Spell Binder Archives - J&E Productions

April 5, 2024November 26, 2024

Bolton Valley, VT 05APR2024 (A.M.)

An image of the Timberline Base Lodge area covered in plentiful fresh powder from ongoing Winter Storm Tormund in April of 2024 at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont

An image of the steep headwall area of the Spell Binder trail in the Timberline area during Winter Storm Tormund in April 2024 at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — The powder has definitely dried out a bit as Winter Storm Tormund rolls on, but I still took advantage of the nice steeps of the Spell Binder Headwall on today’s tour, and it definitely delivered.

With Winter Storm Tormund still churning out the snow today, I decided to head up to the mountain for some turns in the morning. For Bolton’s schedule at this time of year, the lifts don’t start running until noon on weekdays, so ski touring was the natural choice for morning turns. I was initially undecided about whether I was going to tour at Wilderness or on the Backcountry Network, but I ultimately didn’t end up touring in either place. On my way up the Bolton Valley Access Road, I was passing by Timberline and suddenly realized… duh, that was the place to tour! I’ve been touring almost exclusively out of Bolton’s main base area this season because of the access to the superior snowpack depth and snow quality provided by being able to start above the 2,000’ elevation. The snow depth and quality down at the base of Timberline at 1,500’ just hasn’t been there until very recently, and it had been so long since I toured down there, I’d almost forgotten it existed. But when the snow is good, you can’t beat the convenience of ski touring at Timberline with its shorter drive and immediate access to nicely-pitched terrain, so once I was reminded, I jumped at the chance to start my tour there.

An image of chairs outside the Timberline Base Lodge adorned with a bit of snow from ongoing Winter Storm Tormund in April 2024 at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Partially-sheltered chairs lined up behind the Timberline Base Lodge have take on a bit of snow from ongoing Winter Storm Tormund

Skier traffic was light when I arrived at the base of Timberline, with about a half dozen cars or so in the parking areas. There was some snow falling when I started my tour, but at that point we were in a rather light phase of the ongoing storm cycle. I took depth measurements of the accumulations right at the Timberline Lodge as I was just beginning my ascent, and settled snow depths were right around 18 inches. From there, it seemed to increase by a couple of inches for each 500 feet of vertical gained. The resort was reporting 26 inches for a storm total at that point, and that would make sense for accumulations up around 3,000’ based on my measurements from those slightly lower elevations. Temperatures had cooled off overnight, so the most recent accumulations were drier and knocked the skiing up a notch relative to what I’d found yesterday afternoon. Overall, it was still a moderately dense accumulation of new snow, but it had a little better gradient of density for powder turns.

An image of a chair buried in fresh snow outside the Timberline Base Lodge during Winter Storm Tormund in April 2024 at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — This chair outside the Timberline Base Lodge was a sign of the recent snows from Winter Storm Tormund that had hit Bolton Valley even down at the 1,500′ elevation.

As I ascending the Timberline skin track on Twice as Nice, I was gauging my options for the descent. Even with the slightly drier snow topping off the ongoing accumulations, I knew from yesterday that having enough pitch was still going to be important for optimal powder turns. I was leaning toward descending on Twice as Nice itself, since it has one of the most consistent pitches among the trail selections – it doesn’t have any heavy steeps, but it also doesn’t have the required compensatory flatter sections. My leaning changed when I watched a snowboard descending the trail with his dog, and I saw that he was bogged down and coming to a near standstill in one of the lower pitched areas. That was enough to convince me to head toward Spell Binder, where I knew I would at least get to sample the steep headwall section for some solid turns.

