Tag: Powder

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Bolton Valley Nordic & Backcountry, VT 17JAN2011

An image of Dave in very deep powder in the Bolton Valley Nordic & Backcountry Network, Vermont
Dave grabbing some of that beautiful Champlain Powder in the Bolton Valley Nordic & Backcountry Network today

Dave stayed over through today, and the plan was to get in another day of skiing.  With the amazing powder conditions I’d encountered on Thursday, Saturday and Sunday, combined with additional snowfall, it was a no brainer to try and make some turns on the holiday.  We had contemplated lift-served skiing at Bolton or Stowe, but with the forecast high of roughly 10 F in the valley, E and the boys decided to take the day off from skiing, and Dave and I ultimately decided that it was a day to avoid sitting on lifts.  The plan was set for another round of skiing on Bolton Valley’s Nordic/backcountry network.

I’d brought Dave for his first tour in the Bryant region of the trail network back on January 1st, and since the warm weather had turned the powder to mush at that point, the touring was actually the focus, and the ski descent was more peripheral.  The skiing at that point, while still fun, was really more useful as an efficient way to get around.  On that earlier outing though, I specifically told Dave to envision what the area would be like if it was filled with powder, because that’s that way it is most of the time.  With the efficient setup of trails, skin tracks, and glades, along with the incredibly convenient access from the village, it’s quite an amazing resource.  This time around, Dave was going to have the chance to see the area in top form.

Up at the village, we stopped in at the Nordic/Sports Center so Dave could grab a Nordic ticket.  Having a season’s pass, I only stop in the sports center occasionally, and hadn’t noticed what a nice place it is in terms of a day lodge.  There’s a snack bar, and lots of space to change.  I saw a mother and daughter changing in there, and they had the entire place to themselves.  Dave and I had already planned to gear up at the car, but it made me think about using the area in the future, especially with the boys.  E has been planning to bring the boys up there for swimming etc., but in a total coincidence in terms of my visit, Johannes was also up there today with his mom and sister doing just that.  Johannes wrote about his experience at the Sports Center on VTSkiReport.com in an article entitled “When it’s too cold to ski…”, so for those that are interested in learning more about the options at the sports center, check that out.  With the way Bolton’s season’s passes are including access to everything this season, it’s a great perk.

For our part, Dave and I decided that it wasn’t too cold to ski, especially when powering our own ascents.  We headed over to the usual tennis court parking along the edge of the trail network at about 2,050’, prepped our gear, and got skinning.  Although my car thermometer was reading in the low single digits, there was no wind, and the sunshine was really doing its thing.  We hadn’t been long on the trail before we were heating up and removing clothing.  Dave even had to take his hat off.  We had a fairly quick and steady ascent up to the Bryant Cabin (2,690’) checking out some of the glades along the way.  We could see that there were descent tracks on some of the more popular runs, but plenty of fresh powder was waiting.  Check out all the text and deep powder pictures by clicking through to the full report from Bolton Valley today.

An image of Jay catching air while Telemark skiing in the powder today on Bolton Valley's Nordic & Backcountry Network in Vermont
Jay grabbing some air among the deep powder in Bolton Valley’s Nordic & Backcountry Network today – Dave was having a blast firing away with his Canon EOS 7D.
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Bolton Valley, VT 16JAN2011

An image of Jay about to take a face shot skiing deep powder at Bolton Valley, Vermont
Jay skiing the deep powder in the Villager Trees at Bolton Valley today - let's just say that the skiing was GOOD!

Dave had heeded my late week alert about the good skiing, so yesterday evening we worked out a Sunday morning Timberline meeting.  The clipper system that had started up midday yesterday dropped roughly 4 inches of new snow at the house by 6:00 A.M. this morning, with most of that coming in at 3.7 to 3.8% H2O according to my analyses.  What it meant for the local mountains was more fluff on top of fluff, so the powder skiing just continued to get deeper.  Dylan had a midday birthday party (shouldn’t there be a Vermont state law mandating only evening birthday parties during ski season?), and E was taking him to that, leaving just Ty and I to join up with Dave.  On the upside it meant that Dave and I could really run Ty ragged as we marauded our way through Bolton’s powder stashes… and apparently run him ragged we did.

