Erica on Sprig O’ Pine as we enjoy some of Bolton’s great Christmas Eve ski conditions thanks to 8 inches of snow from our most recent Alberta Clipper system
As of their early morning snow report, Bolton Valley had received 8 inches of accumulation from the clipper that began affecting the area yesterday evening, so I headed up for some morning turns with my wife and our younger son. We’re not fully into the holiday week yet, so visitation at the resort was still fairly modest – around the time of the opening of the early lifts, folks were parking in the second and third tiers of the main Village parking areas.
I’d say we found about 8 inches of new snow at most elevations, so that’s right on track with the snow report. The powder was dry, midweight snow – my snow analyses for the storm up to that point came in at 7 to 8 % H2O. Total liquid equivalent from the system stands at 0.42 inches at our site in the valley, so that’s very much in line with the forecasts, and the mountain was probably somewhere in the range of a ½ inch of liquid equivalent. While not enough for a massive resurfacing, it did a decent job of resetting the surfaces atop subsurfaces that are already of decent quality from the past couple of systems.
After a couple days of below average temperatures, we’ve warmed back up into the 20s F now, and with light snow falling and no wind, the weather was fantastic out on the slopes today. We started off with a run on the Vista Quad, and Alta Vista had nice powder and chowder available – it was enough to be bottomless in untouched areas on moderate slope angles. Our timing was perfect for catching the opening of the Wilderness Lift, so we did a couple runs there, then finished off with more runs off Vista and Snowflake. The resort even hit Spillway hard with snowmaking and it’s good to go – my wife and I didn’t ski it, but my son and his friend did and said it was fine for manmade snow.
Conditions on the slopes are certainly good, but the natural snow trails could still use more cover, and the resort will need that to expand terrain into areas where they aren’t making snow. They haven’t yet opened Timberline, most of the Snowflake area, or the Cobrass area, so there’s a lot of terrain still to be made available.
A view from near the Bolton Valley Snowflake Lift summit station amidst today’s snowfall
It was a cold one out there today; indeed, it was really a good day to just enjoy lots of indoor activities. But we did just have another storm push through the region, and the conditions on the slopes are good and keep getting better, so I still wanted to get out to see what the new snow was like and get some exercise.
Bolton’s Wilderness Chair was set to open at 10:00 A.M. again, and with the cold temperatures I definitely wanted to warm up with some touring. So, I decided to go with a session like the one on Thursday, which I kicked off with some touring before moving to lift-served turns. When I arrived midmorning in the Bolton Valley Village, it was 7 F according to the car thermometer, and single digits F is definitely midwinter cold. There wasn’t much for wind in the parking area at that moment, so I was encouraged by that while gearing up.
Catching sight of an old Snow Hole trail sign covered with snow along the Wilderness Uphill Route during today’s ski tour ascent
Ascending via the Wilderness Uphill Route was quite comfortable, since it’s well out of any wind, and I was generating plenty of heat. I stopped my tour at 2,500’, enjoyed a run through the powder along the edges of Lower Turnpike, and then hopped on the Wilderness Chair for a ride. My body was warmed up for the touring and Telemark turns, and the wind was happily at my back while I was on the lift, but I could tell it was pretty brutal up there at the Wilderness Summit above 3,000’. The calm conditions from below were gone, and the biting winds along the ridgelines made their presence known. After that trip, I didn’t have much interest in heading up to check out the Vista Summit, so I just stayed low and enjoyed a run off the Snowflake Chair. The warm-up touring definitely helped me stay comfortably warm for a couple of lift rides at least before I headed home.
Powder depths have obviously been bolstered by this most recent system, and conditions are good, but certainly nothing stratospheric for the Northern Greens. One factor in that assessment is that this latest storm was nice, but the snow was quite dry, and it was less of a resurfacing than the previous storm. We picked up about 0.20” of liquid equivalent from this system compared to 0.40” of liquid equivalent from the previous one, so scale those up a bit according for Bolton’s elevation and it gives you a sense for their contributions to resurfacing. The resort is opening more terrain all the time, but lift-served natural snow terrain could still use another solid resurfacing storm with an inch or two of liquid equivalent to take care of the tougher areas. Overall, the natural snow terrain that’s open is quite skiable with good coverage and quality surfaces, and there’s a decent, consolidated base above 2,000’, but you still need to pick and choose your lines somewhat in those spots exposed to wind that get scoured.
