Vermont Skiing & Winter Weather
We headed up to Bolton today to check out the powder from our recent storm, and conditions were great. We had some snowfall in the mid morning period that gave way to more sun as we approached noontime. For all the details and powdery pictures, check out my report from Bolton today.
It was ski program day at Stowe today, and since Johannes and Helena are done with their programs at Bolton, Stephen and the kids tagged along with our group. I had to drop off Ty at the Stowe Shaw’s to be picked up for a birthday party, but I eventually caught up with Claire, Stephen, and all the kids just as they were heading up the gondola for their first Mansfield run.
Off piste conditions were fantastic, since the upslope pattern was delivering well and Stowe had seen a foot and a half of snow since the Monday event. I added some of the totals into my update at Americanwx.com, and it showed quite the north to south trend with Jay Peak cashing in nicely:
Jay Peak: 30” (359”) Stowe: 18” (311”) Bolton Valley: 14” (316”) Killington: 4” (251”)
In one of our traverses we stumbled onto a gully in the Lower Goat woods that everyone skied – it had some really steep walls and reminded me of one of those Jackson Hole gullies. To see the full text and pictures, head to the Stowe trip report from today.
Waterbury event totals: 2.8” Snow/0.06” L.E.
After that quick inch of snow we picked up yesterday, that was it for snowfall down here at the house as far as I can tell. We were back up at Bolton for some more turns starting around midday, and it was snowing pretty hard for the first part of the afternoon. Friends that we met up there said that it had snowed like that all morning. It’s nice to see what’s going on up at Jay, because they were a bit left out of the pattern earlier in the season with so much activity focused to the south. I’ve added the 7-day and seasonal snowfall totals for some of the VT resorts below:
Jay Peak: 30” (359”)
Stowe: 18” (311”)
Bolton Valley: 14” (316”)
Killington: 4” (251”)
Right now the snowpack is 98 inches at the Mt. Mansfield stake, and if one looks at the SkiVT-L plot for the snow depths, this is right around the date for the typical maximum. The historical data suggests a small dip after the end of March, but the snowpack really seems to hang around at this level until roughly mid April before it actually starts to fall off., so I could see the peak snowpack depth being anywhere in that range, especially with the current weather pattern.
The upslope snow has been rolling in, and although we haven’t had a ton of snow from this event yet, snow surfaces are getting a nice freshening. This morning down at the house we were on our way toward picking up a quick additional inch of snow to put us at 2.8 inches for this end of the week event, and 9 inches for the week. Bolton was reporting 13 inches over that span, with the snow continuing to fall. Today we were back up at the mountain again for an afternoon session with Stephen and his kids, and for the first half of the afternoon it was snowing at a good clip. Everyone joined in for a run on Spell Binder, and using the knowledge about the aspects with best snow that the boys and I had learned yesterday, there were some really awesome bottomless turns available on the skier’s left. Even with just a few inches of additional snow, the skiing took quite a jump up in quality. We found the same snow setup on Tattle Tale, and all three boys had fun ripping up the powder in their own way. We gave Johannes first tracks on one line, and he decided that a figure 11 was the way to go, while Ty and Dylan accented his line with some curves. We’re starting to nickname Johannes “11”. For the full text and all the pictures, click through to the Bolton Valley trip report from today.
The boys and I hit the powder up at Bolton Valley today and found some great conditions. The snow continues to fall as indicated in the weather updates in the blog and the skiing just keeps improving. For all the details and powdery pictures, go to my March 25th report from Bolton Valley.
I headed up to the mountain for some turns this morning and got in my first powder of the week, with more powder likely to come as the upslope snow continues to fall. I skinned up at Timberline and found 3 to 5 inches of powder at 1,500′, and about 6 inches at 2,500′. The full details and pictures are in my Bolton Valley report from this morning.
We picked up 5.3 inches of total snow with this event down in the valley thanks to the second burst of snowfall that came through last night, and up at Bolton Valley as well as Stowe, they picked up a total of 8 inches of snow. I’ve added a picture of the radar image from around 10:45 P.M. last night that shows the snow still streaming into the area. I’ve added the north to south list of storm accumulations for the Vermont ski areas below, and additional details can be found in my morning update in the Northern New England thread at Americanwx.com.
Jay Peak: 6″
Burke: 5”
Smuggler’s Notch: 5”
Stowe: 8”
Bolton Valley: 8”
Mad River Glen: 5”
Sugarbush: 5”
Pico: 4”
Killington: 4”
Okemo: 5”
Bromley: 2”
Stratton: 4”
Mount Snow: 3”
Today featured spring skiing on the slopes of Spruce Peak, thanks to sunshine and corn snow on south-facing slopes. Details and additional pictures are in my Stowe, VT 20MAR2011 report.
The visit to Steve’s sugarhouse was great today, with the usual assortment of food, snowmachines, skiing, sledding, sugar on snow, and many of the other things that go with spring in Vermont. Temperatures were actually just below freezing, but with the sunshine and no wind, it was comfortable outside.
Additional pictures and more details about the day are available in my full report.The snowpack was plentiful, and we even got to do some skiing during the afternoon.
Don’t forget, it’s the official Vermont Maple Open House Weekend, so try to support your local sugarhouse at one of the open house events. We’re planning to head to my cousin Steve’s operation in Barton for their open house. When he called me earlier in the week he said to make sure everyone brought snowshoes because the snowpack is pretty hefty as usual. I think we’re also going to bring Tele gear and do a tour as long as the snow softens up appropriately for turns. With last year’s low snowfall, touring around had a bit of a different feel because there was only a bit of snow left and it was like a spring hike. His snowpack is often much more substantial than ours though, so if things are typical up there the skiing could be nice. Checking my records, it looks like our 2008 visit was at the tail end of March and yielded some very nice turns.
