Timberline Archives - J&E Productions

January 19, 2025January 31, 2025

Bolton Valley, VT 19JAN2025

A posterized image of Ty Telemark skiing in powder snow in the Wilderness Woods area of Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont

An image of Ty beginning the descent of a line in the Wilderness Woods area on Telemark skis during a January ski outing at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Sunshine sets us up with some good natural lighting as Ty starts into a powdery line in the Wilderness Woods during today’s outing at Bolton Valley.

Today I headed up to Bolton Valley for a bit of afternoon lift-served skiing with E and Ty ahead of the cold temperatures that are expected to be around into the midweek period. The resort has finally shifted their attention to making snow in the Timberline area over the past week, and since it was open to lift-served skiing for the holiday weekend, we figured we’d check it out. It’s always a nice shift into the feel of Bolton’s full mid-season mode when you can start parking down at Timberline to base yourself there to ski the rest of the resort.

Midafternoon yesterday when I was heading home from backcountry skiing in the Jay Peak area, it started snowing as our Saturday system pushed into the area, but the precipitation changed to sprinkles of rain in the valleys as I headed south. We’d picked up a few hundredths of an inch of rain down in the valley at our house in Waterbury that gave a slight crust to the snowpack, so I was curious how high the snow levels had risen. I immediately checked the consistency of the snow when we arrived at the Timberline Base at 1,500’ and was happy to find that the snow was powdery without any rain crust, so even the lowest elevations of the resort had remained above the snow line.

As we ascended on the Timberline Quad, we could see that the lower Timberline trails without snowmaking still need more snow. Our long-duration storms from early January scoured a lot of the west-facing terrain, and the existing snowpack down at the Timberline elevations just wasn’t deep enough to hold up to that very well. Most of the natural snow terrain at Timberline was open, but it’s still just a bit thin to support lift-served skiing without some areas of brush and grass poking through. The areas where they’ve made snow have plentiful coverage of course, but seeing what was available, we decided to head up to the main mountain for better coverage and conditions.

The resort was reporting 4 to 6 inches of new snow in the past 24 hours, and 8 inches of new snow in the past 48 hours, so somehow the mountains just keep pulling the inches out of these minor systems that come through the area. Those snowfall numbers are definitely more reflective of the main mountain though, because accumulations down at Timberline were certainly less.

Up at the main mountain we decided to head right to Wilderness to ski the natural snow terrain, and it was indeed night and day compared to the conditions down at Timberline. There’s certainly been plenty of skier traffic at the resort since it’s a holiday weekend, but jumping off trail into the trees revealed the usual foot plus of light powder that we’ve been seeing over the past couple of weeks in untracked areas. On piste, the snow was nice packed powder wherever the winds hadn’t scoured it down, so we stuck to moderate-angle terrain below the Wilderness Mid Station and had some great runs. We even had some sun at the beginning of our session, and it was nice to have that light and a bit of extra warmth. You could tell that colder air was moving in, and temperatures were dropping through the lower 20s F, so when the clouds came back in ahead of approaching Winter Storm Demi, you could really feel the chill.

We headed back to Timberline as we finished up our afternoon session, and we did find some nice natural snow in areas like Lower Tattle Tale, but due to the shallower snowpack you had to be very selective and stick to well protected areas that hadn’t been scoured. The manmade snow on Timberline Run was definitely firm, and I’d say the disparity between the quality/firmness of the natural and manmade snow is far more than the usual at Timberline right now. The snow they made should be very resilient though.

An image showing a view of the new Miso Curry station in the Timberline Base Lodge with a customer putting in a food order at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — A view of the new Miso Curry station in the Timberline Base Lodge as a customer puts in an order

The opening of the Timberline area means that food service is firing up there, and this year in the Timberline Base Lodge they have Miso Curry offering food. It turns out that like the Miso Toh Kome hut up at Bolton’s main base area, (and other resorts in the area) Miso Curry is another offering from the Miso Hungry chain. We didn’t know that curry was so prominent in Japanese cuisine, but we shared an order of their katsu pork curry with edamame, and it was great. We were thinking it might be a bit tough though for families if the kids want something more typical to eat, but they can always catch that at the main base lodge, and Miso Curry seems to be a great addition to the variety of food available at the resort.

January 11, 2025January 24, 2025

Bolton Valley, VT 11JAN2025

An image of Erica alpine skiing in powder snow in the Snow Hole area after a couple of long-duration winter storms in January at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont

An image of snowmaking taking place at the base are of Timberline at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Bolton Valley has finally fired up snowmaking at the base of the Timberline area, so Timberline’s slopes will likely be opening to lift-served skier traffic soon.