The resort was indicating 3-6” of new snow in their early morning report, and I can’t separate out accumulations from this storm specifically, but the changes in surface snow depths between Thursday and today give a sense of the contributions from this most recent event at various elevations. Thursday’s surface snow depths are on the left, and the approximate depths I observed today are on the right in bold:
So, there’s a lot of nice, fairly deep powder above 2,000’, and it’s right-side-up and skiing great thanks to this latest storm’s snow being dry. My observations from down at the house have been giving me snow densities in the 2 to 6% H2O range throughout this latest storm, so indeed it’s some quality powder. The back side of this system has actually been aided by some direct lake-effect off Lake Champlain. The bands were mostly oriented to affect the Champlain Valley earlier in the morning, but as midday approached, the bands shifted such that they were more directly hitting the mountains. That definitely helped keep it extra snowy throughout the day and boost accumulations.
Enjoying some of the snowy trees in the Wilderness glades on my ski tour this morning at Bolton Valley
Tomorrow is supposed to be even a bit colder than today, so if I head out it will just be for a tour vs. riding any lifts. After the warming and consolidation earlier this week, it looks like Timberline is probably getting in shape to support some good touring and powder skiing again, so I may stay low and tour there if a ski session comes together. We’ll see how much additional snow the resort is reporting in the morning, but since we were getting hit at our place by those lake effect bands right into the evening today, Bolton should have been getting even more of that snow. The models suggest we’ve got another couple of clippers affecting the area over the next few days, with warmer temperatures as well, so that’s looking nice moving into the holiday week.
The mountains made out great from our most recent system and offered some nice powder for those getting out to the slopes.
Per the discussion in the NNE Winter Thread at American Weather Forums last night, our most recent winter storm system started up yesterday afternoon. Snow levels were up above 1,000’ to start, but they gradually came down in elevation, and the valleys were reporting a mix of rain and snow in the evening. By 7:00 P.M. we started getting initial slushy accumulations on elevated surfaces down here at the 500-foot elevation, and it took a bit more time for the temperatures to drop below freezing, but within a couple of hours they’d fallen enough that the accumulations really started to take hold. Although we only had an inch or two of snow accumulation in total here at our site, we picked up 0.40 inches of liquid equivalent from the system, so the snow for the local mountains probably had at least a half inch of liquid in it. That’s definitely enough to get into the realm of a modest resurfacing.
When I saw Bolton Valley’s initial early morning report of 3 to 4 inches of snow, I decided that mid-fats were the practical play for today’s skis. Dylan had the day off from work, and I’d planned to get him up if the morning snowfall numbers were substantial enough, but 3-4” was modest enough that I decided to let him sleep in and I headed up by myself to sample what the storm had brought us. Heading up the Bolton Valley Access Road, the elevation dependence of the snowfall was stark: I had ascended above 1,000’ before there was really more than a trace of new accumulation in that area. And even after that, accumulations were slow to increase; it wasn’t until I hit the Bolton Valley Village at 2,000’ that I really felt the accumulation were substantial enough that they were going to make a big impact on the skiing.
I did find 3 to 4 inches of new snow at 2,000’ when I did some checks around the Village, so that was encouraging – if the main base had that much new accumulation at that point, it was likely going to be more in the higher elevations. The Wilderness Double Chair was scheduled to start running at 10:00 A.M., so my plan was to kick off the day’s ski session with some touring before Wilderness lift access was available. I ascended up to ~2,700’ to one of my usual transition points by the time lift-service was underway, so my initial descent was from there. My descent was via a combination of Cougar and Lower Turnpike, and the powder turns were excellent. On low-angle terrain, the new snow was substantial enough that it easily provided 100% bottomless powder turns, and on medium-angle terrain I’d say it was in the range of ~80% bottomless turns. The new snow was medium weight powder in probably the 8% H2O range, and just dry enough that you could keep moving fine on even low-angle terrain.
