A light in the Bolton Valley Village reveals evergreens caked with snow from the most recent storm to hit the area. The Village was teeming with skiers this evening setting out for ski tours with their headlamps to enjoy the fantastic snow conditions
I was busy through most of the afternoon, but still wanted to get out to the mountain today to check on the additional snow that fell on the back side of our most recent system. As the temperatures dropped yesterday, the density of the snowfall fell to 10% H2O by the afternoon, and finally down into the 3-4% H2O range overnight. Bolton Valley was reporting another 5 inches of accumulation as of this morning, and that drier snow atop the substantial amounts of denser snow from the earlier part of the storm would likely set up some excellent turns.
Since I was starting my tour around dusk, I fired up my headlamp because I knew I’d need it on the descent. What amazed me this evening was the number of people who were out touring by headlamp as well. I knew that folks got out for Wilderness tours after dark because I’d sometimes see them on their way up when I’d be finishing a late descent, but I had no idea just how substantial the numbers were. During the course of my relatively short tour this evening I saw at least a couple dozen skiers out there for headlamp touring, and most of them were actually ascending or just starting out at the parking area. Indeed, the Village parking lot was teeming with skiers, more than I’ll typically even see for a morning session. I guess that part of local ski culture is clearly alive and well. And I can’t blame folks for getting after it this evening, it was dead calm with temperatures in the 20s F with new dry powder atop a substantial base. I can remember a couple decades ago when folks would need to set up these elaborate, heavy battery packs to run their powerful halogen lamps to have enough light for skiing at night, and that all seems pretty irrelevant now with modern LED headlamps. My little LED headlamp was more than powerful to enough to provide light for me to ski, even on its lowest setting. I did use the brightest setting on the descent since I figured I might as well, and it was potent.
In terms of the snow, with settling I generally found 2 to 4 inches of the new drier snow in the 2,000’ to 2,500’ elevation range. In some spots it was easier to distinguish the demarcation between this drier snow and the denser snow below as I probed around, but at higher elevations where even the base snow was drier, it became more and more difficult to separate the new snow from the old. In any event, the quality of the skiing took a nice notch upwards with the addition of the new powder. I’m sure the earlier snow dried out a bit as well, but with this new snow on top, turns were much silkier than yesterday, and lower angle terrain was much more in play and enjoyable since you were gliding through fluff instead of sinking into the denser stuff. There’s excellent midwinter skiing to be had out there right now in the Northern Greens, whether you go during the day… or at night.
A scene from up at Bolton Valley this evening – the lights of the Village were setting all the snowy trees aglow as people headed out for ski tours, or just for a walk in the evening scenery
Today on Fanny Hill at Bolton Valley – the snow just keeps falling, so we’ll keep making turns!
Of the 11 winter storms we’re recorded so far this season at our site in the Winooski Valley, 3 have delivered more than a half inch of liquid equivalent, and they’ve had a notable upward trend in L.E. The November 21st storm brought 0.72” of L.E., the November 26th storm brought 1.14” of L.E., and this most recent storm that began on December 3rd brought more than 1.40” of L.E., with snowfall continuing tonight. These storms have really helped to build the mountain snowpack, and the snow depth at the Mt. Mansfield Stake is now more than a foot above average.
The snow just continues to pile up in the Bolton Valley Village with these weekly larger systems and the smaller ones in between.
Bolton Valley was reporting another 14” of snow in 24 hours, and I popped up to the mountain this afternoon to check it out. Elevation has had quite an impact on the snow from this most recent storm, and the snow depth profile coming up out of the Winooski Valley is quite extreme. There’s really no snow at the base of the Bolton Valley Access Road aside from leftover piles, and it’s like that all the way up above 1,000’, and then the depth begins to ramp up. Here’s the snow depth profile I found on today’s ski tour:
Folks up in the Bolton Valley Village are constantly having to clear the snow with storm cycles frequently affecting the area in the past few weeks.
