Some of the great powder out there today at Bolton Valley
Yesterday’s snowstorm finished up with a few more inches overnight, bringing the local ski area storm totals to the 9-12” range. Just as important though, was the amount of liquid that the snow held, and based on the fact that we received 0.56” of liquid equivalent at our house, and Mt. Mansfield picked up at least 0.60”, Bolton Valley should have been well above the half inch mark. An inch or two of liquid equivalent would have been even better, but even a half inch is more than we’ve had in recent storms.
The amount of liquid in the snow seemed substantial enough that I decided to see how Timberline was skiing this morning. The last time I’d looked, it wasn’t quite there, but after our past couple of storms, plus somewhere near 9 inches of additional snow from this latest one, it was worth a look. As I parked at the Timberline Base, I met another couple of skiers who had just come down from a run, and were preparing to go back up for another one after a quick break. When I asked about the snow, one of them said, “It’s @#$%(#$%^ awesome!” I took that as a good sign.
I followed an excellent skin track up Twice as Nice, and generally found 9 to 10 inches of settled powder. However, in the lowest elevations there was often little to no base below that snow. I hate to say it, but rolling the trail with a snow cat would probably be the best thing to do in terms of preserving the snow, turning it into a base, and getting it ready to support lift-served skiing. The tracks of previous skiers definitely spoke to the quality of the powder though – it was classing Timberline fluff that had settled nicely with no wind.
I ended up making my descent on Spell Binder, and indeed the snow was awesome, just as that skier had indicated. The main detractor from the experience was that there just isn’t enough base snow yet to take the steep terrain with reckless abandon. I found 15 inches of snow atop the Spell Binder headwall, but I had to play it safe on that steep terrain since there are rocks lurking. So, even with the great snow, that offered champagne on top and a very nice “right side up” density gradient, I have to give the skiing a middle of the road sort of score because of the base. One more big storm and some settling of what’s out there now, and Timberline will probably be ready for some lift served skiing. Actually, the resort was planning to open at least the main snowmaking routes over there today, so a lot of the area should be ready to go if more snow comes.
The Vista Beast was out showing everyone what they should be doing today.
Our largest snowstorm of the year has been affecting Northern Vermont today, and while snow totals are generally under a foot, the event still represents a huge, sorely needed addition to the mountain snowpack. The snow was just starting up early this morning, and there was only 1.1” on at the house when I made my 6:00 A.M. observations for CoCoRaHS. What was very interesting was the density of the snow – it came in at a surprisingly dense 13.6% H20. That’s great snow to start out a storm and provide a cushion above the subsurface. The timing of the storm didn’t really lend itself to a powder morning, so I decided to try for some turns later in the afternoon on the way home from Burlington. Indeed it snowed all day, with snowfall rates up to 1 to 2 inches an hour at times. Winds had been pretty minimal with this storm, so as the snow fell, the ski conditions were just getting better and better.
“Indeed it snowed all day, with snowfall rates up to 1 to 2 inches an hour at times.”
I arrived up at Bolton Valley in the mid afternoon timeframe, and quick estimates from the parking lot at ~2,100’ suggested roughly a half foot of new snow had fallen. I’d brought both mid fats and full fats, but decided it was enough to go with the fat boards, so I stowed the appropriate skins in my fanny pack with my camera, and headed up the Vista Quad. Since people had been skiing the snow all day, you had to head to the edges for powder, but it was a good combination of denser snow and some dry snow on top, and that let you float. I skied Hard Luck up top, and on the bottom of the mountain I got to pay a visit to Glades for the first time this season. Coverage was definitely sufficient, but you will still contact icy surfaces below if you went in heavy traffic areas.
I decided to skin over to the top of Wilderness on my final run, and followed an ascent track that had just been made by another skier and a couple of snowboarders. They were post-holing their way along, but even though it wasn’t a pristine skin track, it was still a huge help to have their track set for me – measurements I made along the way revealed 16” of powder resulting from these last few storms. Breaking trail through that would have been significantly slower, even with the float of my fat skis. The rewards of the trip over were good though, with tracks on Peggy Dow’s in the deep. I was definitely glad that I had my fat skis for planing purposes, because the depth was getting to be too much for some of the lower angle slopes on the lower mountain. It was a fairly short and sweet session this afternoon, but the quality of the turns was very high. There’s been more snow falling this evening though, so there could be some great turns out there tomorrow. I actually saw a snow cat working at the base of Timberline, so perhaps the resort is getting ready to open it for the first time this season. This storm may not have been quite enough to get those lower slopes ready to support lift-served skiing, but it could be close.
Out at Stowe today enjoying some of the overnight snow
Our latest modest snowstorm delivered as expected overnight, with 5 inches reported in the upper elevations at Stowe this morning. That was enough to get us to head out for a relatively early start today, so we met Jeff at the Children’s Adventure Center to get Kenny and Liana, who planned to join us for some skiing during the morning before our afternoon BJAMS ski program. We had some breakfast at the Great Room Grill to fuel up (I got to try one of their highly talked about breakfast sandwiches), and by the time we were done eating, all the lifts on the mountain were open.
