Skiing Archives - Page 39 of 66

December 19, 2014December 20, 2014

Bolton Valley, VT 19DEC2014

An image of ski tracks in powder on the Timberline Run trail at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Today’s ski tour at Bolton Valley’s Timberline area features some smooth turns in that recent round of dense snow.

On my way back down from the mountain yesterday, I stopped off at the base of Timberline to check on the depth of the new snow and assess the prospects for skiing in the Timberline area. The terrain looked like it had been well covered with a smooth coat of snow when I had driven by earlier during daylight hours, but I wanted to check first hand to see the just how much new snow had been picked up down there. There was easily 2 to 3 inches of that dense snow in place, with even more in some spots. It certainly seemed like it was worth a visit, so at that point I knew I’d head up for a ski tour if I could find the time.

“…I cut into the trees and really hit pay dirt on Lost Boyz – the entirety of the glade was covered with 8″ of that dense snow without crust, and it skied beautifully.”

My fat Telemark skis have actually been sitting in a ski bag with their skins on for several days – I had them prepared for some skiing last week during the big cutoff low pressure system, but I never quite found the time to get out and use them. This morning I decided that I had time to make some turns before heading in to Burlington, so I loaded the rest of my gear into the car and headed toward Bolton Valley. I was a bit leery of the potential ski conditions because we picked up a bit of freezing drizzle at our house along the Bolton/Waterbury line last night. If that sort of stuff had fallen up on the mountain, it would put a crust atop the snow. In fact, the freezing drizzle did affect parts of the mountain, but there was quite a lot of variability with respect where its effects were felt.

At the base of the Bolton Valley Access Road, in roughly the 300′ – 700′ elevation range, the trees didn’t really have any sort of accumulations on them; presumably down at these elevations it was warm enough to melt everything off. From around 700′ up to 1,200′ along the road, the trees actually had a coating of fluffy snow. Then suddenly at around 1,200′ near the bottom of that big S-curve in the road, the trees all had a coating of ice on them. This was the situation I found at the base of the Timberline area at 1,500′, and there was an ice crust on the snow there as well. That observation left me pretty skeptical with regard to the quality of turns I’d be able to get on the slopes, but the crust was thin enough to be breakable, so I figured I’d head out for the tour anyway. It wasn’t immediately obvious, but as is typical, there was a well-established skin track along the edge of Twice as Nice.

There was ice on the trees as I headed up the skin track, and then remarkably at around 1,800′, it quickly switched from ice to rime. The trees all become white, and the crust atop the snow dissipated. As I continued along the skin track, I was pushing my measurement pole down into as much as 10″ of that dense snow. It didn’t look especially drifted or anything, so I was really curious as to how I wasn’t running into the old base at a shallower depth. The snow definitely wasn’t as deep in areas that had been hit by the wind, but I found those areas with such deep snow quite surprising. There was little if any ice until I approached the Timberline Mid Station at ~2,250′, and then the snow surface started to get crusty again. That crustiness was around up to where I finally stopped my ascent in the 2,300′ – 2,400′ elevation range.

I began my ascent on Brandywine, and found the snow highly variable – you could get good snow on one side of the trail, but much of the rest had crust. Sheltered areas seemed to have missed the crust, so I cut into the trees and really hit pay dirt on Lost Boyz – the entirety of the glade was covered with 8″ of that dense snow without crust, and it skied beautifully. I continued my descent on Spur and then Timberline Run, and got in a lot of quality powder turns. All the best turns today were creamy and smooth thanks to that dense powder, and it’s got plenty of staying power to hang around for a while.

I can tell you one thing – that dense snow from the cutoff low pressure system last week is going to be paying us dividends for a long time. I was able to go over ledgy areas today on Lost Boyz that I would never expect to be so well covered with this amount of snow, but that storm put down such a shellacking of dense material that it covered underlying objects really well. Anyway, there is plenty of good snow out there at Bolton Valley right now; if you choose wisely and avoid the areas with crust, you are in for a treat.