It was more challenging to get depth readings in those upper elevations since the pack is getting pretty deep and there are a lot of different layers with varying consistencies, but that general trend I’ve seen on the mountain recently of almost an inch of depth increase per 100’ of elevation gain seems to generally be holding. The depths I was getting at 3,000’ also seem generally in line with the current reading at the Mt. Mansfield Stake of 33” at 3,700’.
I arrived up in the Village in the early afternoon to a maelstrom of huge flakes coming down in association with the back side of the storm system, so the mountain continued to tack on more to the snow totals. Fat skis were unquestionably the play for today. The accumulations from this storm definitely came in denser than the previous one, and while fats were of course great for stability, they were also really nice for planing on lower angle slopes and getting additional turns out of that snow. Even though you were only sinking maybe 6 to 10 inches into the powder because of the density, it was still slow going if the slope angle got too low. Steep slopes indeed offered the best turns, and the base is so dense and deep that even on those pitches there’s not much to worry about in terms of coverage on the upper mountain.
A pair of skiers gets ready for a ski tour as a snow plow works its way through the Bolton Valley Village trying to keep up with the continuing snowfall
Getting after some of that leftover Thanksgiving powder
For the valleys in Northern Vermont, our first big winter storm of the season hit the area this week, and it created some potential holiday travel woes because of its occurrence so close to Thanksgiving. The storm was essentially complete by the time we traveled on Thanksgiving Day, but with 8.2 inches of snow, and 1.62 inches of liquid equivalent, it had certainly bolstered the snowpack in the yard and changed the look of the landscape. While the storm did have some mixed precipitation and rain in the middle, it was quite a nice gain in snow for the mountains, with some of the ski areas in the Northern Greens picking up more than foot of snow. And, as is often the case, the final volley from the storm consisted of a good shot of dry powder that sat well atop some newly added dense base to create some great Thanksgiving Day skiing.
With our holiday traveling done, we finally had the chance to get out today and sample some of the new snow. Dylan was away at a friend’s house, but E, Ty, and I headed up to Bolton Valley to earn some turns. They had reported 9 inches of new snow for Thanksgiving morning, and as we headed up to the Village, we stopped in at the base of Timberline at 1,500’ to check on how the snow had settled in down at that elevation. The depth of the powder was 3 to 4 inches over a good base, and we could see that there had been plenty of ski activity on Timberline’s slopes. Continuing on up to the Village at 2,100’, we found that the snow had increased to 4 to 6 inches in depth.
“The powder skiing was every bit as good as what I’d experienced on Sunday…”
Having experienced some good snow on Turnpike on Sunday, I figured that we would check that out again today. Of course, with it being two to three days since the snow fell, plenty of skiers and snowboarders had been out on the trail, a lot more than the single track I’d seen on my last trip. We were treated to a nice skin track, but most of the powder was tracked out, so we definitely kept our eyes open on the ascent for lesser used options. We ran into Cam at the top of Lower Turnpike, and chatted about the mountain’s opening in a couple of weeks. If we can stick with the current weather pattern, things are looking quite good.
Like I’d done on Sunday, we stopped our ascent around 2,900’ on Turnpike since the terrain above that level was rather windswept, but snow depths had increased to roughly 6 to 8 inches, and combined with the base, there was easily over a foot of snow sitting there in many places. On the ascent I’d looked at the snow on Cougar and the Wilderness Lift Line, and I’d seen only a couple of tracks, so we worked those into our descent. The powder skiing was every bit as good as what I’d experienced on Sunday, and I was glad that we found plenty of untracked snow for Ty and E. Ty was putting together some great turns on his Teles, and I think his skiing was helped by the fact that he was in high spirits. E had her first chance to get on her Element skis with her new Telemark boots, and she definitely felt a big increase in control that she’d previously lacked with on her fat skis with her old boots.