Our recent long-duration system finished up on Friday, and the next winter system moved into the area today, so Mother Nature continues to deliver snow and enhance the conditions on the slopes. E and I headed up to Bolton Valley this morning to check out the conditions with some lift-served skiing, and there’s no doubt that the word is out about the conditions. It was midmorning when we arrived at the resort, and people were already parking at the third tier of Timberline and being shuttled up to the main base. The good news is that they resort has fired up the snow guns on Timberline, so they’ll probably be opening that area to lift-served skiing soon.

After the run of relatively cold, windy (and thankfully snowy) weather we’ve had for the first third of January, today was extremely comfortable with temperatures around 20 F, no wind, and light snow falling. So, everyone we saw at the resort seemed to be excited about that. The resort had received another few inches of snow as the previous system wrapped up, and conditions on the slopes were very similar to what I experienced on Wednesday and Thursday with a touch of improvement thanks to the additional snow and more grooming. The scoured areas were still thin on snow, but grooming had definitely help equalize and soften the conditions there a bit. Natural snow areas out of the wind continue to offer fantastic snow – and when that snow is groomed it skis beautifully; you’re not hitting anything under the packed powder. Off piste, there is a lot of powder as one would expect. We were finding depths of around 20 inches, which is similar to what I’ve been finding this week. In general, areas with that sort of deep powder are skiing fine, but it’s not outstanding powder skiing. The powder is of roughly medium-density, but its density is generally equivalent throughout its depth, so you can sink in pretty far and get a bit bogged down on lower-angle terrain. It’s not upside-down powder, but it just doesn’t ski as well as it would with a really nice right-side-up arrangement. Some areas did offer a better powder experience though. They have finally opened up more of the Snowflake terrain, and we found about a foot of powder over places that had either been groomed or had more settled snow underneath, and those spots offered some very pleasant powder skiing today.

December 27, 2024December 29, 2024

Bolton Valley, VT 27DEC2024

An image of Jay Telemark skiing in excellent powder snow in December while ski touring in the Timberline area at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont

An image taken from behind of Erica Telemark skiing in powder while on a December ski tour at the Timberline are of Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — E joined me for today’s ski tour in that excellent Timberline powder.

I’ve been telling E about the fantastic powder conditions I’ve been finding on my outings up at Bolton Valley, so today she joined me for a ski tour. I returned to Timberline and brought her on the same tour that I did yesterday, and the powder continued to be just as fantastic as it’s been the past several days. She was definitely impressed with the quality of the powder, and we talked a lot about exactly what was making it come together for such perfection and effortless turns. It came down to the fact that the gradient in it is just ideal; it’s right-side-up with no intervening hollow or dense layers. The top also has a subtle layer of extremely delicate surface hoar, or surface hoar-like crystals, and that really finishes off the uppermost layer of the powder with extremely dry snow to set the starting point of the density gradient. Anyway, the turns were silky smooth, and the skier traffic was very light, so there are still plenty of fresh lines out there for folks who want to check out some really primo powder. Tomorrow might be the last day of this current weather regime though, since some warmer temperatures are coming. Our next potential snowstorm could be coming in just a few days though; the models suggest there could be something around the New Year’s holiday.

December 26, 2024December 29, 2024

Bolton Valley, VT 26DEC2024

An image of a December sunset viewed from the slopes of the Timberline area while ski touring at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont

An image of ski tracks in powder snow with afternoon lighting during a ski tour in the Timberline area of Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Late day sun lights up some ski tracks in the absolutely stupendous powder currently covering the slopes of Bolton Valley’s Timberline area.

High-quality powder snow is generally ephemeral; it’s best skied when it’s fresh because it loses loft as it settles, and the bubby “champagne” effect is reduced. I say “generally” because there are times when powder can improve over time. We’re in one of those weather regimes now, and every time I head out, the areas of untouched snow just seem to ski better and better. The humidity is low, and each night we’re dropping into the single digits above or below zero F; it’s a recipe for great powder preservation. I already noted the improvement in the snow between my ski sessions on Monday and Tuesday, and here we are on Thursday and the powder just continues to impress.

I had some time to get out for a tour this afternoon, and I managed to catch some sunset skiing on Timberline. Since I’d had such good snow on Tuesday, I actually followed that same route today and stuck to Spell Binder. The top layer of the powder is just feathers, and it gradually gets denser the deeper you go into the snowpack, which is just the way you want if for skiing. I hadn’t been sure if the skiing could be any more effortless than what I’d experience on Tuesday, but perhaps it was today.