When I’d descended to the base of the Wilderness Chair it was one wind hold, and they suspected it would be about 30 minutes before it would be back up, so I checked out the other lift offerings. The Snowflake Chair provided some great turns with a few inches of powder over a groomed base on Sprig O’ Pine, and off the Mid Mountain Chair, Beech Seal had excellent natural accumulations that had resurfaced even the manmade snow on the skier’s left to a good degree. Off the Vista Quad Chair, Sherman’s Pass is finally open, so I used it to make my way back over toward the Wilderness terrain, which delivered great natural snow turns as usual. Riding the Vista Quad, I found that the winds were howling above 3,000’, and temperatures were dropping well into the 20s F. It was getting bitter up there.
In terms of snowfall and accumulations, there was at least light to moderate snowfall during my entire ski session, and it was pounding 1-2”/hour snowfall for a while just as I was starting the initial ascent of my ski tour. With continued snowfall and rates like that, it wasn’t surprising that accumulations had jumped up a bit from the initial morning report. Here’s the approximate snow accumulations profile I found from this event as of about midday when I was leaving the mountain:
Heavy snowfall in the 1 to 2-inch per hour range hit the resort today just as I was beginning my ski tour to kick off the day’s ski session.
It was really windy up at the Vista Summit, and I couldn’t get access to the usual protected spots I like to use to gauge depth, so what I’ve put down is my best estimate. Overall though, isolating depths for the snow from this most recent storm was relatively easy because we had some warmth earlier this week that consolidated the top of the snowpack. Like with the last storm though, it’s not a rock-hard subsurface – it’s a spongy interface and the new snow has bonded well to it, so that’s great for the skiing. For the elevations below 1,500’, those depths reported above are actually more than what was there when I initially ascended the access road in the morning, because the heavy snowfall during the morning had added accumulations there that hadn’t been present earlier. I was surprised that the base of Timberline at 1,500’ only had an inch or two of new snow, so even being where the precipitation fell as all snow wasn’t quite enough to get solid accumulations that would dramatically affect the resurfacing of the slopes; you really needed another 500 feet or so to get into the best stuff.
The continued snowfall today was definitely having an effect though, as evidenced by some of the midday updates to the Bolton Valley Snow Report:
10:30am Update: How’s about a couple of rope drops? Glades, Swing, Fanny and more have joined the ranks since we opened this morning, and the snow is still coming down.
12:15pm Update: The ropes keep dropping – we’re adding Bolton Outlaw, Peggy Dow’s, Cougar, Old Turnpike, and Lower crossover to the mix!
This storm was a great way to kick the conditions up some notches as we head toward Christmas, and with a couple more clippers on the way in the coming days plus cold temperatures for the foreseeable future, it looks like conditions will be improving throughout the coming week.
E getting some fresh turns on Snowflake Bentley during this morning’s outing at Bolton Valley
With the additional overnight snowfall, Bolton was reporting a total of 9 inches from Winter Storm Gerri as of their early morning report. And, since the Timberline Quad didn’t open yesterday due to winds, today would also be its inaugural run of the season. E and I figured the chance to visit the Timberline terrain that nobody has really skied at all up to this point was a nice bonus.
Based on the conditions I encountered yesterday, I really expected the main mountain to offer the best conditions today, especially above 2,500’ where the snow was never too wet. However, there was always the chance that the lower elevation Timberline terrain would still surprise us due to all the fresh snow. After our first lift ride on the Timberline Quad, the lift actually had to go off line for a time due to a mechanical issue, so heading to the main mountain turned out to be the appropriate option anyway.
E dives into some of Winter Storm Gerri’s fresh powder.
Not surprisingly, there were a lot of fresh tracks to be had out there today, but I’d actually say the snow quality below 2,500’ was a notch beneath what it was when I was out yesterday afternoon/evening. Yesterday I was skiing in 6 to 7 inches of powder off Snowflake, but the bottom few inches of that snow must have still be fairly wet at that point because we found it had thickened up with today’s cooler temperatures. So, it meant that today we were only skiing in the top few inches of powder and contacting that denser snow below if we pressured our turns hard enough. As long as you had untracked snow, it was nice skiing, but it certainly wasn’t as bottomless as yesterday in those lower elevations. Areas with previous skier traffic ended up with uneven subsurfaces that definitely detracted from the quality of the turns. Thankfully, the dense snow didn’t form anything like a breakable crust, which would have made the skiing much more challenging. On our return trip to the Timberline Base, we did get first tracks down the lower half of Tattle Tale, and that was really sweet, even if the powder wasn’t as bottomless as it would have been yesterday.
