’s storminess, but it was still fairly cool, and much of the snow that had accumulated in the valleys was hanging around. There were skiffs of it on the shady rooftops in Stowe Village, but it wasn’t until up around the 1,000′ elevation that it really began to appear in traces on the ground.

Up at the resort there was an inch or two at the base of Mansfield, and there were a few dozen cars in the Mansfield Parking Lot from other folks who were out for some activity on the snow. The snow guns were blazing on the usual North Slope route, so when I saw a skin track heading up a much quieter Hayride, I decided to give it a shot. Right from the base there was plenty of snow for skinning, and as the depth increased with elevation, it held up fine even on Hayride’s steeper pitches. Whoever set that skin track was right on the money; they kept the pitch fairly consistent and made appropriate switchbacks instead of trying to scramble their way up those steep shots. There were even some nice alternative tracks to fit your preference – some a bit steeper and some a bit shallower.

An image of a frosty "Stop Gate" sign at the top of the Lookout Double Chairlift at Stowe Mountain Resort in VermontAt the top of Hayride I finally ran into the snow guns on Upper Lord, so I cut across to the top terminal of the Lookout Chair (3,325′) to get out of the noisy fray of spray. Looking upward toward Ridge View and Upper Lord, I could see that they were both being blasted by the guns, so I decided that it wasn’t worth pushing on through that and called it an ascent. Temperatures were somewhere in the mid to upper 20s F at that elevation, and I spent a few minutes during the ascent changeover poking around, getting some wintry photos, and checking out the snow quality. My depth checks along the my ascent were made challenging by the lack of base and plenty of fluffy grass beneath the new snow, but my best estimates for natural snow would be the following with respect to elevation:

1,500′: 1-2″
2,000′: 2-4″
2,500′: 3-4″
3,000′: 3-5″

There was some drifting, and I found depths of up to 15″ at some of the water bars.

I began my descent on some of the lesser used trails up there around the top of the Lookout Chair that weren’t getting hit by the guns, and managed some early season powder turns. In a few spots some of the overspray of snow from the main trails messed with the consistency of the powder, but in general there was plenty of space for good turns in natural snow. Once back onto the snowmaking terrain I found that the untracked snow from the guns was unfortunately a sticky mess, but decent turns could be had where other skiers had done a bit of their own grooming and churning up of the snow. It was a bit tough to resist the usual urge to go for the least tracked snow, but the turns were often quite good in those places with skier traffic. The very worst turns were on the periphery of the snowmaking where soft natural snow was covered with a layer of dense, artificial snow. That was almost like putting a manmade crust over the snow, and it was definitely Tele hell. I learned quickly to not even go near that stuff.

The snow stayed wintry all the way back to the base, although the temperatures were just starting to crack the freezing mark when I got down there. The snow along the Mountain Road was still hanging on though as I got back down around that 1,000′ mark. I did stop in to check on the construction in the Spruce Peak Base Area on my way home, and boy is that another big project. Parking is really going to be at a premium this season, as there’s essentially nothing for day parking over at Spruce with the construction taking place. The month of November looks like it’s going to be reasonably cool, so hopefully we’ll get some additional snow, but at least the snow guns should be able to keep running to put down base.

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Bolton Valley, VT 27APR2014

An image of the Alta Vista trail with a ski track in late April at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont
We got a bit of fresh snow and some fun turns in the higher elevations from our latest April storm.

Our latest April storm brought with it the potential for some mountain snow, and as the forecast from the National Weather Service Office in Burlington suggested, snow levels came down last night, and the snow started to accumulate.  Precipitation was just a mix of rain and snow at our house down here at 500’ this morning as I checked on some of the local mountain web cams, but I began to get a sense for how the snow had accumulated up high.  There was no accumulation visible at Stowe’s base elevations, and it looked like the snow line was up above 2,000’ on the east slope of Mt. Mansfield based on the accumulations seen on the trees.  Bolton Valley appeared to have picked up a reasonable accumulation of snow at roughly 2,000’, and when Powderfreak showed accumulations down to roughly the 800’ elevation along the western slopes, that sealed the deal on Bolton Valley as my tour destination.

“The skiing was actually far
better than I’d expected – it
was three inches of dense
snow atop what, even up at
that elevation, was a soft
spring base.”