An image of evergreens adorned with heavy amounts of fresh snow from Winter Storm Tormund at the mid-mountain elevations of the Timberline area at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Evergreens near the Timberline Mid Station elevations adorned with hefty amounts of snow from Winter Storm Tormund

As expected, the headwall of Spell Binder absolutely delivered. The turns were surfy and buoyant in the roughly two feet of fresh powder, and I could absolutely feel the improvement that had come with that most recent drier snow topping off the rest of the accumulation. Just like yesterday afternoon, it was another session of plowing into the powder as deeply and aggressively as you wanted, and you were still nowhere near the subsurface. As a bonus, even the powder in the lower pitched areas skied fine, and I didn’t have any issues with speed. Either my 115 mm boards had surface area to spare for my weight relative to the snowboarder I’d seen, or he had some other issue (wax, etc.) keeping him from planing on those lower pitches. It was a great powder session to kick off the day, and with the storm continuing to roll along, it looks like there will be more fresh snow sessions on the way as we moved toward the weekend.

March 11, 2024July 27, 2024

Bolton Valley, VT 11MAR2024

An image of Colin on his snowboard inverted during a back flip off one of the jumps on the Intro trail during a big spring snowstorm at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont

An image of Dylan skiing through a cloud of powder during a late winter storm at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Dylan puts up a cloud of smoke on Spell Binder as he blasts through the two feet of powder that our current winter storm has delivered so far.

With the storm cycle transitioning into its back half overnight, the upslope really turned on in the Northern Greens. Bolton Valley was reporting 20 inches for the storm total in their early morning update, so I headed up for some turns with Dylan and Colin. There was solid 1”/hr. snow falling in the valley and up at the resort, so I was worried about vehicles struggling to get up the Access Road like Ty and I experienced a couple weeks back, but the road was in nice shape and we made it up to the Timberline Base easily.

An image of Colin exploding through powder snow during a March snowstorm in the KP Glades area of Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Colin was on his snowboard today and simply exploded through the powder whenever he had the opportunity.

An image of Dylan halfway through a backflip on skis during a March snowstorm at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Dylan arcing his way through a backflip during the boy’s jumping session today

The upslope winds were roaring all throughout the resort, and the Vista Quad was not likely to get off wind hold at all during the day, so we spent our entire session down at Timberline. Relatively speaking, the lower elevations of Timberline meant that the winds were at least somewhat gentler, and the temperatures a bit warmer. And, temperatures were low enough everywhere for even the lower elevations to continue pulling in cold smoke powder, so Timberline was definitely the place to be. Even calling the weather “cold” is relative though – we’re talking “March cold”, which is nothing like “January cold”. Temperatures were well up into the 20s F and quite pleasant. There were no lift queues for most of the morning, so it was simply hop on and run laps until we approached late morning when more people started to arrive and others realized that Timberline was the place to be. We did overhear conversations from people who were arriving from other resorts like Stowe that were having wind hold issues as well.

An image of Colin jumping on his snowboard amidst a cloud of powder snow during a March winter storm at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Colin reaching for a grab on his board as he explodes out of the powder and through the air on Spell Binder

As expected with the beautiful right-side-up nature of this storm cycle, the powder skiing, and even the packed, on piste skiing, were excellent. We picked up 2.34 inches of liquid equivalent from the storm down in the valley at our site, so the mountains must have seen close to 3 inches of liquid from the event. When you get to those levels of fresh liquid equivalent on top of the snowpack, you’re looking at an unmitigated resurfacing of the slopes. And aside from the occasional scoured areas, a thorough resurfacing is just what we found. During our session, my depth measurements at around 2,500’ were indicating roughly 24 inches of accumulation, and I see that’s what the resort is indicating for their storm total as of their midday update, so that seems very much in sync with what I found. For our session, we made use of the solid resurfacing dump and jumped into just about all of our steepest favorites. There were really only a couple of very steep spots that we skipped (craggy cliff bands and super steep lines in very dense evergreens) that I knew wouldn’t quite be there since the snowpack below 2,000’ was a little too lean coming into this system.

An image of Dylan jumping off a cliff band in the Intro Woods area during a March storm cycle at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Dylan launches off one of the cliff bands in the Intro woods during today’s ski session. So much snow and liquid equivalent have fallen from this storm so far that you can feel free to launch yourself off just about any obstacle you encounter.