Thanks to some heavy snowfall from Winter Storm Gerri this afternoon, fresh lines of powder were plentiful throughout the resort, especially off the Snowflake Lift where skier traffic had been especially low.
Over the past week, the weather pattern has featured these larger systems with ample snow and moisture, and the most recent one in the series is Winter Storm Gerri. It moved into the area overnight in the wee hours with an initial burst of heavy snow. The front end snow in this case wasn’t as potent as it was with Winter Storm Finn that came through midweek, so when we saw that Bolton Valley was indicating only 2 inches of new snow in their early morning report, we knew there was no need to rush right up to the mountain.
We watched the Bolton Valley Base Area Webcam through the morning and could see that up at 2,100’, the precipitation was snow, and it was quite heavy at times. Dylan and Colin headed up to the mountain in the early afternoon, and we asked them to give us an update on what they found. Their impressions were that the snow surfaces were rather wet, and they said the precipitation was even mixed with rain in the lower elevations at times, so E figured that instead of skiing, she’d hold off until the snow got better. I took another look at the webcam feed and saw that there was heavy snow falling, and decided that it would definitely be worth it to head up for some lift-served runs.
Heavy snowfall in the Bolton Valley Village this afternoon as Winter Storm Gerri continues to affect the area
Heading up the Bolton Valley Access Road, the precipitation switched over to all snow at roughly the 1,000’ elevation, and above that the road was quickly covered. The road conditions must have been getting a bit slick with the new snowfall because I had to drive around a van that was stuck trying to make it up the steep s-curve below Timberline. I had actually planned to park at Timberline and start my session there, but the Timberline Quad was apparently on wind hold, so I had to continue on up to the main base area. I arrived up in the Village to very heavy snowfall in the 1 to 2 inch per hour range, and with the intensity of that snowfall, there was just no way that the turns weren’t going to be great.
Arriving up in the Bolton Valley Village this afternoon I was greeted steady snowfall and cars quickly getting covered in new snow
During my afternoon session I managed to get in runs on all the rest of the lifts, and heavy snow continued to pound the resort at all elevations. It was windy, especially at the Vista and Wilderness Summits above 3,000’, but thankfully the wind was from the west and at your back while you rode the lifts. After my first couple of runs, the lights were coming on, and I got to ski Spillway in night mode. I always find it exciting to be able to ski something that steep under the lights, and I knew that the conditions on Spillway were going to be really good because you couldn’t hear anything from the turns of the skiers and snowboarders below you as you passed over them on the Vista Quad. Indeed, my own experience on the trail revealed that the conditions on Spillway were simply fantastic; new snow was falling so heavily that it must have been covering up an slick spots faster than skiers could push the snow away.
I did notice that below the Mid Mountain elevations (~2,500’), the groomed/packed ski surfaces did have that “wet pack” feel that I’ve encountered in the lower elevations of Whistler Blackcomb. That’s usually a sign that some very wet snow has fallen and was packed by skier traffic. I could see what Dylan was talking about with respect to the wet surface conditions, but at the point that I was up there, those conditions were hard to find because temperatures were falling, and it was snowing so hard that those types of wet surfaces were covered up in all but the highest traffic areas. Some of the best turns I found were near the end of my ski session when I visited the Snowflake Chair. That area hadn’t seen much skier traffic, so I found a lot of fresh powder that skied beautifully. I did numerous depth checks and was consistently getting new snow depths of 6 to 7 inches. There was enough powder there that I questioned whether it was all from just this storm, but when Bolton’s afternoon snow update came in and they were reporting storm totals of 5 to 7 inches, that nicely corroborated my measurements.
All this new snow is a great addition to the snowpack, but even without it, one thing I noticed while out on the mountain today was the huge jump that the snowpack has taken since last weekend. I hadn’t been up to the mountain since Sunday, and at that time, patrol was just starting to open up more areas of natural snow terrain as coverage improved thanks to Winter Storm Ember. The contributions made by Winter Storm Finn must have been huge though, because the resort has now been able to open up just about everything, and everywhere I looked this evening, coverage felt like midwinter. As I look back now at my storm data, I guess I see the difference – Winter Storm Ember dropped 0.69 inches of liquid equivalent here at our site, while Winter Storm Finn dropped 1.99 inches of liquid equivalent. That’s almost triple the amount of liquid, and when you get up around 2 inches of liquid equivalent, that starts to become a serious resurfacing of the slopes. Winter Storm Gerri has already dropped about an inch of liquid equivalent here at the house, and the back side snow is still coming through, so that’s simply adding yet another great layer to the snowpack. All told, this past week of storms has dropped almost 4 inches of liquid equivalent here at our house in the valley, so it must have put down at least 4 to 5 inches plus of liquid equivalent for the mountains. When I look at the numbers, I realize now why the snowpack seems to have improved so much so quickly. When I was riding the Wilderness Chair today, I actually saw a ski patroller skiing the headwall of the Wilderness Lift Line to check the snow. You know the snowpack is getting decent when that headwall is even close to being skiable, so the fact that he was even testing it speaks volumes about how things have gone over the past week.