December 18, 2014December 19, 2014

Bolton Valley, VT 18DEC2014

An image of trees with rime and snow at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont — Fresh rime and snow among the low clouds this evening at Bolton Valley.

On the way home this afternoon, I stopped in at the mountain to make a few turns and check out the conditions in association with today’s new snow. Even in the mountains, temperatures rose above freezing yesterday on the front end of our current storm system, and that was likely to mean firm snow surfaces as the temperatures came back down today. Fortunately some snow also fell on the back side of the system, and Bolton Valley was reporting 4 inches as of this morning. Depending on the density of those 4 inches of snow, and how they fell, they could make for some nice skiing.

“…I got to side of the trail and found out that indeed there were 3 to 4 inches of dense snow covering the old base. And, it skied quite nicely.”

The skies were overcast today with on and off snow in the mountains and rain/snow in the valleys. Temperatures were hovering around 35 F in the Winooski Valley as I made my way eastward into the mountains, but once I arrived up in the Bolton Valley Village at 2,100′, the temperature was in the upper 20s F and grainy snow was falling. The clouds were low, sinking right down to the elevation of the Village, and combined with precipitation and late-day December light, visibility was very poor. The clouds only seemed to get thicker as I ascended on the Vista Quad, and if the visibility wasn’t already low enough, rime was precipitating out of the clouds and forming on everything… including my goggles. There was a brisk northwest wind in effect by the time I got to the Vista Summit, and temperatures must have been in the low 20s F – it was feeling extremely wintry up there.

“…I think that run was even better because I knew where all the best pockets of powder were hiding.”

From the lift, my initial impressions of the skiing weren’t all that favorable – I could hear the sounds of snowboarders on Butterscotch, and it didn’t sound good. But, once I actually got on the snow and got down through the windswept areas above Sherman’s Pass on my first run, I got to side of the trail and found out that indeed there were 3 to 4 inches of dense snow covering the old base. And, it skied quite nicely. I could smoothly glide right through the powder without hitting anything underneath. I found this same snow on the edges all along Sherman’s, and I was surprised at how much snow had been left untracked at the end of the day. I guess traffic had been somewhat lighter since it was a midweek day. The snow was good, but what made the skiing challenging was the visibility. If you ever wanted to work on your balance while skiing, this afternoon’s low light and fog as dusk approached would get you there. The visibility was the main consideration when I was thinking about taking that next run, but indeed the snow had been good enough that I headed up the lift for another. I took the same route, and even though the light had faded to darkness and the night skiing lights were all that was available, I think that run was even better because I knew where all the best pockets of powder were hiding.

I definitely give a thumbs up for this latest round of snow in terms of covering up the old base, and it sounds like Powderfreak’s impressions at Stowe were very much the same. It looks like this is going to be about it for snow chances until we get into a storm next week, but fortunately there’s some decent powder out there. It should have plenty of staying power based on its density.

December 14, 2014December 16, 2014

Bolton Valley, VT 14DEC2014

An image of Ty skiing dense snow left by Winter Storm Damon at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont — Getting out to Bolton Valley this afternoon to surf some of the bounty left by Winter Storm Damon

‘Tis the season for being very busy around our house, but the boys and I did find a bit of time to head up to the mountain this afternoon to see what Winter Storm Damon had done for the slopes. We’ve had some periods of sun this weekend, such as the ones we experienced at Stowe yesterday, but temperatures have been staying generally at or below freezing in the mountains to keep the recent snow in midwinter form. So, we anticipated finding some great conditions today on the slopes of Bolton Valley, which thanks to winter storm Damon, has most of its terrain open on the main mountain. A couple feet of dense snow can do that.

“With 2 to 2 ½ feet of dense snow, the ascent was easily twice as hard as it would have been on skins.”