All in all though, it’s been an excellent storm cycle thus far, and the boys clearly picked a good week for their spring break.

March 3, 2024May 29, 2024

Bolton Valley, VT 03MAR2024

An image of Jay making a Telemark turn in some early spring snow in the Timberline area at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont

An image of the Timberline Quad Chairlift and the lower slopes of the Timberline area in early March at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Today we found a quiet afternoon with spring snow at Bolton Valley’s Timberline area.

I didn’t expect yesterday’s cloudy conditions and temperatures in the 30s F to do much in terms of softening up the snowpack, but with today’s forecast calling for temperatures in the 40s F, there seemed to be much more potential for softening the slopes. Temperatures looked optimal in the afternoon, so E and I headed up to Timberline for some runs. The weather for our session started out with a mix of foggy and cloudy conditions, and even a light mist of rain, but that quickly dissipated and moved on to produce mostly sunny conditions by the end.

An image of Jay making a Telemark turn as he drops into a run in spring snow on the slopes of the Timberline area at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Jay dropping into some Telemark turns in Timberline’s soft spring snow.

When I checked the snow report earlier today, I saw that some of the natural snow trails were closed down at the Timberline elevations, and that initially had me worried about the available coverage. When we got to the mountain though, coverage was actually much better than the trail report had led me to believe. Twice as Nice was indeed closed, but it wasn’t as if it was devoid of snow – there were bare spots on the back sides of some of the rolls that would have made the skiing challenging, so I can see why they had it closed. I though Spell Binder was going to be closed, but it wasn’t – they’d made snow on the steep headwall section at some point, so it had an incredible amount of snow. The lower parts of the trail that have not seen any snowmaking were under a sort of “soft” closure – they had signs suggesting it was closed, but no rope and most people were skiing it. From the Timberline Summit, Intro was open with wall-to-wall coverage, and they blew in so much snow in the gap above the Timberline Mid Station that the ledges aren’t even visible.

Conditions were definitely soft enough to get in some nice corn snow turns, but it wasn’t really warm enough to soften the snow too deeply into the snowpack. We found that terrain that had not been touched by other skiers was the best, because you could peel away a couple inches of snow without encountering the firm subsurface too much. Areas that had seen higher traffic revealed more of the firm subsurface and resulted in louder turns that were much less spring-like.

An image of Jay making a Telemark turn on the slopes of the Timberline area at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Stretching out for another Tele turn in the soft March snow

An image of a Rome snowboard in the snow from within the Timberline Base Lodge at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — A view from inside the Timberline Base Lodge today during a break from afternoon skiing

It looks like the coming week will feature some warmer spring-like days in the first half, which should be enough to get the snow softened more than today. Later in the week, the weather cools a bit and becomes more unsettled with snow chances. There’s nothing in the modeling yet that indicates a slam dunk March storm with solid mountain snows, but some runs show the potential. We’d need a decent shot of liquid equivalent to get much of a resurfacing, but the base is ready if we do get enough, and the more that falls as snow, the more terrain that would be in play for quality turns.

February 10, 2024March 3, 2024

Bolton Valley, VT 10FEB2024

An image of Erica Telemark skiing in soft snow during a warm February day on the Spell Binder trail in the Timberline area at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont

An image of the Mid Station area of the Timberline Quad Chairlift with a lift attendant and a pair of skis stuck in the snow on a warm February day at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — A pair of skis and the lift attendant at the Timberline Mid Station give hints of a spring-like view to go with today’s temperatures and snow

Today was forecast the be the warmest day of this current stretch, and while there was a chance for showers, it was sunny most of the morning. We had an appointment in the afternoon, but with sunshine and valley temperatures expected to get into the 50s F, it seems like too nice a day to pass up the chance to get in some turns.

We headed up to Bolton’s Timberline area, since the relatively low elevation and exposure there make it the best bet for the snow to start softening up. I think even snow on the main mountain would have been fine though – the snow was already nice and soft all the way up to the Timberline Summit at 2,500’ when we arrived in the midmorning period. With the soft snow and sunshine, today on the slopes had more of a March feel than a typical February feel.