A scene from the Bolton Valley Village Circle area this afternoon with snow from Winter Storm Gerri falling in front of the Hotel
Bolton Valley has already picked up more than a foot of snow from our current winter storm, and the Timberline Quad Chair is showing the results of some of the mid-elevation accumulations.
As of their 4:00 P.M. update, Bolton was reporting a foot of new snow so far from this current winter storm, and I’m sure they’ve cruised right past that mark with the way it was snowing up there when I left the mountain this afternoon.
The early morning report from Bolton was 6 inches new up top, so my wife and I planned to let a few more inches accumulate and then head up in the afternoon for some lift-served runs. That plan quickly changed around 11:30 A.M. when we noticed that their main base area live webcam was frozen. We checked their website and they’d updated the snow report to indicate that they’d lost power. They were working directly with Green Mountain Power and hoped to get it back up in an hour, but that was very much up in the air.
Even at the Village elevations in the parking lots you can see the results from our ongoing winter storm.
About an hour later with no change in operating status at the resort, I figured it was time to head up for some ski touring to get out in the new snow, since the potential for lift-served skiing was just too uncertain. When I first arrived up at the mountain, the snowfall was steady but I’d say only moderate in intensity. I did some quick depth checks around the Village to get a sense for how much new snow was there, but it was tough to gauge. In many areas, the new snow was so well blended with the old snow that it was hard to determine where the interface was. Overall, that’s a great sign because it indicates that the snowpack wasn’t hit too hard by the warmer temperatures on the front end of this system. In some spots I could find a thicker layer below the new snow, but even at that point I was often getting surface snow depths of 12 to 14 inches. Whatever the accumulations, there’s plenty of new snow and it’s coming together nicely with the underlying snowpack.
When I reached the Wilderness summit during today’s ski tour, the snowfall was quite intense, often in the 1 to 2 incher per hour range.
I skinned up to the Wilderness Summit, and touring traffic at that point seemed very light – there were just a couple of tracks down Peggy Dow’s. As I ascended, the intensity of the snowfall increased, and when I was up above 3,000’ on Wilderness it was definitely in the 1-2”/hr. range at times. I know it’s really dumping by how quickly my gear takes on snow accumulations during touring transitions, and this was one of those times where I was constantly having to brush off the snow.
Fat skis were the call again today, and this snow is on the denser side, so you want some pitch for the best turns. In terms of density, at 2,000’ the snow seemed to be a bit above the 10% H2O range, and up at 3,000’ it’s definitely drier; it’s got the feel of something in the 7 to 8% H2O range. The turns are great anywhere at elevation of course; it’s simply bottomless powder everywhere with this storm putting down plenty of liquid equivalent. I was worried about some of the water bars getting blown out with the warmer front end of this storm, but in general they seemed similar to how they were before. The snowfall didn’t actually slow down when I descended back to the Village, so it wasn’t just 3,000’+ that was getting hammered at that point – the intensity of the snowfall had definitely increased in association with the back side of the storm.
The mountain had been running at least the Snowflake Chair when I started out on my tour, so my plan was to swap over to mid-fats and get in a few lift-served laps to finish off the session. Well, when I arrived back at the main base, power was out again everywhere, so that plan was out the window. There was an easy solution to that though; I just slapped the skins back on and kept touring. I was initially thinking a nice little tour up to the Snowflake Summit would be a great way to finish off the session, but when I got to Five Corners I suddenly thought about hitting the Timberline Summit. I haven’t been up to Timberline at all yet this season because the snow depths at the Timberline Base are still a bit lean compared to the stronger snowpack above 2,000’, but that part of the tour gave me a chance to check out Timberline’s higher elevations. There’s been hardly any skier traffic over there, so it’s nearly untracked everywhere.