Low clouds hung over the upper half of the mountain as we rode that Vista Quad, and being well into the afternoon, the mountain was really starting to quiet down. The overall feel at the resort was exactly in line with one of those dark December days; the base was plentiful, the snow surfaces were well preserved, and the low clouds seemed to lock in an intimate feeling across the mountain. It’s the holiday season before the commotion of the main holiday week, and with the current amount of terrain and quality of snow surfaces available, it’s a great time to be skiing the resorts around here in Northern Vermont.

The coverage and snow quality was saw from the lift looked simply outstanding, even on the steep trails of the upper mountain, so the boys and I jumped right onto Hard Luck to test out the snow with some real pitch. All you can say is that Damon set down a really solid resurfacing – there’s just a lot of deep, dense snow out there. You can just carve the surface snow away and be confident that there’s simply more of that below. The only real downside that I’ve seen from the storm was that the powder skiing hasn’t been quite up to the quality we typically get around here with lighter snow. The rounds of fluffy snow at the end of the storm cycle weren’t quite substantial enough to keep you off of the denser snow below, so you’re still getting into that thicker stuff, and of course it doesn’t ski like champagne powder. Still, I don’t think I’d trade this recent storm for fluffier powder; it was just too perfect for setting up the core of this season’s base snow.

The powder was still skiing reasonably well for being rather dense, so we headed over to Wilderness on our next run to get into some untracked snow. Although we were only skiing in the top few inches of the snow, untracked areas were silky smooth and a lot of fun. It was enough fun that when I asked the boys if they wanted more, I was hit with a resounding, “Yes!”

With that in mind we set off on the next run for the summit of Wilderness. There was a skin track in place for the ascent, and a bit of a boot track that comingled with the skin track in places, but that boot pack wasn’t very well established. Since we hadn’t brought our skins, that meant we had to go the boot pack route, which was a real slog at times. The rudimentary boot pack that was in place helped us some, but it contained plenty of post holes that required extra effort to climb out of, and then there were times when I’d post hole my way into the snow unexpectedly, which is always a big waste of energy. With 2 to 2 ½ feet of dense snow, the ascent was easily twice as hard as it would have been on skins. I made sure to explain to the boys that this was the perfect example of why you want to skin up the mountain whenever possible vs. trying to walk in your boots.

An image snowing 28 inches of snow depth on the Upper Crossover Trail at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont thanks to Winter Storm Damon — Ty uses his measurement pole to reveal just how much snow was in our path.

After a brief break at the summit, we descended via Bolton Outlaw in the gathering dusk. The powder was dense like we’d experienced elsewhere, but there were plenty of good turns to be had. This is where the boys would have profited from having their powder skis, but they were on their regular carving alpines based on the fact that we’d planned on mostly on piste skiing. Dylan had a couple of prereleases that send him crashing into the powder, and I’m sure the skinnier nature of the skis wasn’t helping the matter. But some good turns were had by all, despite the fact that it was really dark and foggy as we descended the lower half of the mountain.

An image of Dylan skiing powder in the Wilderness are of Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Dylan riding atop some of that dense powder from Winter Storm Damon

I had to head off to a Christmas party once we got home, so I’d actually tried to call in a pizza order from Fireside Flatbread for E and the boys when I was up on the Wilderness Summit. I didn’t have a great signal, but it didn’t matter… unfortunately they don’t open until Friday. I ordered instead from Zachary’s in town, but it meant we had to go a couple miles past the house. The James Moore Tavern seemed to be running at full steam tonight though, so that’s currently an option for those seeking après ski fare.

On the weather front, it looks like we’ve got a weak system coming through in the midweek period, and the models show the potential for another storm toward the end of next weekend, but that’s a long way out so we’ll have to see what develops with that one over the next several days.