Temperatures were in the upper 30s F down in the Winooski Valley with light rain/mist, and as I headed westward through Bolton Flats, the intensity of the precipitation picked up.  The rain changed over to snow at ~1,200’ on the Bolton Valley Access Road, and first signs of new snow accumulation were at the Timberline Base at 1,500’.  I suspect that accumulations had reached lower based on that image that PF showed earlier from 800’ in Nashville, but it seemed like the snow line had already risen a bit by the time I was up there.  As I continued to ascend the road beyond the Timberline Base, the deciduous trees took on a picturesque coating of white, and gradually the ground began to fill in with white as well.

The Village was quiet as is typical for late April, and as I pulled into the upper lot near the base lodge, I saw a skier just returning to his car after a run.  We chatted for a bit, and he said that he’d just come down Cobrass and that the skiing was great.  I looked around and saw what looked to be about an inch of fresh snow atop all surfaces, and even the base snow appeared to be soft.  Unsure of exactly what I was going to find, I’d brought both fat and mid fat Tele skis, and after finding out how soft the subsurfaces were, I felt confident that going with the fatter AMPerages was the call.  I strapped on skins and headed upward, just as another car with three skiers arrived to take the place of the lone skier that had just left.

An image of one of the snowmaking pump houses with fresh April snow at the mid mountain elevation of the main mountain at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in VermontLight snow continued to fall as I began skinning up above the lodge, and I could see that skier traffic had been very light.  There were signs of just a couple of skiers that had skinned up in the new snow, and a couple of addition sets of footprints from people that had hiked.  As I was ascending near the top of Beech Seal, a skier passed me on his descent, and I definitely liked the sound of his turns… or more appropriately, the lack of sound as he came by.  That quiet schuss was a good sign regarding the subsurface below the new snow, and I with the good coverage I saw, I made a note to consider Beech Seal on that part of the descent.  At Mid Mountain the depth of the new snow was about 2”, and I continued over toward Cobrass on my ascent to see what that other skier had experienced.  I don’t think I’ve ascended Cobrass yet this spring, so it also gave me a chance to use that route.  I could see the other skier’s descent track, and pretty quickly I knew that descending Cobrass was not going to be the call for me.  With its southern and western exposures, there was just too little base in various spots.  I suspected things would be much better on a trail with northern exposure.  I could see that the Cobrass Café picnic table had reappeared from its winter burial; it’s been looking a bit worse for wear over the past couple of seasons, but it’s hanging in there.

An image of evergreen boughs covered with snow from a late April, snowstorm up at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
Snow accumulations increased gradually with elevation today, eventually revealing more substantial accumulations.

At the Vista Summit, I checked the depth of new snow again, and it was right around 3”.  There were actually no tracks of any kind over near the patrol house or the top of the Vista Quad, and it was just pristine snow, so I suspected that whatever trail I chose, I’d be able to get first tracks.  I downed a GU and some water, switched over to descent mode, and headed down Alta Vista.  Aside from the wind scoured section along the skier’s right at the top, the base coverage was wall to wall, and the new snow on top was wholly untracked.  The skiing was actually far better than I’d expected – it was three inches of dense snow atop what, even up at that elevation, was a soft spring base.  I was very happy with my ski choice, as the AMPerages were in their element – I was planing pretty quickly atop the dense snow, and had a lot of fun drifting some of my turns.  The new snow was only partially bonded to the subsurface, so you could easily let it slide as much as you wanted as you sloughed the snow away.

I thought about a number of options once I was down to Sherman’s Pass, but stuck with Sherman’s because I was sure of the base snow.  It also meant that I could catch Beech Seal, which I knew was a sure thing.  The turns on the lower half of the mountain were good, and certainly soft, but the upper half of the mountain took the prize for conditions.  The temperature had risen at the base since I’d started my tour, and I could see that much of the snow had melted out of the deciduous trees down at the Village elevations as I departed.   The snow line had risen another few hundred feet as I was heading back down the mountain, so it was definitely one of those days to get at it sooner rather than later.  It’s actually continued to be a slow April in terms of snowfall, but the forecast does show the potential for additional shots of snow in the midweek period and then next weekend, so we’ll see if we get anything like this event in the next several days.