An image of drops of melted snow falling off the roof of the Timberline Base Lodge on a warm February day at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Deep snow on the roof of the Timberline Lodge creates a symphony of drops as it begins to melt with today’s warm temperatures.

I don’t think the snow has seen too much freeze-thaw cycling over the past couple of days, but in general it was skiing quite well. I felt that my skis were sticking just a touch at the start of my first run, but that seemed to disappear quickly, so it was likely just an issue of working off some old wax or maybe some residual skin glue that had been left over from last weekend’s ski tours. We found the best turns to be where others were churning up the snow and getting down a bit into the cooler layers, but in general you could go anywhere. In terms of coverage, even the natural snow trails down at Timberline elevations are doing well, with a few bare spots here and there that were inconsequential in general. They’ll need some additional winter storms though for those lower elevation trails to maintain robust coverage into March and April.

An image of decorations by the El Gato Cantina station in the Timberline Base Lodge at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Stopping in for some après Mexican food today at the El Gato station in the Timberline Base Lodge

March 12, 2023March 18, 2023

Bolton Valley, VT 12MAR2023

An image showing a snowboarder on a curve of the Blauvelt's Banks race course at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont

An image of a snowboarder on the Blauvelt's Banks race course in the Timberline area at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — A rider out on the Blauvelt’s Banks course today at Bolton Valley. Temperatures in the 30s F made for a great day to hold the annual competition.

With no obvious fresh snow in the past few days for the Northern Greens, there wasn’t a huge extra incentive to head out for turns this weekend, but as PF noted with his report on the conditions at Stowe, the quality of the snow that is out there on piste is tremendously high. We’ve had a few decent resurfacing events this season, but this most recent series of winter storms including that low pressure from the Ontario/Quebec border passing southeast across the region on the 26^th, Winter Storm Piper on the 28^th, that quick moving system that came across from the Great Lakes on the 1^st, and then Winter Storm Quest on the 4^th, has probably been the best. We picked up roughly 30 inches of snow in the span of that week at our site in the Winooski Valley, and of course the mountains did substantially better than that. Moreover, being the late February/early March period, all that snow came in with a strong snowpack in place, more so than any of the previous resurfacing events. The snowpack at our house currently has 5 inches of liquid equivalent in it, so the mountain snowpack must be absolutely loaded. Suffice it to say, the past couple of weeks has been a setup for great ski conditions.

E and I found ourselves with some time yesterday afternoon, and the skies were clear with temperatures in the 30s F, so we headed up to Bolton Valley for some on piste Telemark runs at Timberline. The first thing we noticed was that Timberline was a very popular place for a Sunday afternoon, and that was because the third annual Blauvelt’s Banks competition was taking place there. Dylan had mentioned that he’d seen them building the course there earlier in the week, and that was an interesting change of pace because they’ve held it up at the main mountain in the past. This year, the course was on the lower part of Showtime, with an excellent view for those riding the Timberline Quad, and the course looked great. The placement of the course did mean that access to Showtime and Twice as Nice was restricted though.

An image of some of the tents found at the Timberline Base area for the annual Blauvelt's Banks competition at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — The Timberline Base Area was filled with visitors this afternoon for Bolton Valley’s annual Blauvelt’s Banks competition.

In terms of our ski session, we hit just about everything else that was available off the Timberline Quad. Even after a number of days without fresh snow, the quality of the ski surfaces continues to be fantastic. The snowpack can certainly take a beating as we get farther into spring with those seasonal temperature fluctuations, but even with temperatures edging a bit above freezing, the snow just seems to stay beautifully consistent. Most terrain has soft, winter snow, and even in areas at lower elevations in the sun where the snow was transitioning to a more spring-like surface, it continues to retain that winter-like consistency and softness. You can just lay into every turn and get a beautiful, smooth, quiet carve out of it. We stuck to on piste terrain on this outing, but I did check the snow off piste, and it still seemed quite light and powdery, even down near 1,500’ elevation. It looks like yet another system, Winter Storm Sage, has the potential to affect the area in the next couple of days, and the ski conditions will hopefully continue to be strong because any snow it brings should be going down atop the current quality snowpack.