December 13, 2014December 14, 2014

Stowe, VT 13DEC2014

An image of the some of the trails in the Gondola area at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont — A gorgeous day at Stowe for our annual ski program training

Today was our annual training day for Stowe’s ski program with the local schools, and indeed it was a great one. We’ve often had fresh snow on these mid-December training days, but the past few days featured a cutoff nor’easter that delivered 2 to 2 ½ feet of snow to the Northern Vermont ski resorts. And, the snow wasn’t just fluff either; there were roughly three inches of liquid equivalent in that snow, so it was a major boost to the natural base depths. The snow depth at the Mt. Mansfield Stake just pushed past 30 inches with that storm, and it probably won’t be settling too much due to the density of the snow.

“…there was just so much of that deep packed powder that it didn’t even make you want to head off the beaten path for untracked snow.”

The forecast for today was looking great; with the low pressure system finally weakening, there was the chance for some sun, and temperatures would be in the 20s F. With the hefty amount of construction going on over at the Spruce Peak Base Area, the meeting place for today’s session was in the Midway Lodge. The space actually felt much better than the old day lodge where we would typically meet, and a lot of that seemed to be because the space was simply configured better. Everything was well organized when we arrived, and since we had almost an hour before we’d get together with our group, I headed over to the Spruce Peak Base for a bit to eat at the Great Room Grill. The new structure that’s going in over there is still at the stage of steel framework, but it should ultimately have plenty of space for the children’s programs and whatever else they’ll be putting in there.

We got together with Joe and Emile from BJAMS for our ski group, and had Steve Dever as our instructor for today, who is actually Emile’s neighbor. Each year we seem to get a little something different out of the training session, and this year Steve spent a lot of time on techniques for safety, such as strategies for where to stop on the trail and how to position your body to ensure maximal visibility of oncoming skier traffic. On the technical side, we talked a lot about pole work and “finishing” turns with regard to speed control.

We were generally on piste today, but conditions were simply fantastic on the groomed runs as one might expect after two feet of dense snow. Those first couple of runs on Perry Merrill were simply divine as far as groomers go. We headed over to the Fourrunner Quad for the second half of the morning, skiing some of the usual routes out toward Sunrise. Steve stopped us above the Chapel Glades, pointing out how that was a great one to do with the kids, and the snow looked good enough that a number of our group headed in and met up with everyone else on the other side of the glade. I checked with my measurement pole and found 21 inches of snow there, so there was more than enough coverage. We’re well past the 24-inch mark at the stake, and the fact that so much of that is dense snow makes it even more substantial. Coverage really wasn’t an issue in there, and there were areas of packed snow where there had been enough skier traffic. There was plenty of powder in there was well though, so getting into the powder off piste is definitely an option on appropriate terrain now.

The sun was out a good bit this morning, and with temperatures probably around 30 F at the base, you couldn’t really ask for much more. You could certainly see the quality of the groomed snow drop a bit on the popular routes as the morning wore on, but there was just so much of that deep packed powder that it didn’t even make you want to head off the beaten path for untracked snow. If I’m not searching out powder to ski in, that’s a definite sign of some seriously good snow on piste. It was a little hard to pull away in the early afternoon, but we wanted to pick up the boys from Norris’ house in time for him to get off for his Nordic skiing program. The next snowstorm appears to be coming in the middle of the week, so we’ll see what we get out of that one.

December 6, 2014December 7, 2014

Bolton Valley, VT 06DEC2014

An image of snow on roofs and trees in the Bolton Valley Village in Vermont — Taking in some of the snowy views in the Bolton Valley Village this afternoon

Last night a storm began to affect the Northeast, and it was very similar to the type of storm we had Wednesday. Snow was anticipated on the front end, with some mixed precipitation in the middle, and then more snow on the back end. This time however, we remained on the cold side of the storm for the entire time, so there was little if any mixed precipitation among the snow. It snowed lightly all day today at the house in Waterbury, and later in the afternoon we headed up to Bolton Valley to see what the storm had done and hopefully make some turns. Everybody in the family was able to go today, so that meant E would get her first turns of the season. We were also thinking of picking up our season’s passes, but we were heading out a bit too late to really have a chance at that.