An image of powder snow lingering on evergreen branches near the Timberline Base Area at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — A view of some of the powder near the Timberline Base Area that continues to linger on everything

Touring skier traffic hasn’t been too busy at Timberline in the past few days, but as always, another storm would be welcomed. It’s certainly not that the quality of the powder needs a reset, but we could use a reset of the ski tracks on the trails. Untracked lines are still there, but they won’t hold out forever, and eventually new snow will be needed.

December 23, 2024December 26, 2024

Bolton Valley, VT 23DEC2024

An image of tree branches covered in powder snow in December on the Timberline area of Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Powder lingers in the trees as cold conditions have preserved the snows from recent storms in the Northern Greens.

The turns yesterday at Timberline were quite good, so I headed back up to Bolton Valley again today for more ski touring. Compared to yesterday, temperatures were about 10 degrees warmer today when I arrived at the Timberline Base. Even though it was cloudy all afternoon ahead of our next incoming storm, the warmer temperatures were quite apparent.

Yesterday I toured in the Twice as Nice and Showtime areas, so today I decided to mix things up a bit and spent most of the tour on Spell Binder. With our sub-zero F temperatures overnight, the snow was extremely well preserved, so the depth and quality of the powder was essentially the same as what I encountered on yesterday’s tour. There may have been a subtle bit of settling in the powder overnight, but I’d actually say today’s turns were better and even more consistent than yesterday’s. It’s hard to say if it was just better overall snow deposition and protection in the Spell Binder area, or the pitch was just right for the conditions, or the snow just settled a bit and set up an even better density gradient in the powder. Perhaps all those factors contributed to varying degrees, but whatever the case, the powder skiing was excellent out there today – bottomless turns with about 8 to 12 inches of medium weight right-side-up powder that made the skiing nearly effortless on fat boards.

An image of snow drifts and chairs covered with snow behind the Timberline Base Lodge after December storms at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Drifted snow and snow-covered chairs out behind the Timberline Base Lodge

Conditions are likely to change by tomorrow though, since another winter storm is moving into the area tonight. Winter Weather Advisories started appearing in the area yesterday afternoon, and both the advisories and projected snow accumulations from the National Weather Service in Burlington have been ramping up since then. While I while strolling along during my tour today I figured I’d see what my watch had to say about the weather, so I asked for the forecast. Since what comes from the watch is typically briefer than the phone, all it said was “The National Weather Service Office in Burlington has issued a Winter Storm Warning through tomorrow; it should be snowy tonight.” My first thought was, “Well, huh, that’s new; projections for this system seem to keep escalating as we get closer.” In the verbal forecast there was nothing about temperatures or anything else beyond the Winter Storm Warning and the fact it was going to snow, but I certainly like the way the watch prioritizes things. Anyway, indeed Winter Storm Warnings are up for the Northern Greens now ahead of the next system with potentially a foot of snow at elevation. We’ll see what tomorrow brings, but it could be another great ski day.

December 22, 2024December 25, 2024

Bolton Valley, VT 22DEC2024

An image of ski tracks on the Twice As Nice trail during a December ski tour in the Timberline area at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont

An image of powder snow on the trees and ground in the lower elevations of the Timberline area at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Some of the accumulations from our recent storms near the Timberline base

The forecast for today called for even colder temperatures than yesterday, but more snow from the back side of our recent clipper system continued to fall even into last night as the cold temperatures allowed Lake Champlain to contribute moisture for lake-effect snow into the mountains. Thanks to the moisture boost from the lake, we picked up 5 to 6 inches of snow down at our site in the valley, and as of this morning’s snow report, Bolton Valley had picked up 16 inches of snow in the past 48 hours.

With temperatures hovering in the single digits F, touring was the call for today’s ski outing, and based on what I saw up at the mountain yesterday, Bolton’s Timberline area looked ready for exploration. It was 2 F when I pulled into the Timberline base area in the middle of the afternoon, but thankfully there was no wind, and the afternoon sun really helped reduce the chill. There were a few other groups out touring as well, but overall, it looked like a fairly quite Sunday afternoon at Timberline.