March 4, 2023March 13, 2023

Bolton Valley, VT 04MAR2023

An image of Dylan catching some air while dropping into the KP Cliffs area of Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont during Winter Storm Quest

An image of Ty jumping in powder snow in the trees during Winter Storm Quest at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Ty blasts his way through some of today’s fresh powder in Bolton’s Timberline area today. Thanks to plenty of liquid equivalent in this recent snow from Winter Storm Quest, you could charge as hard as you wanted on even the steepest terrain and get soft, reliable turns.

I’m not sure exactly when the snow from Winter Storm Quest started up around here, but it was well into the overnight hours, and I’m not even sure if I saw any accumulation before midnight. So, waking up this morning to find over 8 inches on the boards for 6:00 A.M. CoCoRaHS observations meant that the snow must have been coming down in the 1 to 2 inch per hour range. There were plenty of large flakes falling at that point, and this morning’s liquid analysis revealed that the water content in the snow was 8.5%, or a snow to liquid ratio of approximately 11 or 12 to 1.

Ty and I got up to the hill just about the time of the opening of the Timberline Quad, and had a great bunch of runs while we waited for Dylan and Colin to join us. During those morning runs, it was quickly obvious that the new snow that had fallen had laid in a massive resurfacing of the slopes. The snow was actually on the dense side due to fairly small flakes up at Bolton Valley, and I’d say it was running a bit above 10% H₂O up there. The snow was dense enough that you wanted terrain on the steeper side to really have a good flow on the descent, and that was fine, because in terms of sufficient coverage of the base snow and any underlying obstacles, it didn’t matter how steep the terrain was. On piste, off piste, it didn’t matter; just pick the steepest lines you could find, ski as aggressively as you wanted, and you weren’t hitting the subsurface. We tested many of the steepest lines available on Timberline like the Spell Binder headwall and the Tattle Tale Headwall, and they skied beautifully. We hit steep off piste lines that I don’t usually find to be that great because their pitch is often too much for the quality of the snow or achieving bottomless skiing, and it just didn’t matter.

An image of Dylan jumping in powder snow from Winter Storm Quest at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Dylan tweaks some style into one of his jumps in Doug’s Woods during today’s ski outing at Bolton Valley

In terms of surface snow depths, our checks in the 1,500’ to 2,500’ elevation range were about 15 inches if we had to pick a best estimate, but it was really hard to tell exactly how much snow came from just this storm. The new snow was sitting atop snow from other recent storms, and it all just continues to stack and set up excellent surfaces. It snowed all morning, so that kept piling on new snow to the accumulations as well. Total snowpack depth is 40 inches or more above 2,500’, and the snowpack depth at the Mt. Mansfield stake being over 60 inches speaks to that.

An image of Colin spraying powder while skiing in the trees during Winter Storm Quest at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Colin spraying around some of that powder on today’s excellent ski outing

Later in the morning we finally met up with Dylan and Colin, and we just went around hitting some of our favorite steepest off piste lines all over the mountain. Timberline had no lift queue for essentially the whole morning, but after about midday, the temperature at those lowest elevations seemed to creep up toward freezing and the snow became even a bit denser. It was somewhat subtle, but you could tell when you skied a run that the powder in the lowest elevations was a bit thicker than it was above 2,000’. After most of the morning at Timberline, we focused on the main mountain for the early afternoon where everything was above 2,000’, just in case Timberline continued to warm and the powder got wet.

An image of Ty spraying powder while skiing during Winter Storm Quest at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Today’s powder had plenty of substance to it, but as Ty shows, it you could still spray it around with ease.