Temperatures down in the Winooski Valley were a few degrees above freezing, but it was right around the freezing mark up in the Bolton Valley Village at 2,100′ and there was some very light snow still falling. After gearing up at the base of Wilderness, E began to lead the ascent, and hopped onto a track taking her up Lower Fanny Hill. I was actually thinking we’d take our usual route up Lower Turnpike, but E’s selection gave us the perfect opportunity to mix it up a bit. We began the ascent with 3-4″ of powder above just a bit of old base at the elevation of the Village. The snow had some heft to it, so I suspected that it would do a decent job of keeping us from touching down too much, especially with some help from our fat skis. We continued on up Fanny Hill, and the depth of the snow increased pretty quickly. By 2,500′ the depth was about 5-6″, and when we finally called the ascent at around 2,700′ on Lower Crossover due to fading light, the powder was roughly 8″ deep. I’d say that snow depth is actually due to the past couple of storms combined, but the weather has been cool enough in the past few days to keep all the snow in good shape.

For the descent we started off down Work Road, finding some excellent turns in the dense, but fairly dry snow. We would occasionally hit a rock here and there, but really that was in those windswept spots like the junction with the Wilderness Lift Line that just didn’t have the snow depth. Keeping to the well-covered portions of the trails yielded some excellent turns, and after dealing with the wet snow last Saturday, Ty definitely enjoyed the chance to try out his new Telemark gear on this higher quality powder. He was looking extremely confident and comfortable with his Telemark turns, and even Dylan was making some excellent turns. They both made sure to work on those turns on their weak sides to keep improving them. E said that she had some great turns, but did take it easy at times with some alpine turns in tricky spots just to make sure she didn’t stress her back; it had been giving her trouble last week and she didn’t want to go back to that state. For the last 200-300 vertical feet of the descent, the snow was starting to get a bit wet and wasn’t offering quite the same quality of turns as higher up, but it was still quite decent and much drier than what Ty and I skied last weekend. The biggest challenge during the descent was the fading light and the fact that some fog had just come in. The fog at dusk made for a surreal experience, especially was we arrived back down to the lights of the Village. There had been enough snow and minimal plowing that E felt we could ski right back to the car in the parking lot, and she was right. Cars were actually having trouble getting around the Village due to the new snow and minimal plowing. It was a great day to finally get the whole family out skiing together, and due to the good conditions and snow making temperatures, the mountain is actually planning to open on Friday, which is ahead of schedule.

November 30, 2014December 1, 2014

Bolton Valley, VT 30NOV2014

An image of Ty Telemark skiing in powder on the Old Turnpike trail at Bolton Valley — Visiting Bolton Valley today for some Telemark skiing in the leftover Thanksgiving powder

We’ve had some good snows over the past several days courtesy of the Thanksgiving Nor’easter that dropped about a foot at the Vermont ski areas, and a smaller upper level system that came through a couple days later and delivered a few more inches to the Northern Vermont resorts. We were traveling a lot visiting family during the timeframe of the storms, but we had a chance to head up to Bolton Valley and check out the snow today. Temperatures began to push above freezing this morning, so I knew that the powder was going to be getting a bit heavier, but it still seemed like it would be worth a quick trip up to the mountain. Ty was anxious to try out his new Telemark setup, so he certainly wanted to go, but knowing that the powder was going to be on the heavy side, E and Dylan decided to hold off for better snow and get some other stuff done instead.

Temperatures were already a couple of degrees above freezing when we arrived up at the Bolton Valley Village and made our way over to the base of Wilderness where we found 6 to 7 inches of snow. There were a couple of nice skin tracks in the Turnpike area, and the ascent went smoothly. Ty really enjoyed the free pivot on his Voile Switchback bindings for the ascent – he’s been waiting for a while to have bindings with that feature. We stopped our ascent on Old Turnpike before the pitch got to steep to support decent skiing with the available snow – there was actually about 10 inches up there, but there’s not much base yet, so steep, rockier pitches would definitely be rough on the ski bases.