The snow from this storm was fairly standard in terms of density, but I’d heard that the driest and lightest snow would be found in the higher elevations. We therefore decided to head over to the Gondola instead of making runs on Spruce, where much of the terrain is at lower elevations. Although it was Super Bowl Sunday, there were plenty of people out on the slopes in the morning, and the queue for the Gondola was several minutes long.
“Indeed the snow had plenty of liquid in it and the mountain had seen a decent resurfacing, at least outside the high traffic areas.”
From the Gondola summit we took a run that featured plenty of time on Switchback, and there was a lot of good snow. Indeed the snow had plenty of liquid in it and the mountain had seen a decent resurfacing, at least outside the high traffic areas. The sides of the trails held great snow, and E and I worked with everyone on short radius turns that could keep them in the good snow. We followed up that first run by working our way over to the Fourrunner Quad, where we skied Hayride, got into the Chapel Woods, and got into plenty of other stuff.
Kenny getting after some of today’s fresh snow with gusto
What I quickly noticed in the morning was that Kenny and Liana had improved their skiing a lot since I’d last hit the slopes with them – they’re now skiing in one of Stowe’s programs on Saturdays as well as our usual Sunday program, and that’s meaning a lot of time on snow. In Kenny’s case, it meant a dramatic enough improvement that he’d be comfortable skiing with our group on Sunday afternoon. I spent much of the morning assessing what he would need to work on to really bring his skiing up to that next level, and that included slowing down and making both more and shorter-radius turns, separating his upper and lower body even more, and keeping his hands up for more centered balance. By the end of the morning I was confident that he’d be able to ski with our group, especially since I knew we wouldn’t be going anywhere too crazy because the snowpack just isn’t quite ready yet.
Even E got to get out and enjoy some of the fresh snow before her ski program duties today.
The morning had already been quite a workout, so we headed back to the Great Room Grill for some lunch, and then jumped into afternoon ski program to continue tracking down good snow. Luke joined out group with Ty, Dylan and Kenny, and we headed off for more fun on the Gondola, Quad, and Triple. We had a couple of good runs through part of the Nosedive Glades, which are definitely ready for prime time. Kenny definitely held up fine with today’s runs, and I think that he’s really going to have the opportunity to keep working on advanced techniques if he can keep following the other members and noting the techniques that they use to tackle steep and often tight terrain.
Next up on the weather front is the potential for another modest system in the midweek timeframe. We’ve still yet to have a really notable storm this far north this season, but these modest storms are definitely helping to build the snowpack, even if they do so at a slower pace.
Out for a short tour on Bolton’s Backcountry Network today to get some powder turns with the boys
Down at the house, snow from our current storm was just starting to fall around 3:00 P.M. today when I headed up to Bolton Valley with the boys. E had headed off to get some work done at school, so it was just the guys at home, and I figured that we should get out and enjoy the snow for a bit. After getting a closer look at the Cup Runneth Over glade on Sunday, it seemed like a nice, short touring option to try with the boys.
“Skiing in the upper section of the glade was pleasant. Even though there were a number of sets of tracks, there was still untouched powder around, and a good 6+ inches of it.”
The temperature was in the mid 30s F at the house, and the flakes that were falling here and there quickly began to intensify into a steady light snow as we headed down the Winooski Valley through Bolton Flats. Looking out ahead of us toward the west, we could see that that more intense snow was heading our way. With the marginal valley temperatures with this event, the mountains are expected to do notably better with the snowfall, and indeed that was borne out as we headed up the Bolton Valley Access Road and got into sub-freezing air. Snow was already accumulating on the road above ~2,000’, and the snowfall was much more intense up in the Village. The boys quickly covered up with their hoods as we got out of the car and into our gear, because the snowfall would quickly wet you down if you didn’t get yourself under something waterproof.
Lights were starting to come on for the alpine trails, and skier traffic was scant on the Nordic network as we skinned along World Cup and then Bryant. The boys hardly believed me when I told them that we were in for just a few minutes of climbing before we’d reach the start of our descent. Indeed that was the case, and we stopped along Bryant at the entry spot I’d seen for the upper section of Cup Runneth Over on Sunday. We relaxed and hung out along the top of the Glade, enjoying the snowfall and the comfortable temperatures just below freezing. Dylan immediately dove into his pack for some snacks, and ended up creating sandwiches comprised of Cheez-It® crackers with snow in the middle. One lone skier passed by us as she made an ascent up Bryant, but, aside from her, all we saw were a couple other Nordic skiers and a guy on snowshoes. With the fairly late hour, it wasn’t surprising that we didn’t see many people.
