Spell Binder Headwall Archives

December 8, 2024December 18, 2024

Bolton Valley, VT 08DEC2024

An image of Ty Telemark skiing in 20 inches of powder snow in early December at the Timberline area of Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont

An image of Ty Telemark skiing in 20 inches of powder snow in early December on the Spell Binder Headwall at the Timberline area of Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Ty blasts his way down the Spell Binder Headwall through 20 inches of powder during today’s ski outing at Bolton Valley.

Today, Ty and I headed up to Bolton Valley together for some turns, and since the resort has been offering lift-served skiing off Wilderness now, we decided to do some touring down at Timberline. With Timberline’s lower elevations, the snowpack wasn’t really reading for touring earlier in the season, but with day after day of snow since Thanksgiving, the snowpack depths just continue to climb at all elevations. The mountain snowpack is taking off, and the depth at the Mt. Mansfield stake is pushing 40 inches,. At our house at 500’ in the Winooski Valley, the snowpack has already hit 14 inches, so we knew Timberline at 1,500’+ was more than ready to support some quality ski touring.

An image showing measurement of the snow depth during a ski tour of Timberline in early December at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Today we found snow depth of 20 inches at the Timberline elevations, which was more than enough for skiing the on piste terrain

Indeed, Timberline was ready for prime time – at least in terms of overall snowpack depth if not yet its subsurface base depths or the density gradient of the snowpack. Down around 1,500’ at the Timberline Base, the snowpack depth was 20 inches, so that was plenty of snow for skiing. But unlike much of the snowpack up at the main mountain, there wasn’t really any settled base below that snow. So, there was a bit less flexibility in terrain choice, assuming you wanted to ski reasonably safely or didn’t want to risk damaging equipment. However, there’s more than enough coverage for the mowed/maintained trails. The only other issue with the snowpack was that the powder was of roughly equal density throughout its depth. It certainly wasn’t upside down, but without a density increase in the deeper layers, skis are prone to sinking quite far, and you can get bogged down or experience tip submersions. We’d both brought 115 mm fat skis, so that really helped to mitigate that issue in terms of overall floatation and the ability to have fun on any lower-angle terrain, but it’s something to consider right now when you’re choosing which equipment to use for an outing. We saw some folks out on snow surfers, and I bet these were fun with decent floatation as long as they were on slope of sufficient pitch.

An image of Ty Telemark skiing in 20 inches of powder snow in early December on the Spell Binder trail at the Timberline area of Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — There hasn’t been to much touring activity at Timberline, so fresh snow and fresh powder turns are everywhere.

We got out in the morning because we knew that there was the chance for temperatures to go above freezing later in the day, but if temperatures did go above 32 F, it seemed to be just marginally. I’ve mentioned in some of my recent reports that we’ve needed a consolidation event for the snowpack in certain areas, so in that respect the warmer storm that is expected to come into the area this week is helpful, but getting an inch of liquid as dense snow would of course be superior to getting it as rain. I can’t say if the storm will be a net gain for liquid in the snowpack down at our site in the valley yet, but it should be an increase in the snow water equivalent in the mountain snowpack.

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.

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.

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