The Timberline Uphill Route is in excellent shape, and perhaps because of the temperatures, skier traffic on the Timberline terrain has been quite light. The powder depth at 1,500’ at the Timberline Base is about 6 to 8 inches, and up in the 2,000-2,500’ elevation range it’s 8 to 12 inches. There’s not really much base below the powder down at the 1,500’ elevation, and it’s probably a couple hundred vertical feet up before you start getting a decent amount of base snow. Thankfully, the base elevations down near the Timberline Base Lodge are manageable with the available snowpack because most of the on-piste terrain there isn’t too steep. Above that elevation, the base is sufficient for great skiing aside from scoured areas, steep areas, or areas with underlying obstacles in the snow. The Timberline terrain can certainly support touring traffic right now, but there’s no way it would support lift-served levels of skiing, so we’ll need more snow or the resort will need to put some manmade snow down if they want to start up Timberline lift service in the short term.

As the lake-effect snow continued last night, the flakes transitioned from more dendritic to rather small and grainy, so snow ratios came down to the 8 to 10% H2O range for my last couple of snow analyses from the event. Consistent with those observations, what I found out there today was fairly medium-weight powder. It did a better job of covering the subsurfaces than super light powder would have, and it was still dry enough that bogging down wasn’t any issue even on shallower pitches. I was on 115 mm fat skis, which helped of course, but I don’t think most folks would find movement an issue with whatever skis they had.

An image of snowmaking taking place at the 4x4 Center near the base of the Timberline area at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Making great use of the cold temperatures: Snowmaking taking place at the 4×4 Center by the Timberline Base

A clipper system is forecast to start affecting the area tomorrow, and Winter Weather Advisories are already up for the western slopes of the Northern Greens. It’s not a huge system, but snow forecasts for the local mountains are in the 6 to 8-inch range and liquid equivalent is up around a half inch in some of the modeling, so it would be a nice boost to the snowpack and snow surfaces if it plays out like that.

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 24, 2024November 24, 2024

Bolton Valley, VT 24MAR2024

An image of Ty blasting through waist to chest deep powder on the day after Winter Storm Ronnie at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont

An image of Ty jumping out of the powder snow while skiing in the Sure Shot trees area after Winter Storm Ronnie at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Ty launches out of the powder as we navigate our way through some of the Sure Shot trees during today’s outing. Winter Storm Ronnie may have initially left us powder that was somewhat upside-down, but it improved a lot as the system pulled away and granted us with some drier champagne on the back side of the storm cycle.

This weekend has been an interesting dichotomy of days with Winter Storm Ronnie coming through – yesterday was an absolute blitz of a storm day as that session’s photos indicate, but the storm had departed by today and it was just one of those clear, calm, quiet, midwinter days with perfect temperatures that were just a bit below freezing.

I used the term “quiet” to describe the weather, but that in no way described the number of visitors to the mountain. We arrived right around the opening time for Timberline, and the cars were already pouring into the resort. I’m not sure about the lore behind nobody skiing after President’s week, but the number of people out today clearly revealed that such an idea is a crock. People continued to come to the resort all morning, and by the time we left in the late morning period, Bolton had an employee stationed at the bottom of the Bolton Valley Access Road and cars were backed up onto Route 2. I’ve seen them station someone at the bottom of the road when the road conditions are extremely difficult, or the resort is not running the lifts due to power/storm issues, but that wasn’t the case this time – there were just so many people coming to the resort that the parking was bursting at the seams. To punctuate just how many people were skiing around here, my friend Dave even came up from Boston to crash overnight last night at our place because he was skiing Sugarbush today. Apparently, everyone wanted to get out to ski after Winter Storm Ronnie.

An image of Ty slicing through powder snow in the trees after Winter Storm Ronnie deposited 16 inches at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Ty slices through some of the powder left by Winter Storm Ronnie during today’s outing at Bolon Valley

“And, when I see an image from today’s session like the one I chose as the feature for this report/post, with Ty blasting through waist to chest-deep powder, I guess it’s hard to complain too much about the powder not being as outrageously perfect as it might have been.”

In any event, the skiing was great, but the only thing that really stood out as exceptional was the weather. The snow had dried out and potentially consolidated in its lower levels somewhat overnight, and a bit of lighter snow had fallen as the storm departed, so the powder was not nearly as upside-down as it had been yesterday. The resurfacing had mostly been completed by the end of the day yesterday, but as of today Bolton was reporting a storm total of 16 inches, and based on my own liquid analyses from down in the valley at our place, the were 1 to 2 inches of liquid equivalent in there. I’ve definitely been hearing talk of it being the best day of the season, but that was mostly hyperbole with respect to conditions around here in the Northern Greens. If you just went by the snow quality and powder skiing, it probably sneaks into the top 10 in terms of great days because of the weather factor, but it really doesn’t come anywhere near the top five. Even this season, which seems to be running a bit below average in terms of snowfall, there have just been too many storm cycles that finished off with quality champagne over a substantial based and a good front end of dense snow that knock today down several spots in terms of the powder skiing. It was still and excellent day to be out on the slopes though; it’s not every storm that we get that sort of weather right as the system departs. And, when I see an image from today’s session like the one I chose as the feature for this report/post, with Ty blasting through waist to chest-deep powder, I guess it’s hard to complain too much about the powder not being as outrageously perfect as it might have been.