We joined up with Parker and his dad for a final run on the main mountain before making a big long run all the way down from the Vista Summit to the Timberline Base. Temperatures clearly hadn’t gotten too high to really ruin the powder because it was still fine all the way to the Timberline Base at 1,500’. Ty, Dylan, Parker and I finished off our day around midafternoon with a visit to the Timberline Base Lodge and some great food from El Gato, and we definitely felt like we’d earned a good meal with the energy we’d put into the day’s skiing.

It continued to snow most of the day, and after a bit of a lull around midday, the snowfall picked right back in the afternoon to the level it had been in the morning. So, we knew there was definitely more accumulation on the way. Back down at the house at 500’ that afternoon we could see that temperatures had definitely gone above freezing because some of the new snow had settled, but the mountain elevations seemed to fare quite well with respect to any melting or settling.

February 26, 2023March 9, 2023

Bolton Valley, VT 26FEB2023

An image of Dylan performing a twisting jump among the powder while skiing in the trees at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont

An image of Parker skiing in bottomless powder snow at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont — Parker surfs along through some of that bottomless powder out there today at Bolton Valley

Today had been looking like a good ski day for quite a while. The cold air was moving out to bring our temperatures back up into the 20s F, and low pressure from the Ontario/Quebec border passing southeast across our region looked to bring us more fresh snow. The weather models had been showing a nice shot of liquid equivalent coming into the area, and it seemed to hold some potential for a nice topping off of the current powder that’s out there.

I was working on some exam questions in the early morning in my home office and had the blinds closed, but I eventually finished off a section and decided to take a break. I opened the blinds to find that we were getting hit with heavy snowfall made up of some massive flakes that were nearly 2 inches across at times. The forecast did call for some snow starting around 10:00 A.M., but this was a bit early, and the intensity was impressive. A quick measurement out back revealed that the snow was falling at a rate of around 2”/hr., and it was stacking up fast and dry with that typical consistency of upslope champagne.

An image of Colin jumping amidst the powder while tree skiing at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Colin catching some air in one of our tree lines today.

For today’s ski session, the plan was to head out with Dylan, Colin, and Parker, and there’s nothing like seeing the heavy snow pounding outside your window to kick the mood up a notch. I didn’t wake Dylan up immediately because I wanted to make sure he had the sleep he needed, but when I did check on him a bit later it turned out he’d been up anyway. He hadn’t opened his blinds, but he’d already gotten a text and picture from Colin; the same huge flakes had been pounding down at his place as well.

With the new snow not coming in until mid-morning, we’d planned on a late morning start up at Bolton Valley. That timing worked out well, because they’d already picked up a few additional inches from the intense snowfall. And, the snow that had just fallen was the perfect consistency to top off all the powder that was already out there – my morning liquid analyses from the house revealed that the snow came in at just 1 to 2% H₂O. So, it was incredibly dry and set up some excellent right-side-up, bottomless powder skiing.

An image of Dylan skiing powder snow among the trees at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Dylan slicing and dicing his way among today’s fantastic powder up at Bolton

An image of Parker blasting his way through a tree while tree skiing in powder after a storm at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont — Parker blasts his way through one of the many tree lines we hit today among all the new snow at Bolton Valley.

I had a tour planned that brought the boys around to some of the lesser used areas of the resort, so they had a great time and got to ski plenty of untracked powder. I’d say powder depths we encountered were generally in the range of about a foot, and there’s well over an inch of liquid equivalent in that surface snow now. With the new champagne on top, it skied quite well and was typically bottomless in the case of first tracks. You’re still hitting bottom at times on the steepest slopes, but that old base is becoming more and more distant with every one of these storms that comes through the area. On that note, it appears as though we’ve got another storm cycle on the doorstep for tonight into tomorrow.