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Bolton Valley, VT 17APR2014

An image of ski tracks in the Mid Mountain area of Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont after an April snowstorm
Although the lifts have stopped running for the season, the powder skiing rolls on at Bolton Valley thanks to a recent April storm.

Yesterday was quite a cold April day, cold enough that the temperature in the Bolton Valley Village never got anywhere near the freezing mark – it never even reached 25 F.  Anticipating that the cold temperatures would mean maintenance of the dry, wintry powder that the area received from the recent snowstorm, I grabbed the fat skis and headed up to Bolton Valley this morning to see how the snow was faring.  Based on the fact that we’d picked up over four inches of new snow down at the house from the storm, I figured that Bolton must have done at least that well.

“Indeed the sun or warmth
had not appeared to be
issues of any sort for snow
– the real enemy in terms
of  snow quality was the
wind.”

The temperature was still in the low 20s F when I rolled into the Bolton Valley Village this morning, and it looked like midwinter as much as it did mid April.  I began skinning right up the well established skin track on Beech Seal, and as one might expect from a well consolidated skin track, it meant that the surrounding slopes had seen plenty of ski traffic.  There were some nice looking turns out there though – I saw some beautiful, smooth looking powder turns in the low-angle terrain coming out of the Jungle Jib terrain park.  New snow depths and ski conditions were fairly similar to what we found yesterday at Stowe – I found 3 to 5 inches of new snow on the lower half of the mountain, and around a half foot up top near Vista Peak.  Indeed the sun or warmth had not appeared to be issues of any sort for snow – the real enemy in terms of snow quality was the wind.  In the usual spots, the new powder was scoured down to the crusty surface below, so I could see that it was going to be one of those days where choosing aspect, trail, and trail side, was going to be extremely important in seeking out the best powder turns.

An image of a ski track in the Jungle Jib terrain park at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
A picturesque track in the powder coming out of the Jungle Jib terrain park

“Turnpike delivered as usual,
with just a few spots that
had been affected by the
wind, but a lot of smooth,
silky turns in the slightly
settled powder.”

The skin track took me up Sherman’s, Schuss, and finally Alta Vista, to where I stopped just below the top of the Vista Quad beneath where the snow was all scoured away.  The skier’s left of Alta Vista offered up some nice powder turns, although I still encountered some areas of wind-packed snow.  I ventured off into the lower reaches of Vista Glades, and found some smooth turns there, since the snow was generally protected.  Having seen so many tracks and plenty of wind affecting the trails above the base lodge, I headed over toward Wilderness for the bottom part of my run.  Turnpike delivered as usual, with just a few spots that had been affected by the wind, but a lot of smooth, silky turns in the slightly settled powder.  Like yesterday, the turns weren’t completely bottomless, but there were still a lot of them, and I was happy to have the AMPerages and their floatation to help out.  The Village was still incredibly quiet as I was heading back to my car, but I did run into Josh as he was heading into the office.  He’s already getting ready for next season, enjoying a quieter scene now that the lifts have stopped.  Based on the snow that’s up there though, there’s still plenty of skiing to be done this season.

An image of a ski track in the bottom of the Vista Glades area at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
Some protected snow at the bottom of Vista Glades
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Stowe, VT 16APR2014

An image of Erica skiing the Duck Walk trail at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont
Some late season powder today at Stowe

It’s continued to be a fairly slow April for snowfall, even in the mountains, and through the first half of the month there haven’t been any major spring snowstorms.  The mountains received a few inches in the middle of last week, but at that point the models also started to suggest something a bit more substantial for the middle of this week.  Folks kept an eye on it in the New England Regional Forum at American Weather, and the signal continued to be there – it was a slow moving cold front, with a sharp drop in temperatures and snow falling after the frontal passage.  It still wasn’t guaranteed to be a huge dump of snow, but it did look like it had the chance to produce moderate accumulations in the half foot range, as of the early part of this week.