Skiing in the upper section of the glade was pleasant. Even though there were a number of sets of tracks, there was still untouched powder around, and a good 6+ inches of it. The boys practiced some Telemark turns and stopped down at the intersection with World Cup where the glade starts to dive down a steeper slope. I began the steeper descent, but after I’d made a couple of turns, the boys asked if they could ski World Cup and work on their Telemark turns; they just weren’t feeling confident enough with their turns to take on the steeper part of the glade, and that was probably a good choice for them because I did find the coverage a bit bony. They were definitely enamored with the clean, groomed look of World Cup, made all the more enticing with the coating of fresh snow that was approaching an inch by that point. The boys certainly had a lot of fun on World Cup, trying different variations on their Telemark turns as they pushed around some of the fresh snow.
The GPS tracking data from today’s short tour with the boys plotted on Google Earth
Once we were back at the car, I decided that boys could get a snack at the Bolton Valley Deli & Grocery, and we ended up also grabbing a couple of pizzas at Fireside Flatbread to take home for dinner. I’ve wanted to make use of having the pizza right there in the lodge for a while now at the end of one of these evening tours, and today it worked out perfectly. We had it in hand in roughly 10 minutes, so the guys at the oven were right on top of it.
We headed down from the mountain around 5:30 P.M., and roughly an inch of new snow seemed to be the total at that point, with continued moderate snowfall. This is a storm where areas farther north are expected to get more snow, so we’ll have to see how Stowe does overnight, but there could be some nice skiing tomorrow if the snow keeps up for a while. And the pizza from Fireside Flatbread was excellent as usual – their crust is one of my favorites anywhere.
Another Alberta Clipper meant another round of fresh powder at Bolton Valley today.
While we’ve still yet to get hit by a big synoptic snowstorm in Northern Vermont this season, another Alberta Clipper system came through the area today, and it began delivering a reasonable shot of fresh snow, just like the one last weekend. With the snow just starting up this morning, we waited until mid afternoon to head up to the mountain for skiing. By that point we’d picked up a couple of inches down at the house, and the snow was continuing at a good clip. Today also offered to bonus of being a somewhat warm reprieve from the arctic air, with temperatures around 20 F in the valley and up on the mountain at Bolton Valley.
I dropped E and the boys off at Snowflake, parked the car, and got my gear together fast enough to catch them on their second run. Ty was raving about the snow on Butterscotch in general, but E didn’t quite find the overall setup quite as nice as what we found on Monday. She said that the middle of the trail was good with the new snow, but the powder on the skier’s right didn’t cover and even out the subsurface in quite the same way that it had last time. Those subtleties aside, you could tell that there been another nice addition to the snowpack, and the snow from this storm was definitely denser than what we received on Monday. In fact, although it was still fairly dry at ~7% H2O according to my analyses from down our house, that’s still roughly twice as dense as the last storm. The snow certainly had some heft that helped cover up the old surfaces, but it wasn’t going to be flying in your face the way the snow from the last storm did.
“…the snow from this storm was definitely denser than what we received on Monday.”
Heading next to the Vista Quad, we took Spillway, finding some good turns, but again a notch below what we’d found on Monday. Ty worked the terrain with fresh snow off to the skier’s right, but wasn’t interested in setting up any photos; clearly the snow couldn’t quite inspire him the way the last storm did. E wasn’t feeling comfortable enough on her Teles today to stick tight to the soft snow on the edge of Spillway, so spending more time toward the middle of the trail, she had to deal with some icy, high-traffic spots. As we descended toward Mid Mountain, the boys toured us through some nooks and crannies of access roads in order to ski under a big bent over tree. That was a bit of a slow route, but you could get a feel for just how much snow was starting to build on the natural terrain. We checked out Beech Seal on the lower mountain – I hit the usual soft snow on the skier’s right and found it performing right in line with the other terrain we’d skied. The skiing was great, just a notch below the last storm. I hadn’t seen where Ty had gone on Beech Seal, but it turns out he’d snuck over into the little lane of terrain on the right beyond the racing fence. He gets a kick out of being over there, and of course he’s probably one of the only people who can comfortably fit in there and loves the fact that the powder is untouched.
Dylan, picking up where things left off last weekend
With Swing finally open, we next headed over toward Wilderness to sample some of the powder over there. Checking on the powder depth at 2,775’ on Lower Crossover like I’d done on Monday, I got a reading of 9 inches. That’s actually an inch lower than what I recorded on Monday, but that’s not surprising after several days of settling and now some denser snow on top. Most importantly, the net content of liquid in the snowpack has increased again with this storm. Every storm continues to bolster the snowpack over there, and we definitely had our best run of the year on Turnpike. It’s really been our go-to trail this season when snow has been lean, and it was just a heck of a lot of fun with all the new powder.
Ty later told me that he was working on his body positioning in the air with this jump – nice!
Although we still had daylight, the night skiing lights continued to come on as the resort shifted into night skiing mode. It was 4:15 PM, and I had to be in Burlington for dinner, but we decided to catch a final run off the Mid Mountain Chair – Ty really wanted another chance to ski his line behind the racing fence on Beech Seal. The snow continued to pour down, now with some larger flakes more reminiscent of upslope, and as we skied along I commented to E on how conditions were almost of the type we like for night skiing – fresh snow, no wind, and relatively warm. For those that went out last night to the slopes, I’d say they chose a good one. Ty got to ski his line, and Dylan followed along as well, continuing on to the second fence where the line ends in a bunch of brush. Dylan extricated himself easily though, and came out smiling.