It was a winter wonderland out there at the resort today as my ski tour brought me around through the Bolton Valley Village, up to the Wilderness Summit, and even up to the Timberline Summit.
Heavy snowfall continued to pummel the area right through to the end of my ski tour, and my car had been loaded with snow in just the couple hours that I was out there. It took me probably 10 minutes to clean off the snow. The temperatures had definitely dropped as I was heading down the access road, and the heavy snowfall didn’t start to abate at all until I was below 1,500’. We’ve been accumulating better even down in the valley now that the temperatures have dropped below freezing.
Catching some turns on the Sprig O’ Pine trail at Bolton Valley this afternoon during heavy snowfall from our latest winter storm
Down here in the valley at 500’ our precipitation has generally been snow, but the temperatures have been marginal, so thus far we’ve had less than an inch of accumulation. It’s been a different story at elevation though. We’d been watching the Bolton Valley Base Area Webcam since this morning, and more often than not it’s shown moderate to heavy snowfall with some big fat flakes. Even from the webcam you could tell it was accumulating, so I waited until the afternoon to let some of new snow build up, then I headed up to the mountain for some runs.
Coverage has mostly melted back at the base of the Bolton Valley Access Road at 340’, and the precipitation there was a mix of rain and wet snow, but cars coming down from the resort had at least a couple inches of fresh snow on them. As I ascended, somewhere in the 1,000’ to 1,500’ range, the precipitation instantly flipped to 100% snow, and you could tell that you’d hit a critical temperature threshold. Up in the Village at 2,000’ it was pounding big flakes. There were visibility issues just like yesterday, but while yesterday was due to thick low clouds and fog, today it was due to the snowfall.
A view of the main base lodge at Bolton Valley – heavy snowfall greeted me as I arrived up in the Bolton Valley Village for some afternoon skiing.
Like yesterday, I skied again off the Mid Mountain Chair, and you could tell that the base snow had stiffened up where it had been groomed, at least up around 2,500’. From about 2,200’ and below, there was a notably softer base. At those higher elevations where the base was starting to tighten up, the new snow was definitely helping to take the edge off, but with on piste skier traffic, the fresh snow had been pushed around a lot, and you had to move off the groomed terrain to really take the best advantage of the new snow. In areas that hadn’t been groomed, there was no demarcation between the new snow and more recent layers below it, and my off piste adventures generally yielded turns in 12-14” of powder. The powder did get a bit denser as you dropped in elevation, but it was still quite manageable. I was on mid-fats and never even felt the need to switch to alpine turns; the snow was dry and consistent enough that Telemark turns were still comfortable all the way.
Heavy snowfall continued up at Bolton today throughout the afternoon while I was out on the mountain
The freezing level was slowly dropping in elevation while I was out on the mountain, and by my last run it was only right down at base elevations where the groomed base still had that initial softness I’d encountered. Driving down the access road at closing time was a bit hairy with the pounding snow and fresh accumulations. The road accumulations finally started to abate around 1,500’, and road surfaces switched to just wet below that. The snowfall rate was easily an inch an hour at times, and even thought it occasionally slowed down for periods earlier in the afternoon, it looks like it averaged around that inch per hour mark because the resort was reporting 4 inches of new snow as of 4:00 P.M. closing. If the snowfall keeps up for a while this evening like it did this afternoon, they’ll have another great shot of snow to cover up the slopes by the morning.
Winter Storm Uriel brought significant snows into the area right into the evening to set up for some great skiing under the lights tonight at Bolton Valley.
The system currently working its way through the area has been named Winter Storm Uriel, and it’s actually provided a nice addition to the snowpack so far. There hadn’t been too much coverage of its snow potential in the forecasts, presumably because it was one of those systems passing well to our northwest with anticipated front end and back end snow, but mixed precipitation and rain in the middle. I was in Burlington yesterday afternoon when the storm started up, and the snowfall came in with some decent intensity right away. Temperatures were marginal in the Champlain Valley, so the snow didn’t accumulate very rapidly, but there was probably about a half inch of new snow on the UVM campus when I was heading home to Waterbury.