E finding much more ability to drive her powder skis today with her new boots
Today was a great, mellow outing, just like you’d expect pre-season at Bolton Valley. Along with Cam, we saw a couple other pairs of skiers, and they all appeared to be experiencing that same vibe. We’ve actually got our next small storm coming through tonight, and it’s supposed to persist into tomorrow, so perhaps we’ll get a freshening of the powder that will set things up for more turns. It’s been a great November of skiing around here, and now it’s on to December – let’s hope it can follow suit.
Getting in some nice turns on the way down to Goose Pond today
The weather was quite nice on Saturday, so we had a good family backcountry outing at Bolton Valley, but the weather yesterday was simply nasty. I contemplated heading up for a quick tour, but when I saw that the Bolton Valley Village temperature was at 3 F around midday, I wasn’t all that inspired. When I checked again in the afternoon, I saw that it had actually dropped a degree to 2 F. As if the cold temperatures weren’t enough, there was a hefty wind for good measure, and it was strong enough that the Vista Quad seemed to be closed for much of the day. With that going on outside, it was extremely nice spending much of the day getting things done inside instead.
“…the powder was very much like what we found on Saturday – a general 8 to 12 inches, and there was no internal melt layer
up at that elevation.”
Today’s temperatures were definitely expected to improve though, so after I took care of some work in the morning, I planned on a short tour up at Bolton Valley in the afternoon when the day’s warmth would be at its peak. Under a cloudless sky, temperatures were up into the mid 20s F in the valleys, and close to 20 F even up at 2,000’ when I arrived in the Village in the early afternoon. There was still plenty of wind though, so Mother Nature didn’t seem to want to let that go for some reason. Fortunately, the winds weren’t strong enough to shut down the Vista Quad (yet), and that let me proceed with my planned tour.
For today, my goal was to explore the drainage that dropped off behind the Bolton Valley Wind Turbine and led down to Goose Pond. From the pond, I planned to hook up with the Woodward Mountain Trail, connect back to the Vista Summit, and make a front side run back to the Village. The wind was a little brisk as I prepared my gear at the car, so I went with my thicker fleece layer in anticipation of what might be going on up above 3,000’. The resort was definitely winding down in activity from the holiday weekend, and there were only a few people around as I boarded the Vista Quad. It was my first time on the Vista Quad this weekend, and the lift ride was certainly enlightening, albeit somewhat discouraging. The combination of holiday traffic, but probably even more so the strong westerly winds, left the snow surfaces pounded flat, flat, flat. Everything looked packed out; even the trees along the Vista Quad Lift Line seemed to have lost a good part of their fluffy disposition. The resort had that look of an “old snow” scene, with the trails stripped of loose snow, the tree branches devoid of fluff, and even slick patches visible here and there. I was thankful that I was heading to the leeward side of the mountain, but the snow seemed so beaten down it seemed hard to imagine that I’d find fluff even there. The lift slowed down and even stopped a few times on my trip up, presumably because of the wind, and I was thankful that I was only planning one ride because I wondered how long they’d be able to keep it turning.
Once at the Vista Summit I headed over to the wind turbine, then passed underneath it into one of the openings in the forest. Above the noise of the wind itself, the turbine was cranking away with its own sound of spinning blades. It was really moving in winds that had to be 25 to 30 MPH, and I was happy to see it free of rime and actually doing its job. The noise of the turbine blades in the wind was substantial enough that it actually took a while to fade as I dropped into the drainage and began my descent, but after a few minutes of navigating downward the noise diminished to just the wind itself. Finding a route through the gully was actually quite easy, as there were obvious open areas that could be connected. I can’t say that I found one continuous line for skiing, but there were enough open areas to make it enjoyable. A little trimming to connect those areas would make for an even better descent. At first I was concerned about the scoured and wind-packed snow that presented itself on the initial drop from the turbine, but that dissipated and only reappeared in a few exposed spots lower down. Other than that, the powder was very much like what we found on Saturday – a general 8 to 12 inches, and there was no internal melt layer up at that elevation. The forest I encountered was a mixture of evergreens with a few hardwoods and a touch of brush here and there, and as I approached the pond down at around 2,800’ it became one of those dark spruce groves that permit little understory growth.