We skied right back down to the access road through the trees near the Wentworth Condos, which is always a nice way to end the day. I’d say the mountain had picked up at least 2 to 4 inches by the time we’d left, and a half foot would be a reasonable way to expect the event to finish off. We’ve got a chance for another Alberta Clipper on Monday, and a steady diet of these is certainly a nice way to go until a bigger storm comes through to really give us a big jump in base depths.
It’s amazing what a little of that Champlain Powder can do for the skiing.
When Bolton Valley reported another four inches of snow this morning, we knew that we’d be heading up to make some turns. That amount of snow, on top of the four to five inches that I’d found when I visited the mountain yesterday, was definitely going to bring the skiing up a notch. As it turned out, it brought the skiing up several notches and turned it into what was for us, unquestionably the best ski day of the 2014 calendar year. That’s actually not saying much with the way the past few weeks had gone in terms of weather around here, but when Ty gets talking about having to ski blind because there’s too much powder in his face, it’s a sign that conditions are on the mend.
“…when Ty gets talking about having to ski blind because there’s too much powder in his face, it’s a sign that conditions are on the mend.”
The approach of an arctic front brought an inch and a half of snow to the house overnight, but as the cold air continued to filter in, more snow was wrung out, and we received snowfall of various intensities through the morning. Snow was falling up at the mountain as well, and with updates on the website indicating that new trails were opening, it sounded like conditions were getting better and better. While we had initially started to discuss both skinning and lift-served options for today’s outing, the opening of new terrain sealed the deal in favor of the latter; we knew that meant that the recent accumulations had resulted in substantial changes in coverage. In the end, with so many additional terrain options opening, it was clearly the right choice.
We finally headed up later in the morning to find the parking lot only about half filled, and after dropping E and the boys off at the base of the Snowflake Chair, I quickly got a great spot to park down near the end of one of the top rows with help from one of the parking attendants. I’d spoken with him before, and as I got my gear on, we chatted about how nice it was to have some consistent temperatures back – the past few weeks have been a real roller coaster with systems passing though off to the west, and he said that he had to pack a ridiculous amount of clothes each day just to keep up with the weather. In any event, winter was definitely in place, and as I look around at the falling snow and ski vehicles covered in white, it was a much more familiar look for the Northern Greens in winter.
Back to reality
By the time I got to the base of Snowflake, E and the boys had already completed a couple of runs, and Ty was raving about the conditions. They’d taken Butterscotch, and Ty said that there was powder off to the sides, but even if you didn’t go into the powder, the conditions were great. We hit one more run there, and then boarded the Vista Quad to hit some steeper terrain. We spent the midday hours trying out the steepest available terrain like Spillway, Hard Luck, and then Alta Vista. Not surprisingly, there were some firm surfaces on the middle areas of the trails where manmade snow predominated, but off to the sides where traffic was low, the snow was generally softer and there was plenty of chopped up powder and even untracked powder at times. The skier’s right of Spillway held a lot of great snow over the edge of the trail where the terrain fell away.
Ty finally getting his chance to ski some of Bolton’s steeper terrain on the great snow today.
After a few runs, E was getting a bit cold, and Dylan was ready for a break, but Ty was just too jazzed to go in. He wanted to stay out with me and shoot some photos, so I told him that I had two specific runs in mind. We kicked things off with a run down Spillway, where he dissected all the potential powdery lines off to the skier’s right, coming up with his own lines and photos that he wanted me to shoot. He was one fire on that steep terrain, taking on everything, even the occasional massive death cookie that got sent that way from the groomers. On our next run we headed over toward Wilderness. Although Swing was roped off, closing the upper entrances, another track was available off Sherman’s that gave us some lower access. I checked the snow depth as we headed over, and found 10 inches of settled powder. The Wilderness Lift Line was in nice shape with plenty of coverage and plenty of powder, and Ty managed some nice face shots.
Ty encountering some of today’s visual impairment.Ty keeping his head above water
We stopped in the lodge for some lunch with E and Dylan, and then brought Dylan out for one more run in the powder on Wilderness. They boys got some deep turns on Cougar, followed by a delightful cruise through the powder on Turnpike. Actually, we had to use the tracks of others at times on Turnpike, because the powder is now getting almost too deep for some of the pitches there. The snow had let up, and the sun came out for that final run to really punctuate the day. The coming week is looking quite cold, with single digits for high temperatures, but at least the snow is going to be well preserved for the near future. It was interesting to note what Powderfreak said in the Ski Tread at American Weather – that this week we just managed for the first time in 2014 to have an average snowfall week here in the Northern Greens. With that being the case, an above average week should be really fun.