January 28, 2023February 4, 2023

Bolton Valley, VT 28JAN2023

An image of Jay jumping in the Wood's Hole area of Timberline after plentiful snow from Winter Storm Kassandra at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont

An image of Jay blasting through some of the powder left by Winter Storm Kassandra at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Today was the much anticipated opening of Bolton Valley’s Timberline area, and thanks to Winter Storm Kassandra and other recent storm cycles, we spent the day blasting through fresh powder everywhere we went!

Today was the much anticipated season opening of Bolton’s Timberline area, and as announced, they livened things up a bit for the event with free coffee and a visit from the El Gato Food Truck. Bolton Valley fans were of course excited to get the last main pod of the resort open for the season, shifting the alpine trail network up to its full speed, but even more exciting was the fact that the snow at Timberline has simply been sitting there and accumulating over the course of these last several storm cycles. There’s been some ski touring traffic in the area, but the Timberline Uphill Route hasn’t officially been open, so the visitation hasn’t been all that heavy. All this, combined with the fact that the back side of Winter Storm Kassandra finally put some of that classic Northern Greens upslope fluff in place to top off the snowpack, meant that some fantastic powder skiing awaited the visitors.

An image of Erica powder skiing in the Wood's Hole area of Timberline after Winter Storm Kassandra at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Th numerous winter storms we’ve had recently are really burying all those obstacles on the off piste and opening up lots of terrain as E demonstrates in the Wood’s Hole area

E and I headed up for the anticipated 9:00 A.M. opening of the Timberline Quad, and when we got into the lineup around 8:45 A.M., there were only about a dozen people there. The lift opening went off without a hitch, and from then on, Timberline was a lift-served powder playground. There was a mid-morning rush where the lift queue grew large, but before that point it was minimal to nonexistent. We had light to moderate snowfall for a good part of the morning when one of the small waves of low pressure in the area pushed through, and temperatures were about as perfect as you could want – they were on the mild side, but stayed below freeing to avoid any disruption to the quality of the powder.

“The Tattle Tale Headwall was even open, and that speaks volumes about the state of the snowpack right there because it can take a lot of snow to get covered. A couple more solid storm cycles would push it to that next level for hitting bigger features, but the snowpack is certainly in midwinter form.”

The conditions were certainly nothing in the realm of all-time by Northern Greens standards, but it was great, right-side-up bottomless powder everywhere we went, and even down to the 1,500’ elevation, the base depths are good for just about all the terrain. The Tattle Tale Headwall was even open, and that speaks volumes about the state of the snowpack right there because it can take a lot of snow to get covered. A couple more solid storm cycles would push it to that next level for hitting bigger features, but the snowpack is certainly in midwinter form.

January 27, 2023February 3, 2023

Bolton Valley, VT 27JAN2023

An image of ski tracks in powder snow on the Spell Binder Trail after Winter Storm Kassandra in the Timberline area at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont

An image of the base of the Timberline base area after Winter Storm Kassandra at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — It was great to be back at Timberline for some ski touring and powder turns this morning. Thanks to Winter Storm Kassandra and other recent storm cycles, the Timberline area has moved into midwinter form.

I was too busy yesterday to hit the slopes and check out the new snow from Winter Storm Kassandra, but Dylan was out at Bolton for some runs and said the skiing was excellent. He told me that he and Colin got third tracks down Preacher, which must have been pretty amazing. The snowfall continued right through the day yesterday though, and there was a decent signal for upslope snow on the back side of the storm cycle, so it seemed like today would hold some promise for great turns as well. My drive home from Burlington yesterday evening went from partly cloudy conditions in the Champlain Valley, to gradually increasing snowfall as I pushed farther into the mountains, to a pounding of huge flakes by the time I got home. The roads were snowy, but the visibility was the tougher part of the drive. When I measured the snowfall rate at our house yesterday evening, it was up in the 2 to 3-inch per hour range for a while, so the flakes were building depth quickly. And not surprisingly, those huge flakes were stacking up with impressive loft. When I ran a snow analysis at midnight, the stack density came in at 2.3% H₂O. We haven’t really had a lot of upslope snow on the back side of storm cycles this season, but we got some this time, and it suggested good things by morning with respect to the skiing.