“I’d say there was
generally 5-6” of
snow up high, and it
was enough for some
great turns where it
had been left alone…”

Rain changed over to snow here at the house yesterday evening, as temperatures fell toward the freezing mark, and we’d accumulated over 4 inches of new snow as of this morning.  It was falling at over an inch per hour at times, and it made one wonder what was going in the mountains.  It was a cold, wintry snow, coming in at 10% H2O through midnight, and falling to 6.4% H2O by this morning with temperatures around 20 F.  I was surprised to see that Stowe wasn’t reporting too much more than we picked up here in their morning snow report, but since E and the boys are off from school this week, it seemed like it was worth heading up to the mountain for at least a few runs.

The roads weren’t too bad in terms of driving, although Route 100 seemed to get the most attention and the driving was very smooth with minimal snow.  Areas like Waterbury Center and the town of Stowe seemed to have received a bit less than we did right along the spine, but by the time we got up to Stowe’s base elevations, the snow seemed to be in the 3-4” range similar to what we’d received at the house.  The morning report from the mountain had indicated single digits F for temperatures on the upper mountain, with teens below.  It was expected to warm up, but it definitely felt like mid winter as we arrived at the Mansfield Base Lodge, grabbed our gear, and headed inside.  It was an absolute switch from the warm spring temperatures we’d experienced on Sunday, and it meant making sure that we’re returned out passes to our cold weather gear after switching some of them over to lighter clothing.  Everyone also had to re-expand their chin straps for their helmets to accommodate balaclavas after they weren’t needed over the weekend.  The lodge was very quiet, with just a few people around, much like you’d expect it to be on a midweek day during the middle of April.

Riding the Fourrunner Quad was cold and windy, and we were definitely happy with our decision to dress for those midwinter temperatures, even if it was expected to warm up later.  With the moderate accumulations of new snow reported atop what was a refrozen base, we immediately headed over toward the Mountain Triple via some of the gentler slopes to assess the conditions.  I’d say there was generally 5-6” of snow up high, and it was enough for some great turns where it had been left alone, but many of the trails had been groomed, and unfortunately this just seemed to pack the new snow down into the hard spring base.  In some areas the grooming came together with the right accumulations of snow to make areas of nice carving, but the untracked snow was far superior, and that’s what we ended up seeking out.  It was those trails that hadn’t been groomed that would up being the biggest hits, and Lower Tyro delivered for us as usual.  E and the boys did some synchronous skiing for the camera in the powder, with nice results.  Turns certainly weren’t bottomless all the time, but you could definitely get plenty of floaty turns by paying attention to where the wind had made those deeper deposits of snow.

An image of Dylan skiing powder snow on the Duck Walk trail in April at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont
Dylan tosses up some of today’s powder.

We rode the Mountain Triple, and caught some turns on Duck Walk, since we’d seen that it hadn’t been groomed.  After that, there was no doubt that we wanted to seek out terrain that hadn’t seen a groomer; the turns were just so good.  With that in mind, we headed back up the Fourrunner Quad and headed for the Nosedive Glades.  We didn’t think Nosedive Bypass was going to be very good with it steeper pitches, but we did catch the very bottom of Bypass and tested out the snow on some of that steeper terrain.  It was fun to try to connect the areas of deepest snow, and I got into some shots of over a foot.  The Nosedive Glades themselves were a lot of fun – the snow wasn’t bottomless on all turns, but there was plenty of floating.  And, with so few people out on the slopes today, there were a lot of fresh lines to be had.  Right in line with my ski testing from Sunday, I was wishing I had some wider alpine skis after watching the boys scoot around through the powder and get more float out of their equipment.  Nosedive had been groomed, but there were areas in the middle elevations that weren’t scoured and offered up some nice packed powder carving.  We finished the run on the lower part of Lookout, which had not been groomed and offered a lot of powder turns.

It was still on and off snow as we headed home in the late morning period, although areas in the lower valleys that had seen sun had already melted back with respect to the new snow.  It’s been so cold today that I suspect many areas in the mountains will be holding powder tomorrow morning as well.

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Stowe, VT 30MAR2014

An image of Erica skiing the Hayride trail at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont
Out at Stowe today in some of the dense snow brought by our recent storm

I was a little concerned about the potential ski conditions at Stowe today based on what I’d seen at Bolton Valley in the morning, and asked E if she was thinking of cancelling the BJAMS ski program in the afternoon.  But, she decided that the conditions looked reasonable enough to keep it scheduled and avoid having to do a make-up day next weekend.  It was definitely the right call, because by the time we got to the mountain, any precipitation had shut off, and it looked like the conditions on Spruce Peak were excellent.