E showing how its done in the powder at Bolton Valley today
An Alberta Clipper hit the New England region yesterday, dropping up to 10 inches of snow in Northern Vermont and continuing the process of covering up surfaces that were hardened by the big mixed precipitation event earlier this week. We had a couple additional rounds of light snow prior to yesterday’s storm, but there still hasn’t been enough new snow to resurface steep, icy terrain. As such, Bolton Valley only has their core set of trails open on the main mountain. I had fun on those trails on Saturday, but it’s still a limited number of options for runs, and with a good amount of new powder available, we decided to earn some turns and get some fresh tracks today. The Wilderness Lift isn’t running yet for the season, so we decided to pay that terrain another visit. Ty, E, and I had a great time there back on November 30th, and with the current firm, icy subsurface, we knew that the moderate pitches and relatively high elevation of the lower Wilderness area trails would be a good bet for powder skiing today.
Now that we’re back into a more consistently wintry weather regime, the Northern Greens snow globe has kicked in, and we’ve had a fairly consistent supply of light fluffy snows in the air. It’s not really substantiating the base snow, but it is creating quite the quintessential Vermont winter scene for holiday visitors, and it’s topping off the slopes with some serious softness. Another burst of flakes was just kicking off when we left the house to head up to the mountain today after lunch, and the snowfall intensity increased as we headed up toward the resort. Up in the Village we encountered temperatures in the low 20s F and steady light but accumulating snows. There were plenty of cars in the parking lots, but since spots were opening up with early afternoon departures, we secured a spot right at the north end of the upper lot.
“The descent was a peaceful glide through silky smooth powder, with only the occasional touchdown on the old base.”
We headed up to the landing on the northwest corner of the main Village complex, and got our gear ready. Quinn passed through and gave us a heads up on conditions – below the powder was a slick, icy base as we’d suspected. We followed a nice skin track up Lower Turnpike, and there were a few sets of tracks on the trail, but a lot of fresh snow remaining. A couple of guys came down the trail and let us know that the steep upper sections weren’t worth the effort because of the ice, right in line with what our beta was suggesting. Depth checks at the start of the ascent revealed 5-6” of powder, which represents the accumulations from this recent clipper and the couple of small bouts of snow that preceded it.
“…you could really feel the way the floatation afforded by our fat skis was letting us ride a bit higher and faster in the powder on those lower-angle pitches.”
We skinned up among steady flakes, enjoying the snowy views of evergreens around us, and when Dylan called for a break ,we stopped at the first crossover to the Wilderness Lift Line at 2,500’. I checked on the conditions on Wilderness Lift Line, and found that it had been hit with wind harder than our last visit – it was clear that although Turnpike had a few tracks, it was the better choice for snow quality. With Ty leading the charge, we continued on up to ~2,750’ before finally putting a halt to the ascent because we were getting into icy, scoured terrain. The snow depth up at the point had increased to roughly 7 inches.
The descent was a peaceful glide through silky smooth powder, with only the occasional touchdown on the old base. The pitch and powder were essentially perfect, although the powder was deep enough that Dylan would sometimes have difficulty keeping his speed up. Dylan’s Telemark skis (Völkl Gotama Juniors) are fairly wide, but nothing like the Black Diamond Elements and AMPerages that E and I were using, and momentum issues aside, you could really feel the way the floatation afforded by our fat skis was letting us ride a bit higher and faster in the powder on those lower-angle pitches. I was curious to see if E had noticed the effect, so I asked her how she felt about the speed of her skis on the descent. She initially thought that they were very fast, and figured it was because they haven’t been used for too many outings and had been waxed. I explained that a good part of that was actually from the floatation that the skis provided. Ty invented a new descent technique where he would kneel all the way on the tips of his skis with both knees, and in the powder it gave the illusion that he was just kneeling in the snow with no skis and flying down the mountain. We’ll have to get some video of that at some point, because it’s quite a hoot.
Ty dives in
We ended our descent back at the landing on the northwest corner of the Inn, and discovered that it’s a great spot to be if you want to catch up with what’s going on at the resort. After seeing Quinn at the start of our tour, we ran into Cam and later Josh at the end of the tour. We got to chat about the current state of the conditions, being happy that there are still great options out there for powder, but hoping that we can get some larger storms in here to start building the base. We’re in an OK pattern for maintenance over the next couple of days, and there’s a chance for getting in on snow from a coastal system as we head into Sunday night. We’re certainly a bit fat to the northwest to really jackpot with that storm, but if we can get some base-building synoptic snow out of it, it will really be a step toward terrain expansion.
Despite the dim light, there was great soft snow out there at Bolton Valley today
A strong frontal boundary has been draped across Northern New England for the past day or so, and this front is huge – it extends all the way up from the lower Mississippi Valley into northern Maine, New Brunswick, and beyond. On the south side of the boundary there’s lots of rain, and on the north side there’s snow and various forms of mixed precipitation. Here in Northern Vermont we’re really walking that line, and thus we’ve been treated to quite an amalgam of precipitation types. We had some snow on Friday morning, then some rain later in the day, which transitioned to freezing rain in the evening and overnight. Fortunately, the temperatures warmed up to around 40 F this morning, the precipitation shut off for a while, and indeed it was a wonderful morning to be outside.