An image of old Jack-o'-lanterns near the base of the Wilderness ski lift at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont in November — As always, there were interesting sights along the tour.

The descent was fun, but a bit slow at times with the snow density increasing. Ty did well working on his Telemark turns, and having handled this dense snow, we both agreed that he’s really going to have a blast on his new gear when we get some higher quality powder. He’s got the Switchbacks mounted on a pair of the 2014 Völkl Gotama Junior skis, and at 118-86-111, these are actually a bit wider than previous versions of the ski that he’s had, which were more in the range of 113-80-105. These later versions may even have a bit more rocker in them, but in any event, they look like they’ll be great skis for powder. We stopped in at the Bolton Valley Deli & Grocery to grab a bit of food before heading back down into the valley, where the temperature had climbed into the upper 30s F. Although not great for the powder, these temperatures have really made clearing the snow from the driveway easy – it’s mostly gone simply from melting by warmth from above and below, so we haven’t had to shovel at all except for the berm left by the plow along the road.

November 22, 2014November 29, 2014

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.

November 20, 2014November 21, 2014

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.

November 8, 2014November 10, 2014

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.

At 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.

June 8, 2014June 9, 2014

Mt Washington, NH 08JUN2014

An image of Jay skiing the snowfields of Mt Washington in New Hampshire in June — Back for some turns on the snowfields today

Since the end of the school year was keeping E rather busy last weekend, the boys and I just made a quick day trip out to ski the Mt Washington snowfields on Sunday. The turns were good, and with things lightening up for E by this weekend, we again kept our eyes on the weather for some possible camping and skiing. The forecast ultimately looked even better than it did for last weekend, suggesting warm, dry weather both Saturday and Sunday, so we packed up and headed off to New Hampshire yesterday around midday.

“…Ty started banging out
runs pretty quickly on that
upper section because he
really liked the short hike
back up.”

We set a course for the Glen, NH area to see if we could get a site at the Glen Ellis Family Campground similar to what we’d had last spring. We’d never been to the campground before that trip, but we really liked the riverside campsite we had along the beautiful Saco River. Since the Sunday forecast looked even a bit better than Saturday with respect to the potential for clouds and wind, we headed right to the campground yesterday and found that they had a number of the riverside campsites available, even ones with electrical power, which we find great for charging up various mobile devices. It was a warm afternoon in the 80s F, and tubing on the river was a popular activity. They’ve really got a great setup there for running laps in the river; you just ride down as far as you want, and walk your tube back up along the edge of the campground. We spent a chunk of the afternoon working on Dylan’s throws and playing some disc golf in the campground’s massive grassy fields. After we’d spent so much time practicing, it was great to see how often Dylan was able to hit the disc golf basket. We then had dinner at the campsite, and finished off the day with some evening exploration of the shoals and islands in the river. Dylan discovered that the campground had Wi-Fi, and we had an excellent signal even all the way out by the river, which is almost a half mile away from the main office. They must have an impressive wireless setup to be able to span the 65 acres of their campground. I did a test on Speedtest.net and found that the upload and download speeds were both 1.0 Mbps, which is plenty of bandwidth unless you need to stream video or do something similarly intensive.

An image of a man riding an inner tube and a couple of boys playing in the Saco River in New Hampshire near the Glen Ellis Family Campground — Enjoying the views along the Saco River