“There were still areas
of untracked snow on
the sides of trails, and
it would just peel away
beautifully with each
turn, just like I’d
encountered at Bolton.”

At Bolton valley in the morning, the lower half to two thirds of the main mountain was the place be, with those smooth turns in the fresh shot of dense snow.  You generally wanted to be somewhere underneath the 2,500 – 2,800’ elevation range to get fresh tracks below the more substantial rain crust near the summits.  The Sunny Spruce Quad covers the lower half to 2/3 of Spruce Peak, which would be in the 1,500’ to 2,500’ elevation range, so it was likely a good option.  Indeed, any concerns about conditions on that terrain were removed when I took an initial run off the Sunny Spruce Quad with the boys.  There were still areas of untracked snow on the sides of trails, and it would just peel away beautifully with each turn, just like I’d encountered at Bolton.  The snow was so dense that it was easily bottomless and you weren’t touching down on any old surfaces.  I’d traded in my fat Tele skis for some skinnier alpine skis, and I was definitely wishing I had some cambered fats like the boys did for smearing turns in that snow.  We heard reports from others in our ski program who had ventured up higher to the top of the Sensation Quad at ~3,200’, and that turned out to be up into the crust elevations at that point, with ongoing freezing mist/rain that would coat your goggles.  In general though, the precipitation that we’d seen in the morning had tapered off, so it was just cloudy for much of the afternoon.  We joined up with E and Claire, who both had some free time to ski since there were so few participants at the program today, and we had a similarly great run off Sunny Spruce.  The snow might have been just a touch heavier on that second run.  It was either that, or I got that impression after not surfing quite as much untracked snow.

We didn’t stick around too long at Spruce because we were thinking of making a run down the Bruce Trail.  However, when we got to the entrance at the top of the Bruce, we saw that not a soul had skied it.  We could have had the entire trail to ourselves with first tracks, but between breaking trail through the high-elevation crust up top, and then potentially dealing with mushy, untracked snow down below, we didn’t think it was worth it.  We took a run down Hayride instead, which had excellent, soft snow.  Later, when we headed up to the top of the Gondola at ~3,600’, we could tell that the freezing level had definitely risen to bring those higher elevations more into play with respect to softening.  You still didn’t want to break fresh lines up there because of the substantial crust, but stuff the people had skied was in great shape by that point and the on piste runs were excellent from top to bottom.  We had great Perry Merrill and Gondolier runs; you could just carve so hard into the snow and it would hold and push right back.  In between we had a good break at the Midway Lodge, where everyone got to rest those legs that were pushing hard through the new snow.  I think that was our first stopover at Midway this season, and although E and Claire don’t get to head over there much with their usual ski groups, I let them know how quiet it typically was if they were looking for a peaceful place to give their students a ski break.  We got some snacks and hung out by the fire, and unfortunately I wasn’t able to find any of Mitzi’s granola to buy.  I mentioned it to Claire, and she pointed out a woman over by the ticket counter who was in fact Mitzi herself.  On our last ride in the Gondola around 3:30 P.M., we were noting some sleet coming down.  Normally that’s not a great sign relative to pure snow, but in this case it was a sign of some colder air somewhere up there in the higher elevations.

It was approaching 4:00 P.M. when we returned to Spruce Peak, but the boys managed to squeeze in one more run before the end of the day.  Despite this past storm not being 100% snow, the conditions came together in a great way nonetheless.  We may have some additional chances for snow coming in the next week or so, and we’ll have to see what kind of snow we’ll get out of them.  Whatever the case, the base is in great shape for a nice long continuation of the season as we head into April and May.

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Bolton Valley, VT 30MAR2014

An image of a ski track in powder snow beneath the Wilderness Lift at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont
Getting out for some fresh turns this morning thanks to our latest storm

Our latest winter storm to come into the area was lean on cold air, bringing the potential for mixed precipitation into the picture.  The northern Vermont resorts managed to get some snow accumulations though, with 5 inches reported by Bolton Valley in the morning.  Well ahead of opening, they announced that the Vista Quad was starting on wind hold, and that Mid Mountain would be the early lift.  So, I threw my skins in my pack before heading up to the mountain.