The frontal boundary draped across much of the country is producing all kinds of weather
Naturally, the nice weather got me thinking about skiing. I didn’t actually expect to be doing any skiing this weekend with on all the messy precipitation out there, but the morning lull seemed too good to pass up. I checked the radar and saw that there was about an hour or so before the next batch of precipitation moved in, and that would be plenty of time to work out the legs for a bit on the Telemark skis. I also knew that the snow was going to be nice and soft, because the cold air has generally been in the valleys, and in fact the mountains have been warmer. The Bolton Valley Weather Station at 2,100’ was reporting temperatures in the mid 40s F, and that would definitely soften up even the toughest snow.
“…on my next trip I took Alta Vista, and that was the run of the day.”
I couldn’t convince anyone else to go up to the mountain with me, since the boys were having way too much fun sledding in the yard, and even with the lull in precipitation, E wasn’t thrilled with the weather situation. I had to go it alone, so at around 10:30 A.M. I got my ski gear together and loaded up the car. I was just about to drive out when I got a bit distracted. I saw the boys making runs on their sleds, and they were having a ton of fun. After we talked for a bit, we decided to have them head down onto one of the lower runs on our property that had a fairly large jump. My friend Chris has lent me his Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens for some testing, and since we’re unfortunately past the fall soccer season, this seemed like the perfect opportunity to put the lens to work. Let’s just say that f/2.8 rocks, and even with only winter solstice light for my 30D to work with, I was able to get down to around 1/2000 sec at ISO 200. The boys put on quite a show, and I was able to capture some nice shots during the test.
The boys were out really enjoying the snow today.
We probably spent an hour shooting sled jumps and putting the lens through its paces, and when we were finally done, I reassembling my gear and prepared to head up to the mountain. Within moments, it began to rain, and of course my weather window had closed. I had to wait until early afternoon, but eventually another window opened. It wasn’t as precipitation free as earlier, but it looked like it was going to be my best shot to get in some turns. Although I knew the weather was still warm up on the mountain, I wanted to get going – our temperature had dropped to 35 F at the house, and I didn’t want to have to deal with ice on the roads if the temperature dropped too low. As I drove west down the Winooski Valley, the temperature fell to 34 F in Bolton Flats, and finally 33 F at 340’ in Bolton, at the base of the Bolton Valley Access Road. The temperature hung there as I drove upward, and once I got above 1,000’ the temperature began to increase. I proceeded to drive up through several very interesting bands of fog and clouds, and by the time I got up to the Bolton Valley Village at 2,100’, the temperature had risen into the low to mid 40s F. Getting out of the car felt like stepping into the bathroom while someone was showering.
Holiday spirit at mid mountain today
With low clouds and on and off light rain, it wasn’t surprising that just a handful of people were out skiing, but the snow looked good. I hopped on the Vista Quad, and headed down Spillway Lane for my first run. I’d heard that Vermont 200 and Schuss were open, but I found their ropes up as I approached them. The coverage didn’t look too bad at that point, although with the soft snow I’m sure that too much skier traffic could have been detrimental. I continued on the Sherman’s Pass route instead, finishing off with a good run down Beech Seal that had me working hard simply because of the low visibility. You really had to be on your toes because you could only see a turn or so ahead.
Since Vermont 200 and Schuss were closed, on my next trip I took Alta Vista, and that was the run of the day. On the skier’s left, there was a beautiful mixture of soft manmade and natural snow, and the turns were great. Ty loves that area, so I wished he’d been there to ski it. It was good enough that I had to hit it again before I finished up, so I burned the legs for another round. The snow was soft everywhere, and the runs were skiing quite well, although if you ventured too far off the groomed runs into the natural snow it was mushy. You could also see that some of the natural snow trails were losing cover due to the warm conditions, and it’s funny to think that snow was probably melting up on the slopes more than down in the valley.
Since I hadn’t eaten lunch, I stopped in at Fireside Flatbread for a slice, and got to catch up with Josh Arneson. I told him I’d just seen the new trail maps with Dylan on the cover, and the picture was great. Not surprisingly, it was just me and a few employees hanging around, and it had that pre-holiday vibe. The pizza was great as usual – I went with a margherita-style slice.
When I headed back down to the valley, the temperature had dropped a couple of degrees in the Village, and I found the same 33 F at the bottom of the access road. Things were definitely right on the border of freezing up though – when I stopped to gas up at the Bolton Store, the pavement at the gas station was in a half frozen/slushy state, and you could tell that it was on its way to hardening up. Back at the house, the temperature had dropped to 33.1 F, and it wasn’t long before we were back below the freezing mark. There’s the potential for more freezing rain tonight, so we’re hoping it’s minimal enough to not promote issues with trees and power lines. Even though this storm has been messy, it’s likely that many areas will get a net gain of liquid equivalent in the snowpack to substantiate the base. However, we’ll need additional snow to cover up the firmness when the mountain temperatures drop.