Bolton had only reported 3 inches of new snow in the morning, but based on what we got at the house, combined with what we found on the hill, I think it was a bit underreported.  Conservative snow reports are generally appreciated though.  While we waited for Dave to arrive at the mountain, we took a warm up run on Spell Binder, and I found 6 to 8 inches of snow on much of the trail.  Ty really ripped it up on there and he was off to a great start.  Continue on with all the powdery pictures and text at the full report from Bolton Valley today.

An image of Dave waist deep in the powder in the Adam's Solitude area at Bolton Valley, Vermont
Dave, waist deep in some of the powder today above Adam's Solitude up at Bolton Valley
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Bolton Valley, VT 15JAN2011

An image of Ty skiing powder in the trees off Wizard Way at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont
Ty hits up some of Bolton Valley's powder in the Wizard Way trees today.

Last week’s midweek system had continued the excellent stretch of snow, yielding a great dose of dry Champlain Powder™ up at Bolton for Thursday, and then snowfall from that system continued at a slower pace right into the holiday weekend where a clipper was due to add more fluff.  Today, the whole family headed up to the mountain to try and catch up with Stephen his kids for the reopening of Wilderness.  Ty was a bit out of sorts at first, so Dylan and I took a mid mountain run on Timberline to get going.  The snow quality was excellent on piste, not quite perfect in coverage since there were a couple of spots to watch out for as we skied the skier’s right of the Showtime headwall, but any coverage issues there were pretty minor.

Once everyone was set, we headed over to the main mountain and hooked up with Stephen, Johannes, and Helena.  With all the kids, the makeup of the group was constantly in flux, but on my end I had a couple of ripping runs through the Turnpike bobsled tracks with the Ty and Johannes.  We hit those banked corners like race cars.  On another run I was guiding Ty, Johannes, and Helena through some of the Wizard Way trees, and the end result literally saw Helena swimming the backstroke through the deep powder to get back to the trail.  Unfortunately I didn’t get a shot of that, but I did grab one of Ty in there working the powder.

Johannes and Stephen were also out getting pictures, and they put together a substantial slide show along with Johannes’ report from the day at VTSkiReport.com.  Amanda was out on the Nordic network for a tour, and it sounds like she had quite an adventure, but I really liked her description “It felt like walking through clouds” with regard to going through the powder.  It certainly was that kind of snow.  I was happy to have my first Kurt Ries sighting of the season, and learned that he has the same Telemark skis as me!  A definite thanks goes out to Icelantic at First Tracks for turning me onto those.  I actually saw no less than four pairs of RT 86s at the mountain on Saturday, all mounted Tele, so they seem to be quite popular.  To check out the rest of the story, head to the full report from Bolton Valley today.

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Bolton Valley, VT 13JAN2011

An image of deep trakcks in the snow from powder skiing at Bolton Valley
This morning it was skiing in the trenches at times with one to two feet of Champlain Powder blanketing the slopes of Bolton Valley.

I was too busy to get out on Monday for the bounty of upslope snow that followed the weekend’s inverted trough system, but overall it was quite a nice event.  By the time it finished up on Tuesday we’d reeled in a total of 18 inches of snow at our location in the valley to make it our second largest storm of the season, and as usual the mountains were piling it up even more.  Fortunately, right on the heels of that system was another Nor’easter, and it looked like I would have a little time to make a trip to the slopes.

I got some work done at the house in the morning, and then headed up to the hill a bit after opening time.  It was windy up in the village, and while booting up I could see that neither the Vista nor Mid Mountain lifts were running; I threw my skins in my fanny pack just in case it came down human-powered powder acquisition.  It turned out that the skins were able to stay in the pack, as I hopped on the Snowflake Lift and found out that Timberline area, in all its beautiful wind-protected Champlain Powder™ nirvana goodness, was ready to roll.

The first skiers were already descending Spell Binder as I made my way to the Timberline base, and I couldn’t help but stop for a couple of minutes, absorb the scene, and grab a few photos.  The quiet of the powder morning was disrupted only by the erupting “Woos” and “Yeeee Haaaas” of the skiers.  Several people passed as they headed for another lap, and not one of them could seem to contain their vocal exuberance.  It was already obvious that the snow was fantastic, but if discerning midweek Bolton skiers were this excited, the powder skiing was likely to be top notch.  To check out the rest of the story, continue on to the Bolton Valley trip report from today.