I arrived at the house to find that Parker was with Ty and Dylan, and they had just loaded their ski gear into their car to head up to Bolton for some runs. Ty son was on his alpine gear, but asked me to bring his Telemark equipment to switch over if I came up to the mountain later. In my mind, I was certainly not planning to go for a ski session. It didn’t seem worth it to head up to the hill for what I thought was probably an inch or so of new snow atop the spring base that had probably gone through some freeze-thaw cycles over the past couple of days.
But apparently, Mother Nature was going to convince me otherwise. It just kept dumping snow at our house, and of course, Bolton’s Webcam at their main base showed the exact same thing as we watched it on the TV. I couldn’t quite get a feel for the amount of new snow from the webcam, but my snow analyses from the house revealed that we’d already picked up a few tenths of an inch of liquid equivalent in the snow we’d had. Before long, I texted the boys and let them know that I was on my way up.
I was really curious about the new accumulations up at the Village elevations, so as soon as I parked and got out of the car, I headed to an undisturbed location to check out the depth of the snow. I was surprised to get a new snow depth of 6 to 7 inches, and I figured there could have been some drifting around the parking lot area as there often is, but the measurement was quite encouraging.
It was clearly a wintry evening with plenty of fresh snow as I arrived up in the Bolton valley Village for some night skiing.
The timing of my arrival was great, and I caught the boys right at the base of the Vista Quad, so we all hopped on together for a run. It continued to snow steadily, and the conditions were looking really good – folks below us on the trails were making virtually silent turns aside from the usual steep and heavily used spots like the middle of Spillway. Up at the Vista Summit, I checked the new snow depth in the clearing right below the wind turbine and measured 7 inches.
The snow wasn’t enough for a full resurfacing of all pitches of course, certainly not the center of very steep, high-traffic trails like Spillway, but the periphery of the steep terrain was skiing really well, and mid-level pitches were great. Based on my snow analyses back at home, I bet the mountain had picked up a half in of liquid equivalent by that point. I’d say the quality of the skiing was just a touch below the conditions we had back on Sunday with the 6 to 7 inches of new snow that we found then; that round of snow may have had just a bit more liquid equivalent in it.
The boys were mixing things up with a bunch of runs through the terrain park on Valley Road, but fresh tracks were easy to get just about anywhere off Snowflake with the continued snowfall. While riding the Snowflake Chair, we saw a couple of guys skiing some of the unlit Snowflake trails by headlamp, and those were probably some sweet turns because all those trails were essentially untracked.
The snowbanks from a long winter season dominating the Bolton Valley parking lots, with the slopes lit up for night skiing in the background
Dylan sailing his way through a 360 during today’s session with the family up at Bolton Valley. Our most recent spring snowstorm brought excellent conditions for both powder skiing and hitting the terrain parks.
We haven’t seen much snow here in the Northern Greens since last weekend, and from what I’ve heard, the conditions on the slopes haven’t been all that remarkable. A more substantial winter storm started to affect the area yesterday however, and it seemed to hold some promise with respect to putting down several inches of snow in the mountains.
While the storm had only dropped an inch or two of snow down here at our house in the valley as of this morning, that snow contained almost a half inch of liquid equivalent, and with the temperatures being marginal in the lower elevations, it was easy to see that the accumulations were going to be elevation-dependent. The Bolton Valley snow report was only indicating a few inches of new snow as of this morning, but that was enough to at least get us to head up to the hill and check out the conditions. It seemed like a toss-up with respect to whether or not the snow would really be enough to kick the conditions into high gear, but there had to be more than a half inch of liquid equivalent from the storm at elevation, and that’s certainly enough for a decent resurfacing of the slopes.
We parked at Timberline, and right from the start, we were encouraged by what we saw. There were 2 to 4 inches of dense accumulation even at those lowest elevations, and as we rode the Timberline Quad and watched and listened to the skiers below, their relatively quiet turns suggested that the new snow had bonded well to the subsurface. Our plan was to head up to the main mountain, get a good assessment of the conditions at all elevations, and then take it from there. Up at 2,500’ when we got off at the Timberline Summit, it was immediately obvious that the conditions were going to be good. The new snow had clearly put down a resurfacing that was incorporated well into the grooming and created a soft, quiet surface that let you cut right into it with your carves. We next took a trip up the Vista Quad, and the conditions above 3,000’ were even better. The sides of Alta Vista yielded excellent turns, and my depth checks were coming in with 6 to 7 inches of new snow.