Yesterday E had her training day for our school’s ski program at Stowe, and boy was it cold – it was below zero F for the entire morning. I’d sent E off with plenty of hand and foot warmers, and she made use of them. She actually cracked the lens in her goggles toward the end of the morning, but by then everyone was just about done anyway. I don’t think there were many takers for afternoon turns once the requisite training items were covered in the morning.
Things were a little different for my training day today – temperatures were rising through the teens F, and oh yeah, there was a bit of a snowstorm in the intervening period. This storm was one of those that comes out of the Ohio Valley and redevelops off the New England coast, and it brought up to 19 inches of new snow for the Vermont ski areas. Snowfall totals were a bit lower for the Northern Vermont ski areas, generally approaching a foot, but as my snow analyses had shown, there was plenty of liquid equivalent in the snow; as of this morning, we’d picked up close to ¾ of an inch of liquid in the snow and the density was close to 10% H2O. The snow was of course quite dry with the cold temperatures in the area, but it certainly wasn’t fluff that might be prone to blowing away.
“The snow depth at the Mt. Mansfield Stake isn’t quite to that 24” mark yet, but people are definitely starting to ski those areas of early season trees.”
For today’s training session, Claire assigned me to the level eight group, and when the instructors were dividing up the trainees in that group, they further broke them up by those who had already skied five days or more, and those who hadn’t. Although I’d yet to ride a ski lift this season, I’ve been out several times already, so I joined the former group, with Steve as our instructor.
“During today’s session, Steve brought us into Sunrise Glades, Birch Glades, and Lower Gulch Glades, and they were all in
pretty good shape.”
With all the new snow, Steve’s plan for the day was to let us ski a lot. Instead of working on drills, he wanted to work on group management (i.e., how do the coaches effectively manage their groups of students on the slopes) in between the skiing. This was actually a nice change of pace, since E and I have had plenty of sessions with drills for both us and the students over the past few training sessions. One new group management technique that I learned today was for brining the kids into new areas of trees. What Steve likes to do is to show the students the entrance to the glade, but instead of entering that first time, he goes around to the exit of the glade via the trails. That way, the students know what is in store, and are ready with a little more directional orientation for when they actually do ski the glade. We talked a lot about strategies to use when bringing the kids into the trees, and it was a good fit for the trainees in our group, because many worked with the advanced students and were indeed doing a lot of off piste skiing. Steve also worked on the partner strategy for ensuring that everyone is accounted for at each stop. We actually had a real-time demonstration of its effectiveness, since my partner John had misheard our lift destination on one run and ended up at the Gondola instead of the Fourrunner Quad. Since we knew he was missing, I was able to run over to the Gondola and retrieve him.
Grabbing the Tele boards for some afternoon turns
In terms of conditions, naturally they were best early on – we had a couple of great runs down Perry Merrill with good packed snow, and chowder and powder off to the edges. It was nice that Steve just let us rip it up. I generally found 12” of powder whenever I looked in undisturbed places, which is presumably the combination of snow from this storm and that frontal passage the other day. The snow depth at the Mt. Mansfield Stake isn’t quite to that 24” mark yet (22” as of this evening’s report), but people are definitely starting to ski those appropriate areas of early season trees. During today’s session, Steve brought us into Sunrise Glades, Birch Glades, and Lower Gulch Glades, and they were all in pretty good shape. If you were going for lines of fresh powder, you wanted to be on your guard a bit since there are still some obstacles about, but in many spots it was hard to tell that it was so early in the season. In areas that had seen skier traffic and had packed snow, you could just ski it and really didn’t have to worry about coverage issues. In any event, it was definitely nice to be back in the trees. Indeed those runs listed are the more moderately pitched, well maintained glades that are amenable to these earlier visits, but they’re very low on the mountain and that says a lot about the current state of the snowpack.
After some lunch and paperwork at the Great Room Grill, Steve said that we were done, but that anyone who wanted to could meet with him at 1:00 P.M. and work on identifying weaknesses in student’s ski technique and how to remedy the situation. Having done a lot of that over the past few sessions, I decided I’d just grab a pair of my Tele skis from the car and take a final run or two before heading home. I was just going to grab my mid fats and head back over toward the Chapel Glades, but then wondered if the Sensation Quad was open – if it wasn’t, it might be a nice place to earn some turns. With that in mind, I grabbed the fat boards off the rack, finding everything covered in a layer of new snow that had fallen during the morning. Once I checked in at the lift status board at the Spruce Peak Base, I saw that indeed the Sensation Quad was running. That meant that the terrain over there on Spruce would likely be pretty packed out, but I decided to just go for it instead of making yet another trip back to the car.