This morning we had breakfast, gradually broke down the campsite, and headed north on Route 16 for the quick trip to the Mt Washington Auto Road. Thanks to the available Wi-Fi at the campsite, I was able to do a check on the Ravines Cam to see the current state of the snowfields. It was clear that the main Ball Crag Snowfield had lost a lot of snow in its middle sections, and the snow had the look of a backwards letter “C”. The main area of the East Snowfields had broken up a lot, such that largest remaining section didn’t seem to have much more vertical than what seemed available on the Ball Crag Snowfield. With that information and our knowledge from last week about the ease of access, we decided that the Ball Crag Snowfield area was still probably the best bet for today’s trip. After reading another trip report at the Time For Tuckerman Forum last week in which someone monitored their gas mileage up the Auto Road, we decided to monitor ours, and found that it was right around 9.0 MPG up to the 5,700′ parking area in the Subaru; since the other report indicated that they managed 10 MPG in a hybrid vehicle, and we were loaded with four passengers and lots of camping and ski gear, I guess that’s not too bad. Presumably there’s not much gained in a hybrid on a long, continuous climb like the Auto Road, but whatever vehicle it was, it’s likely to be a fuel efficient one anyway. As we unloaded our gear, one of the Mt Washington Auto Road Coaches passed by, and the driver reminded us to make sure we stayed on the rocks so that we didn’t harm any of the fragile alpine flowers and other vegetation. I hadn’t seen much vegetation flowering last week, but he noted that some of the flowers were just starting to make their way up to these elevations now. It actually wasn’t as sunny as we thought it might be, and gray clouds almost looked like they might throw down some precipitation, so everyone packed light shells in their packs just in case. Being just a few minutes from the car, we find that one can pack minimally if they want to, but if rain really came down, we’d want to have something on hand.

An image of Erica skiing the snowfields on Mt Washington in New Hampshire in June — After missing last week, E was able to get out on the snow today.

It was again a short trip to the snowfield, and we could start to get a sense for how what the ski options were going to be. Since last week, we could see that there hadn’t been too much change in the areal snow coverage in the upper section of the snowfield, but the lower section showed dramatic differences due to the past week’s melting. The lower section was much smaller, and the snow was no longer continuous into that area. That made laps in the upper section most practical, and Ty started banging out runs pretty quickly on that upper section because he really liked the short hike back up. E slid out a bit on her first run and even got into the rocks at the bottom, but she was OK – it was definitely the most dramatic encounter with the rocks we’ve seen though, even more than when Dylan got into them a little bit last week. We often talk about how much we really need our helmets on these outings on the snowfields, since there are rarely other skiers around, but E’s slide was another great example of why we make sure to wear them. As she was sliding, even though she was in good shape being feet first, she was very happy to know that she had that helmet on. Ty kept cranking out the runs, and even Dylan whipped out a couple of quick runs before taking a break. I started to make some runs to see if I could catch up to Ty, but every time I’d take a run, he would do another with me, so there was no catching up that way. He was having fun with that, knowing that as long as he did a run every time I did, there was no way that I’d be able to catch up. It made for some fun runs where he worked on mirroring my turns, and although I couldn’t see him while we were skiing, now that I look at some of the photos, I can see he was doing a really nice job. For our last run, Ty and I connected down to the lower snowfield for a few extra turns on our way to hike out, so in the end we called it an extra quarter run, so Ty wound up with 7 ¼ runs to my 4 ¼ runs, with Dylan at 3 runs and E at 2 runs. We joked with Ty that he didn’t even do as many runs as the rest of us, because before that last run, he was quite proud that he had! The sky remained with one and off gray and sometimes fluffier clouds, with the occasional break of sun, and fortunately there were no signs of any precipitation.

The boys had wanted to head up to the summit of Mt Washington and visit the Sherman Adams Summit Building on our last outing, and we didn’t really have time, but this time we’d planned on it, so we stopped in at the visitor’s center for a while. We used our tickets to the new exhibit area in the museum, which is focused on the extreme nature of Mt Washington in the winter, and indeed it has been heavily updated relative to what was there before. The whole area seems very new and modernized all around, and there’s some impressive use of high-definition screens and other video technologies. It’s certainly worth a visit to the new exhibit if you have not seen it since it’s opening in May. We stopped in Gorham for a bite on the way home, and ate at one of the picnic benches on the Gorham Town Common, where the boys hit the playground for a bit. I’d say that’s just about it for the snowfields this season, so most of the activity will be shifting to Tuckerman Ravine. For some strange reason, the availability of snow only seems to decrease this time of year!

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