The temperature was around 35 F in the valley, and only dropped a degree or two as I headed up the Bolton Valley Access Road.  Accumulations of snow on the road naturally increased with elevation, and by the time I got up to the Village, you could see that the plows had cleared away some dense, wet material.  The precipitation at the base was a mist of light rain with occasionally heavier bouts.

As I approached the base of the mid mountain chair, I ran into Quinn, who was just coming down from a run.  Our conversation noted the wet weather, and you could tell by the state of Quinn’s outerwear that he’d been out working in it.  He said that skiing was lots of fun though, and that was a good sign.  The state of the skiing on the lower mountain was quickly confirmed during my ride on the mid mountain chair; beneath my feet, I watched a couple of ski instructors on Beech Seal cut beautiful arcs through the fresh layer of dense snow.  The chairs of the mid mountain chair were in quite a state – they had icicles all over them from freezing rain, and it seemed like the icicles were enhanced as the chairs went through repeated cycles of freezing and thawing on their circuit up and down through various elevations.

At mid mountain, I’d just strapped on my skins and started upward, when I heard a sled approaching.  It was Quinn, and he gave me a quick lift to the Vista Summit on his way to check things out.  The temperature dropped below freezing, and the depths of new snow increased as we headed upward.  My depth checks revealed as much as 6” of new snow up top, with the caveat that it was a bit tough to tell where the new dense snow ended, and the old snow began.  The only downside, and unfortunately it was big one, was that a fairly thick crust had formed on the snow in the higher elevations due to some rain falling into the colder temperatures.  Because of this, I stuck to the groomed Alta Vista for the first part of the descent.  The groomed snow was much easier to manage, but it was still firm with a layer of ice on it.

I next followed Swing over to Wilderness, and ran into Quinn again as he was making his way about the mountain.  I filled him in on the conditions I’d experienced on my descent from Vista, letting him know that ski condition in the lower elevations were actually much better because of the lack of crust.  I made a depth check of the new snow at that Wilderness Mid Station (~2,800’) and found roughly 4 to 5 inches.  Below the Wilderness Mid Station was where the turns really started to get nice.  I got into that beautiful snow that I’d seen the instructors and others skiing on Beech Seal, and cut some nice arcs.  It was really interesting to have the skiing improve with every turn I took downward in elevation, because it’s often the reverse due to deeper snow accumulations up high.  Since I’d found that some areas in the trees on the upper mountain had been protected from the freezing rain, I dipped into the Wilderness Woods briefly to see how they were skiing.  Down at that elevation, it really didn’t make much of a difference, so I quickly ended up back out on the trails since they had large expanses of untracked snow.

I rode the Mid Mountain Chair again, this time heading out on Deer Run and over to the Butterscotch Terrain Park.  I ended up just skiing the park, since it wasn’t open and had plenty of fresh snow.  Usually, with the more limited terrain, it’s not great when the Vista Quad is down and the main option is the Mid Mountain Chair, but with the way the new snow was set up today, it was almost the perfect option.  I didn’t stick around too long this morning because I wanted to get home and dry my gear to get ready for Stowe in the afternoon – I was certainly eager to see how Mt. Mansfield fared in this latest storm.

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Stowe, VT 23MAR2014

An image of Ken skiing Angel Food at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont
Today will go down as one of the best days of the season at Stowe

Today will simply have to go down as one of the best days of the season at Stowe; I just can’t see how it wouldn’t.  Another half foot of snow fell overnight, bringing snow totals to 20 inches in the past 72 hours, and that’s on top of the multiple feet of snow that have fallen in the past three weeks.  Off piste, people push their ski poles into the snow and they go up to and beyond the handle before they hit a firm surface, and the depth of the snowpack at the Mt. Mansfield Stake is approaching 90 inches.  While that’s really just the average peak snowpack depth for the higher elevations of Mt. Mansfield on a seasonal basis, it clearly marked a threshold of sorts for the snowpack at all elevations on the mountain today.  When even the base elevations have over 40 inches of snowpack, three to six foot trees across the mountain have now simply disappeared under the snow.  All one needs to do is pull off trail, glide into the trees, and the acres upon acres of powder lines just open up.  It’s that time of year when lines appear that you forgot even existed… and they’re everywhere.  Stowe’s already incredible tree skiing simply rises to another level, and you are quickly overwhelmed by the fact that in a day on the mountain you won’t even be able to scratch the surface of what’s available.  Let’s not forget the weather that Mother Nature provided today, in the form of brilliant late March sun.  And, lest that strong sun try to mess with the quality of the powder out there, Mother Nature also saw fit to keep it just wintry and cool enough to keep even low-elevation, south-facing snow in fluffy, pristine, midwinter form.  Indeed it all came together today.