An image from atop the Spell Binder trail with fresh snow from Winter Storm Kassandra at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — An untracked Spell Binder ready for some turns this morning

This morning I was on my way up to earn some early turns at Wilderness, when I passed by Timberline and realized the timing was right for the Timberline Uphill Route to be open. The snowpack has thus far been thin down at those lower elevations, but Kassandra definitely seemed to push it over the top and I had my first Timberline outing of the season. We had some outstanding powder skiing around here in mid-December, but I think today’s turns might have just edged out that period to set the new bar for the season. The snowpack was surprisingly robust during that December stretch, but the fact that we’ve now had multiple winter storm cycles, multiple inches of liquid equivalent going into the snowpack, and a skiable snowpack that reaches down even to the Timberline elevations, means a lot. The turns today were so very bottomless and effortless with all the new champagne on top, so it was certainly one of the premier days of the season thus far. Bolton is planning to run the Timberline Quad tomorrow for the first time this season, so that’s a sign that we’re really moving into prime time. They’re also planning on some nice additions to celebrate the day like free coffee, and a visit from the El Gato Food Truck, so it should be a fun way to get Timberline rolling for the season.

An image looking southwest into the Green Mountains from atop the Spell Binder trail at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — A view to the southwest from atop Spell Binder this morning, with the Green Mountains very much in their white winter mode

March 13, 2022March 21, 2022

Bolton Valley, VT 13MAR2022

A black and white image of Jay skiing powder after Winter Storm Quinlan on the Spell Binder trail in the Timberline area of Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont

An image of Erica skiing the powder from Winter Storm Quinlan in the KP Glades area of Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — As long as you knew the areas that have held onto good base snow, there was some great off piste skiing today thanks to Winter Storm Quinlan, as E demonstrates in the KP Glades.

Today was the day after the storm (Winter Storm Quinlan), and the weather had settled down. E and I headed up for morning turns at Timberline, and the conditions were great. It was still cold by March standards, somewhere in the teens F in the morning. The storm total reported by Bolton Valley was around 18 inches.

We spent our entire morning at Timberline, and just stayed there since there was plenty of snow even down to 1,500’, and there was still some wind around as we hit 2,500’. My depth checks generally revealed about 12” of new snow after settling down in the Timberline elevations, which with the density at the beginning of the storm was plenty to cover most on piste terrain. Initially, the headwalls of the steepest terrain areas were closed, since they had been scoured by the winds and thus not covered as well as they otherwise would have been. The traverses below them were in good shape though, so that gave you access to run after run of untracked powder on trails like Spell Binder. Eventually, patrol even opened the Spell Binder headwall, but you had to be quite cautious going down the most scoured sections.

An image of Jay skiing powder from Winter Storm Quinlan on the Spell Binder Trail of the Timberline area at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Jay enjoys some of that Winter Storm Quinlan powder today on Spell Binder

For off piste runs, you had to know the areas with good base depths, but the skiing in those areas was excellent. The usual steepest areas were still sketchy of course, as one storm can only do so much to cover up areas with poor base depths. E and I had a great run in the lower KP Glades, and when we showed it to Dylan and Parker once they arrived it the early afternoon, they were pretty impressed with the conditions as well. E and I left around 1:00 P.M., but the boys did a lot of off piste exploring in the afternoon, and my Dylan’s ski got a solid core shot to show for it.

“My depth checks generally revealed about 12” of new snow after settling down in the Timberline elevations, which with the density at the beginning of the storm was plenty to cover most on piste terrain.”

The parking lots up at the Village were already full when we arrived in the morning, so the Timberline Quad had intermittent periods with a lift queue as the people arriving made their way up to the main mountain, but thankfully those died off as people dispersed. Bolton opened the new expansion to the Timberline Lodge for the first time this weekend, and it looks quite nice. I hear they are also going to use it as rentable space for conferences and events, but it’s going to be a great addition to the space in the lodge.

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