I took a trip up the Sunny Spruce Quad and made my way over toward the base of Sensation. There were actually very few people over in that area, but in terms of traffic, the damage had been done earlier in the day. There were still pockets of powder off to the sides of trials, but with Main Street closed for snowmaking, terrain was limited. Even the hiking terrain above the top of Sensation was tracked up, so people had clearly been doing what they could to get some powder with the limited acreage that’s currently available on Spruce Peak. In spots where the snow surface was down to manmade snow, the fat skis were definitely a poor tool for the job. I ended up just going with alpine turns in the areas where the snow was firm like that, because getting the fat skis on edge in a Telemark stance in those areas felt like trying to get a snowboard on edge on icy terrain. They’re just not meant to do that well. I will say that I notice the deficiencies of fat, rockered skis much less when I ski them alpine, so that may be one reason that so many people are willing to use them as more all around skis (or they just go in with the recent marketing trends and figure that’s the way it is). With my legs cooked from the morning’s runs, I was very ready to call it a day after that trip to the bottom. I really would have liked to venture over to the snowfields above Meadows for some powder, but they had that area roped off because of snowmaking below. It was looking so good in there with the tracks from when it had been skied – hopefully I can get in there on my next Stowe powder day.
The ski tour we took yesterday was certainly considered a success, since both E and Ty were saying positive things today, and Ty was expressing to Dylan that he missed out on some fun. With the prospects for a little more snow today from a passing Alberta Clipper, I figured another visit to the mountain was in order, and I decided to make it at the end of the day once the new snow had started to accumulate and top off the powder. I couldn’t quite convince anyone else to come with me since they were having too much fun sledding or doing other stuff, so it was another solo outing.
I wasn’t exactly sure when the snow was supposed to start, but eventually it looked like I was going to run out of light, so around 3:00 P.M. I finally headed out. Fortunately, flakes had just started falling in the valley, so I knew the snow would already be well underway up on the hill. Up at Bolton Valley, the temperature in the Village at 2,100’ was 30 F and a steady light snow was coming down. The flakes weren’t huge, but it was accumulating on my equipment quickly enough that gear left out took on a coating within a minute or two.
“Fanny Hill ultimately lost out to Work Road because the snow was just too good – 6 to 8 inches of fluff and hardly a track.”
After using Turnpike for the past couple of ascents, and seeing that skier traffic there had been decent, I decided to go for an alternative ascent route up through the Fanny Hill area. It would give me a chance to check out the skiing in that area, and still head over toward the Wilderness Lift Line if I didn’t find anything that seemed to top what we skied yesterday. My first interesting sight was right as I was starting my ascent on Lower Fanny Hill – on one of the small cross trails there was a group of folks hanging out in a protected nook in the trees, just sitting in a circle of chairs and chatting. I suspect they were from the Liftline Condos that were just beyond. There was no wind, so with the light snow falling and temperatures around 30 F, it was indeed a fun time to be outside; it just seemed like a fitting thing to be doing on a dark Sunday afternoon in December.
Upon reaching Fanny Hill, the snow looked good, so I decided to continue my ascent there and explore the surfaces further. In general there were the same several inches of powder above the base snow that we’d encountered on the Wilderness Lift Lineyesterday, and only when I got into the steeper sections of terrain near the top did the pitch seem to be too much for the snowpack. In a nice undisturbed spot along the edge of the trail at 2,600’, I was able to check the full snowpack at that elevation, and that came in at 13”. I’d say that consisted of a 6” base, and the rest was powder on top
I continued up toward Upper Fanny Hill, generally staying away from the Sherman’s Pass area where I could hear the snow guns running. Those higher trails like Coyote, Work Road, Lower Crossover, and Swing, held deeper snow and had seen much less traffic. They were definitely going to be on my descent route. I stopped my ascent around 2,900’ on Upper Fanny Hill just before the steepest pitches, because I could see that they were somewhat windswept and just didn’t have the coverage they needed yet.
I played it by ear on the descent, just watching for those trails with deep snow that had seen minimal traffic. Fanny Hill ultimately lost out to Work Road because the snow was just too good – 6 to 8 inches of fluff and hardly a track. That brought me over to the Wilderness Lift Line, and since we’d skied the skier’s right yesterday, I took the skier’s left today and found the same type of good snow. I’m sure Fanny Hill would have been fine as well, but after committing to Work Road I went where gravity took me. The rest of the descent back to the Village was just like yesterday, good soft snow, so no complaints.
It was getting pretty dark when I was leaving, but the group of folks was still hanging out in their little alcove in the trees – it was a good spot. As I made my way along some of the Liftline Condos, I saw a woman pushing something along through the snow – she made her way through some of the deeper snow around the back of the condos, and then was out of view for a bit before she got onto the street and I could get a picture I didn’t know if it was a stroller, or just some other sort of vehicle for moving things, but whatever the case, the fact that it was on skis was intriguing. Clearly it seemed to be somebody who knows the Bolton Valley environment.
Bolton Valley Village version of getting around
It snowed all the way down to the valley when I was heading back to the house around 5:00 P.M., and the temperatures had fallen below the freezing mark even at the bottom of the access road down at 340’. It looks like the next opportunities for snow are some light stuff in the early week, and then a frontal system later in the week.