Checking out the Woodward Mountain trail as I continue my ascent
Down in the open area of the pond, I found myself exposed to the wind, and it was really ripping. What I observed was a rather austere, winter scene, but not quite the peaceful place it might have been without the incessant wind. I stayed just long enough for a couple of pictures before I retreated into the shelter of the spruce forest. I put on my skins for the ascent, and found an easy route through the spruce; the trees were tall and the only hindrance was the occasional presence of dead lower limbs that hadn’t yet fallen off. With the help of my GPS, I hit the Woodward Mountain Trail in about 10 minutes, and my pace accelerated at that point because I found that there was a skin track that others had used for ascent. There were a few ski tracks on the trail itself as well, but it hadn’t been used too heavily. It was easy to see that the trail was designed well though, because it was often just on the leeward side of the ridge and held a lot of powder. The trail is rather wide in spots, up to 50 feet or more, so I’m sure the turns through there are a great way to start off a tour of the entire trail down to Waterbury Reservoir.
Just before finishing my ascent and emerging back out at the Vista Summit, I hit the fire tower and headed up to take in the view. The wind was intense up top, probably 40-50 MPH, but I was able to get a few photos of the great views in every direction. I quickly got down, took my skins off my skis for the front side descent, and to my surprise (although I guess with those winds not too surprising) when I emerged at the Vista Summit I saw that the Vista Quad was entirely shut down. It was almost spooky how deserted the summit looked for that time of day, but I basically had the whole upper mountain to myself at that point. I headed over toward Cobrass for my descent, and I’m not sure how long the lift had been closed, but the trails had already received a resurfacing due to snow sifting in on the wind. The surface of Cobrass was actually quite nice; it was very easy to dig with my edges, even on my fat skis, and I enjoyed my solo descent.
I headed into the Villager Trees and up “The Crack” to the top of “The Knob” to get in some additional powder turns on my way back to the Village. Folks have been busy in that area in the off season, because I could see some new lines in there that looked like fun. I stuck to a line that I knew, and nobody had been in that area yet so the tracks were fresh. The powder was generally good, although there were some spots where the wind had gotten to it, and I could really feel the assistance I got from the rocker and width of my AMPerages in handling that crust. Down in the lower sections of the trees there had been a lot more traffic, and combined with the wind I had to do a little more work to find the best untracked snow. Those lower sections seemed to fly by though, as I found myself going fast through areas with packed snow and less powder.
GPS track of today’s ski tour mapped onto Google Earth – click for full size image
I finished off my run, stopped in the main base lodge briefly, and then headed to the car. I was surprised to find that the wind had virtually disappeared down at the Village level, despite the way it was cranking along up high. The lower mountain lifts were running, but many folks seemed to be winding down their day as it was getting toward that 4:00 P.M hour. It was in the low to mid 20s F at the base – warmer than it had been when I arrived, and it felt very nice without the wind. It had definitely been cold up high though – my cheeks could still feel that bite that comes along with cold winter air. In terms of upcoming weather, we’ve still got a good chance for some upslope snow during the midweek period. That’s good, because the lift-served slopes could really use a freshening based on what I saw today.
In terms of the snow, with settling I generally found 2 to 4 inches of the new drier snow in the 2,000’ to 2,500’ elevation range. In some spots it was easier to distinguish the demarcation between this drier snow and the denser snow below as I probed around, but at higher elevations where even the base snow was drier, it became more and more difficult to separate the new snow from the old. In any event, the quality of the skiing took a nice notch upwards with the addition of the new powder. I’m sure the earlier snow dried out a bit as well, but with this new snow on top, turns were much silkier than yesterday, and lower angle terrain was much more in play and enjoyable since you were gliding through fluff instead of sinking into the denser stuff. There’s excellent midwinter skiing to be had out there right now in the Northern Greens, whether you go during the day… or at night.