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Stowe, VT 09JAN2011

An image of our Subaru Forester covered with snow at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont
At the end of our day at Stowe today, I found our Subaru covered in a deep coating of fresh snow that had accumulated during the afternoon.

Today was our first school program session of the season, so we were off at Stowe for the afternoon.  With the level of skier traffic, especially weekend skier traffic that Stowe sees, Sunday afternoons don’t typically offer optimal snow surfaces.  However, last season had to be a low point in that continuum; not only was the snowfall below average, but an inordinate number of times the next round of snow seemed to come in for Monday, after we were done skiing.

So far this season however, things have been much better.  We had fresh snow for our training day back on Sunday, December 12th, and as we moved into our first session with the students, it looked like Mother Nature was going to try to help out with fresh snow again.  On Friday, an inverted trough system had set up shop over New England, and while the focus was south of our area, we’d managed to pick up a couple more inches last night.  This morning’s snowfall report from the house at 6:00 A.M. revealed that we’d already picked up almost a half foot of snow, and it’s easy to imagine what the skiing was like at Stowe today when the snow just kept pounding down – for all the details and pictures, head to today’s trip report from Stowe Mountain Resort.

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Bolton Valley Nordic & Backcountry, VT 08JAN2011

Image of Jay removing climbing skins
Jay gets set for the descent.

I checked out Bolton’s snow situation and alpine trail offerings in the middle of the day today, and after heading home, I filled E and the boys in on what I’d found.  Since there was plenty of powder, but not a ton of lift-served trail options were available, we decided to head up to get in some backcountry skiing for the end of the day.  Dave and I had found that the amount of base snow was excellent when we’d headed up to the Bryant Cabin the previous Saturday, so we were expecting great things with all the fresh stuff on top of it.  Our 3:00 P.M. start resulted in twilight turns through the powder in the areas below Bryant Cabin, so it was quite an adventure for everyone.  To see all the pictures and read the whole story, click through to the full backountry trip report from this evening.

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Bolton Valley, VT 08JAN2011

Image of tracks on the Lower Foxy trail
Tracks on Lower Foxy

Northern Vermont wasn’t the focus of the weekend’s inverted trough system, but Bolton had reported a couple inches of new snow.  We’d seen generally small flakes from the system at the house, but in the late morning when they started to get much larger, I figured it was time to head up to the mountain and see what was going on up there.

Getting into my bindings near the base of the Timberline Lift, I saw a snowboarder coming down the final pitch to the base, but more importantly I could also hear the sound of his board – generally not a good sign.  Coverage didn’t look too bad on even the natural snow trails, but it was still just the combined coating put down by the midweek clipper and the weekend system.  There were several inches of new snow, but closer inspection showed that there were still some bare spots under there, so it wasn’t surprising that the mountain was keeping most natural snow trails closed.

Off of the Timberline mid station the only real option was to head straight down Showtime, so that’s where I went for my first run.  The base snow was manmade, and generally quite capable of holding an edge, but it was definitely not in the same class as the natural snow we’d been skiing over the holiday week.  I checked off the edge of the trail to see what the natural snow situation was, and over the base I found generally 4 inches of powder in that 1,500’ to 2,250’ elevation range, with a few spots of 5 inches.  That represented the sum of the fluff from the clipper and the latest denser synoptic snow from the inverted trough on top of it.  All in all it was actually a fun run, and there were plenty of nice powder turns to be had along the edge of the trail.  Click through to read the full report from today.

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Bolton Valley, VT 30DEC2010

An image of Jay skiing the glades
Jay enjoys some deep snow in Bolton Valley's glades today.

After Tuesday’s great outing with the boys, the whole family headed out for more turns today.  The skies had been somewhat gray on yesterday, but the sun was back today and consistent with the forecast trends, the temperatures were climbing to the low 30s F.

There hadn’t been any new snow, so we didn’t find ourselves out to the slopes until midday, but the Timberline area still seemed to be following the trends I’ve seen over the week and most visitors were presumably over at the main mountain.  We kicked things off on Spell Binder, and the most obvious change in on piste conditions from Tuesday was that the powder and chowder had been replaced by packed powder.  I found that there was still powder to be had if I went very tight to the edge of the trail, but it had to be helmet-scraping tight.