March 23, 2024November 23, 2024

Bolton Valley, VT 23MAR2024

An image of Will shredding fresh powder from Winter Storm Ronnie during a March riding session at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont

An image of Dylan blasting through fresh powder snow during Winter Storm Ronnie at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Dylan charges through some of the fresh powder as Winter Storm Ronnie rages on during our session at Bolton Valley today

Starting in the wee hours of the morning today, Winter Storm Ronnie began delivering snow, and once things got going, heavy snowfall pounded the mountains all day. In our area, the snowflakes coming in from the system were relatively small, and my early morning liquid analyses from the snow revealed that it was a fairly synoptic-like 12.0 to 1 snow to liquid ratio. That ratio actually dropped as the storm continued through the day, with a 10.6 to 1 ratio for my afternoon analysis, and an 8.4 to 1 ratio for my evening analysis. Despite the relatively small flakes, the snowfall was still in the inch per hour range or more, so there was a lot of liquid coming out of the sky. The very heavy snowfall and small flakes made for some very tough photography out on the mountain today, but we still fired away to get what we could.

An image of Erica coming over a rise into more powder snow while Telemark skiing during Winter Storm Ronnie at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Erica comes over a rise and eyes her next section of powder during our morning session at Timberline today.

An image of Will blasting through powder snow between some trees during Winter Storm Ronnie at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Will blasts between a couple of trees during today’s session – a snowboard was a great tool for riding in today’s dense snow on the front end of Winter Storm Ronnie

Although the storm was still in progress and we’d only received a portion of the anticipated accumulation by the time the lifts started running this morning at Bolton, we still kicked things off with an early start. We were worried about making the ascent of the Bolton Valley Access Road today with the heavy snowfall, but an uphill plow run had been done fairly recently, so it was actually quick and painless getting up to the Timberline Base. We quickly met up with Stephen and Johannes, and Dylan and his friend Will from college as well, so we had a party of six exploring the mountain.

There didn’t appear to be much elevation dependence with the snowfall, so we were happy to hang down at the relatively lower elevations of Timberline and make use of the great terrain there. While there hadn’t been a call for much wind with this storm, it was still blowing quite hard, and that was another incentive to stay down at the Timberline elevations for a while. We eventually did move up to the main mountain, skiing both Wilderness and Vista, and even by the summits up above 3,000’ the wind was similar to what we’d experienced down at Timberline. As the morning moved on, the wind decreased substantially to the point where it wasn’t even a factor.

An image of Dylan surfing through some fresh powder while skiing the trees during Winter Storm Ronnie at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Dylan surfs through the trees and carves at speed – it was fresh tracks all the time and just about anywhere at the resort today with the continued heavy snowfall from Winter Storm Ronnie all morning.

In terms of the ski conditions, the moderately dense snow had already put down an excellent resurfacing even for the first runs in the morning. The new snow was atop recent rounds of snow from previous storms, so that presumably helped, and with snowfall continuing all day at around an inch per hour, the trails were constantly getting refreshed. The resurfacing made the quality of the on piste turns quite impressive aside from scoured or very high traffic areas, but the powder skiing off piste left something to be desired. With the dense snow falling, the powder was somewhat upside-down, and its density allowed you to easily get bogged down on anything but steep terrain. That’s not to say that the powder skiing wasn’t still tons of fun, but you could tell it wasn’t up to the typical standards of a storm cycle in the Northern Greens where the snow gradually lightens into upslope fluff and really sets up some top notch powder.

All in all, though, it was an excellent session of storm day skiing at the resort. We stopped in for lunch with Dylan and Will at Fireside Flatbread and had some excellent pizza – I got to try their barbeque chicken bacon ranch pizza that Dylan has been raving about. There weren’t any substantial lift queues to speak of today, and it was likely that the ongoing storm kept some people from venturing out to the mountains. The drive down the access road was fairly tough when we finally left in the afternoon, so I can understand why that would keep some folks home, perhaps hoping to come out tomorrow if the storm winds down.

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