We were treated to wintry scenes and great snow all around the resort today compliments of our latest winter storm.
We’d met up with some colleagues from work and their families, and our group spent much of the afternoon roaming around the main mountain, venturing from Vista to Wilderness, with a lot of time spent on Snowflake. The boys were having some great fun on the jumps in the terrain park, and with the usual low traffic of Snowflake, the trails held plenty of untracked lines. When we were over on Wilderness, just about everyone hit the Wilderness Woods and had some great turns, and those of us inclined to hit the trees off Snowflake were treated to run after run of untracked powder through some very nice lines.
We spent a lot of time today catching up on some powder skiing in the trees today, and the conditions were excellent thanks to this most recent winter storm.
We finished off our day with a long run down from the Vista Summit to the Timberline Base, and based on that run it was very evident that the main mountain was the place to be today for the best powder and groomed surfaces. The snow below 2,000’ was still decent, but as we’d seen, the accumulations were a bit less, and the powder a bit denser. Up on the main mountain was definitely where the best snow was located, and skier traffic was quite light. It’s March after all, and since this wasn’t an obvious slam dunk storm cycle, I’m sure there were many folks that opted not to make the trip to the mountain for conditions that probably could have gone either way.
We had initially planned to stay mostly on piste for today’s outing, but the powder ended up being so good that Ty got in an excellent Telemark practice session spanning the entire alpine area of the resort both on and off the trails.
After a couple of great outings in the new snow on Friday and then again yesterday, I wasn’t really sure if I was going to ski today. I figured the snow would be settling or warming, at least in the lower mountain elevations, and combined with skier traffic, that would bring the conditions down a notch. Ty was still at the house for the weekend though, and when he was eager to get out for some turns, that easily tipped the balance and we decided to head up to Bolton Valley.
It was late morning by the time we hit the mountain, and they were already running out of parking spots at Timberline, so people were clearly eager to get out today. Once we hit the hill, it was easy to see why. Winter Storm Quest had departed, the weather was pleasant, and the quality of the snow seemed like it hadn’t changed at all. There had been some additional snow on the back side of the storm cycle, but even the earlier snow seemed like it was in great shape. Amazingly, it almost felt like it had dried out a bit more and the powder seemed notably less dense.
Skis filling up one of the racks at the Timberline Bae Lodge today
We had planned on a mellow day on the Telemark skis enjoying the groomed and packed runs, but that plan fell by the wayside a bit when we found that there was still plenty of untracked powder around, and it was of such good quality. We had a great time touring around the mountain and managed a big loop that hit every chairlift at the resort and concluded with a big long run down from the Vista Summit to the Timberline Base. Temperatures were very wintry and chilly up above 3,000’, and remarkably pleasant down around 1,500’, but still cold enough to continue preserving the snow.
We were most impressed by the durability of the recent snow. The surfaces just continued to hold up with incredibly soft composition and no signs of ice, even in high traffic areas. I know that we’re really skiing on snow from more storms than just Winter Storm Quest, but even the packed runs were just so enjoyable because on every turn you made, you could rely on encountering only soft, yielding snow. We’ve reached a point where the quality of the snow is so good that it’s actually dropped the difficulty of every trail down a solid notch. Skiing advanced runs feels like skiing intermediate runs, and you can definitely enjoy the steeps without having to dodge patches of hard snow. This aspect of the skiing was displayed prominently on the steepest pitch going down into Maria’s, where tight, high-angle, moguled terrain just seemed to flow because you never had to avoid ice or other obstacles. It was a great day for Ty to push himself with his Telemark skiing on challenging terrain, so I’m definitely happy he tipped the scales and got us out for those turns.
After a couple days of below average temperatures, we’ve warmed back up into the 20s F now, and with light snow falling and no wind, the weather was fantastic out on the slopes today. We started off with a run on the Vista Quad, and Alta Vista had nice powder and chowder available – it was enough to be bottomless in untouched areas on moderate slope angles. Our timing was perfect for catching the opening of the Wilderness Lift, so we did a couple runs there, then finished off with more runs off Vista and Snowflake. The resort even hit Spillway hard with snowmaking and it’s good to go – my wife and I didn’t ski it, but my son and his friend did and said it was fine for manmade snow.