An image of Erica skiing powder in the Lower Smugglers Trees at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont
The lines off piste are bottomless and everywhere

When we got the word about the decent shot of additional fresh snow overnight, we decided to get an earlier than usual start so that the family could do some runs together before the start of the BJAMS ski program.  As we ascended toward the first run of the day on the Sunny Spruce Quad, my eyes were drawn to the lines in the trees all around us, and how they were simply choked with snow.  We tried out a new line in the Lower Smugglers Trees, and then let brought Mom to one of Ty’s favorite lines in the area so that she could have first tracks in that section.  We headed under the alpine slide tunnel and onto the open terrain above Meadows, which held fantastic snow.  I tried to impress upon E and the boys just how ridiculously good the quality of that snow actually was – we’re talking essentially base-elevation, south-facing terrain in late March, and there wasn’t a hint of hard base to find under there or any effects of the full sun on the snow.  The fact that they weren’t flabbergasted like I was suggested that they weren’t quite as impressed, but there was no denying the quality of the powder we’d encountered off piste.  It was just… so… bottomless.  The powder had that density gradient that just keeps going and going, and the hard you would push down, the deeper you’d go before you’d find that there was just nothing there.  E had time for one more before she had to get ready for the ski program, so we skied some similar lines with similarly fantastic results.  Ty and Dylan and I followed up with a run by ourselves that included the Ridge Glades, and it was fun to watch Dylan drop through the deep powder in one of the steep entries.  He’s been right back on his game, even after a few weeks off his skis.

“It was
just… so…
bottomless.”

For ski program today, we teamed up with Joe and Ken’s group, bringing in Ethan and Jack into the crew along with Ty, Dylan, and Luc.  Luc’s dad joined us as well, and we did one more warm-up run on  Sunny Spruce while my friend Chris got ready to meet us down at Spruce Camp.  Ken suggested that we head out to some of the Ridge Glades and Side Street Trees, and that was lots of fun.  Dylan followed my explorations, and naturally I managed to get us down into some ice cliffs that required some steep turns and drops, but he found a nice line to take him smoothly through.

“…it was just one
of those days where
everything came
together to make
the skiing fantastic.”

We met up with Chris, and our group of ten headed over to the Gondola with thoughts of an Angel Food run.  With the snowpack this deep and fresh snow to boot, it was an obvious choice.  The traverse was well set with many other folks having the same idea today, but the snow quality out there in Angel Food was simply excellent.  Everyone seemed to have a great time on the snow, and Ken and I nailed our desired return traverse to the letter.  One of my favorite parts of the run was spreading out among the trees on the return traverse, and getting fresh lines of powder that kept going and going and going.  It was such a good run that I was totally ready to hit it again and explore more of those are to the skier’s right with fresh powder.

Some folks from the group headed back to Spruce Peak after that, but Ken, Chris and I stuck with Ty, Dylan, and Luc for another Gondola run, this time down Chin Clip and the Chin Clip Streambed, a.k.a. “Ravine”.  Conditions in the streambed were excellent, and Dylan’s run through there produced one of the best comments of the day.  He was having so much fun jumping off all the ice waterfalls in the streambed, that he couldn’t believe he had ever spent his time going around many of them – his comment was, “I can’t believe I was missing that in my life!”  I explained to him that it’s because he’s becoming a better and more confident skier, and that a year or two ago jumping off those kinds of drops would have represented a much bigger challenge.  It can be hard to recall exactly how things appeared when you were at a different stage of skiing, but he’s certainly enjoying the streambed from a whole new perspective now.