We then headed off to the trees for a bit to get in some powder skiing – E had gone with alpine skis for the day so that we could explore some steeper lines and see how they were faring.  Our first test was the steep terrain dropping into the KP glades, which revealed that tight evergreens at around the 2,000’ elevation had still not seen enough snow to support much traffic or aggressive skiing.  The evergreens had not allowed enough snow to fall to the forest floor, but the mixed evergreen/hardwood glades below were in prime form and yielding great untracked turns.  To check out the rest of the details and see all the pictures from today, head to the full December 30th, 2010 trip report from Bolton Valley.

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Bolton Valley, VT 28DEC2010

An image of Ty skiing in the Wood's Hole Glades at Bolton Valley
Ty tackling some steep terrain in the Wood's Hole Glades

After finding excellent snow conditions at Timberline near the end of the Nor’easter yesterday afternoon, it looked like lift-served skiing was going to be fantastic on today.  E was a little under the weather and wanted to get some things done around the house, so it was going to be a ski day for the boys.

We got up to Timberline around 10:15 A.M., and conditions were looking good.  The temperature was 20 F, skies were clear, and the wind had abated.  The Bolton Valley website had indicated a planned Timberline opening of sometime in the 9:00 A.M. – 10:00 A.M. range, and I’m not sure what time they’d finally started loading, but there was hardly anyone there when we arrived.  After experiencing lift queues at Vista on Thursday and Friday, it was very nice to have Timberline open again.

We kicked things off with a run down Spell Binder to get the boys warmed up, and Ty was really enamored with the snow and pitch on the headwall.  He’s definitely been waiting for the season to get going so additional steeper terrain could open, and he was really hootin’ and hollerin’ on that run and exclaiming how “awesome” it was.  It wasn’t untracked, but as usual the skier’s right held lots of chowder, with plenty of deep loose snow and a really nice subsurface.  Both boys had fun making their sloughs, or “avalanches” as they call them, slide down the slope.  Below the headwall, there was still ample fresh snow along the skier’s right to provide lots of powder turns.  I generally found 12-18 inches of powder along there depending on how far I got towards the trees, and although it wasn’t Champlain Powder™, it was at least medium weight fluff protected from the wind and it skied really well.  While I worked the powder, the boys were generally in and out of there often playing in the chowder and taking lots of jumps off the remnants of the water bars.  To see all the pictures and read the rest of the story, click through to the report from Bolton Valley today.

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Bolton Valley, VT 27DEC2010

An image of ski tracks on Timberline Run at Bolton Valley
Laying down some tracks this afternoon in the fresh snow on Bolton Valley's Timberline Run

It turns out that Northern Vermont wasn’t really the jackpot for this Nor’easter, but we did get into some of the snowfall.  As of 6:00 A.M. this morning we’d picked up 1.1 inches of snow down at the house that came in at a fairly synoptic storm-style 9.1% H2O, and up above us at Bolton Valley they reported 3 inches of new snow in the higher elevations.  Even down in the valley it continued to snow however, and the flake size increased as we moved farther into the storm.  By noon we’d picked up another inch of snow, and the density was down to 5.0% H2O.

Temperatures in the low double digits F and plenty of wind outside didn’t have me jumping out the door to hit the hill, but with the way it continued to snow at the house, I figured it had to be doing even better in the higher elevations.  Bolton was reporting that everything but their surface lift was on wind hold, but I decided to head up to Timberline to make some turns.  I’d missed the chance to check it out on Sunday when it was planned to open, so this would be a good chance to see how it was skiing.

I arrived up the Timberline base (1,500’) to a temperature of 9 F, and decent winds in probably the 20 to 30 MPH range.  There were a couple of other cars in the upper lot that belonged to folks doing the same thing I was, but the whole scene was one of a desolate winter storm.  Another fellow had headed up just a few minutes before me, so I followed his skin track… or at least I think I did because even in that short time it was starting to disappear in places due to the wind and falling snow.  I ascended the usual Twice as Nice route, and was surprised at how nice the snow was.  I was wondering if everything was going to be scoured down to something hard, but that wasn’t the case – there’s a really good base of natural snow, and an even in spots where the new snow had been blown away, the underlying surface was either packed powder or some sort of Styrofoam material.  In actuality though, it was only isolated spots that were even down to that surface, most of the new powder was still there.  Since the wind was from the north instead of the west, that was probably a better setup for the generally west-facing Timberline terrain.  I checked the depth on my ascent and generally found between 3 and 7 inches of new snow, so the mountain had definitely picked up more snow since their morning report.