We headed over to the quad for a run from the very top of Lookout, and it was a bit windblown in spots, but improved as we got farther down.  I don’t think we saw another person during the entire run.  We finished off with the boy’s request for a cruise down Perry Merrill, but not before we hit the Tombo Woods and the Tombo Waterfall.  The waterfall is actually getting pretty small because of all the snow that has now built up below it, but it was great fun.  We even got in a little extra powder skiing along the edge of the Hazelton Zone, and it was fantastic snow just like we’d been encountering everywhere else.

An image of Ty and Dylan jumping off a large snow pile at Stowe Mountain Ski Resort in Vermont
No skis, no problem.

Since Chris had some time, we stopped off for some dinner at Sushi Yoshi, and had quite a good feast with a variety of different sushi rolls.  Ty ate a lot of sushi, but I still think he was ready to keep eating more even after it was gone.  One of these days we will find out how much it takes to fill the bottomless hole he has for sushi.  It was a great cap to what will definitely remembered as one of the best days of the season, and it wasn’t even the result of a big storm, it was just one of those days where everything came together to make the skiing fantastic.

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Bolton Valley, VT 22MAR2014 (PM)

An image of a ski track in powder snow in the trees at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont
Back out for an afternoon powder session up at Bolton Valley

Seeing that the Timberline Quad had recently started running as we were heading down the access road after our morning ski session, really got me thinking about heading back up to take advantage of the opportunity.  So, after a quick bit to eat, I decided to head back out for a few more runs.  It was actually pretty convenient, since I was still wearing my ski clothes, and hadn’t even unloaded the gear from the car.

I pulled into the Timberline lot to find just a handful of cars there – with the lift opening so late, it was only people who arrived in the afternoon that would even have the opportunity to park there.  I hopped on the lift and found that the snowfall was picking up again after a bit of a lull around midday.  The winds weren’t too bad at that point, but they seemed as though they were picking back up in concert with the increasing snowfall.  Unlike this morning, the winds were more from the west, vs. the south or southeast, and this meant that they were at your back while riding the lift.

I started off with a run through Wood’s Hole and the Corner Pocket Glades, and I actually had first tracks through the main entry line into the Wood’s Hole Glades.  There were just a couple of people ahead of me on the logging road, and it was skiing really well.  I eventually diverted off into the Corner Pocket Glades, and as I descended I could tell that while decent, the snow down below the 2,000’ level really wasn’t up to the quality of what was higher up on the mountain.  The powder was still good, but combination of less new snow and denser layers of powder below it was obvious.  Although I had planned to focus on Timberline since I’d skied the main mountain in the morning, the call of the premium snow quality just a bit higher up had me thinking about heading back to the main mountain for a little more fun.

I made my way to the main base, and headed up to the Vista Summit via the Vista Quad.  After about halfway up, the snow and wind really started to pick up, and they hit a level that was higher than anything we’d seen in the morning.  When I got off the lift, I headed down past the patrol hut, and before heading to Cobrass I had to just stop and watch the spectacle.  At one point, visibility was down to around 100 feet, and even though I was only 100-200 feet away from the hut, it was entirely invisible at times.  Unfortunately there’s not much point in getting an image of the building when it’s totally invisible, because all you see is white, so I grabbed a shot of one of the periods when it was on the verge of disappearing and that at least gives a sense of just how intense that snowfall was.

Down in the Villager Trees, I decided to make the hike up the crack, since E and the boys hadn’t wanted to do it this morning.  While down in the protection of the trees, the heavy snow and wind from up near the summit became just fluffy flakes filling the quiet air.  It was such a difference from the windswept summit.  The powder off the knob was fantastic, and I was happy to see that the wind hadn’t affected it at all.  Once I got back to the trail network and my way toward Timberline, I didn’t see another soul.  It was as if everyone had left, and I quickly surmised that the most recent bout of heavy wind had shut down the lifts.  I didn’t check on the others, but indeed Timberline was on wind hold.  I was heading to the car at that point, but it didn’t seem like I would have had much choice anyway – Mother Nature has really been hitting Bolton Valley with the winds over the past couple of days, but I’m glad I was able to get in those afternoon turns during the window of Timberline’s opening.