Tree Skiing Archives - Page 23 of 32

March 31, 2013April 4, 2013

Stowe, VT 31MAR2013

An image of Jay skiing on the Bruce trail near Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont — Out enjoying the great snow on the Bruce again today

With the Easter holiday, we didn’t have BJAMS ski program today, but we decided to head to Stowe anyway for a bit of lift-served skiing and another run down the Bruce Trail. E wasn’t able to join us for the Bruce run with the kids last week because she was coaching her younger, intermediate-level students, but she had no such obligations today. Coverage on the Bruce was excellent last week, and this week has seen fairly typical spring weather for the Northern Greens, with some snowfall and some warmer days, so it didn’t look like there would be any major changes in that department. Not surprisingly, the snowpack at the Mt. Mansfield Stake is still sitting right around that 80-inch mark, so there were clearly no issues with loss of snow in the higher elevations. However, the lower mountain valleys certainly lost snow this week, brining into question the lower elevation snowpack. And, the Bruce Trail has a good deal of southern exposure, so that means that those areas are going to lose snow more quickly than other aspects at similar elevations. In fact, I was more concerned about snow coverage on those higher-elevation, south-facing pitches in the 2,000 to 3,600’ elevation range than even the lowest elevations down near 1,000’; the snow in lowest elevations of the route is well protected by the forest and well packed, so I suspect it persists quite well in the spring.

“…I’d say the Bruce
will probably still
be good to go next
weekend as well…”

Today we planned to flip our Bruce Trail tour setup from what we’ve done in the past; we’d park the car down at The Matterhorn, ride the Mountain Road Shuttle up to Mt. Mansfield, ski the mountain for a while, and then finish off with a run down the Bruce and a meal at The Matterhorn. We timed things pretty well with knowledge of the Mountain Road Shuttle schedule, and arrived at The Matterhorn in the early afternoon with time to get into our gear and head across the street to the shuttle stop. The plan was for everyone to Telemark since the boys could get in some lift-served practice runs and it’s generally a good fit for a trip down the Bruce, although Ty opted for alpine gear at the last minute because that’s what he felt like skiing.

“On piste coverage
at Stowe remains
excellent, with
100% of trails
open today…”

We started off the afternoon as planned with some lift-served runs, and found some marginally sticky conditions in places. None of the surfaces were too bad in that regard, but there was definitely some snow that has not transitioned all the way to corn with the rounds of snowfall earlier this week. Temperatures were a bit warmer than yesterday, sitting in the upper 40s F down in the lower elevations, and somewhere in the 30s F at the summit elevations. On piste coverage at Stowe remains excellent, with 100% of trails open today – it’s much more typical this season, and nothing like last season when that huge March heat wave really sapped the snowpack. Dylan worked on his Telemark turns and was making strides on his bad side turn, and Ty on his alpines was throwing himself off all the airs he encountered.

An image of Erica Telemark skiing on the Bruce Trail near Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont — E working those Telemark turns on the Bruce today

Around mid afternoon we decided to head down the Bruce for our final run, and the snow was nice and soft right from the top. The only notable coverage issues were in the usual spots – those steeper pitches with southern exposure. Those areas had opened up a bit since last week, but the differences in the skiing are fairly marginal; you’ve just got to navigate those areas cautiously. As expected, the lowest elevations in the Nordic areas in the 1,500’ – 1,000’ range had perfect coverage. The only potential break in the snow cover down there is the last hundred yards or so where you use the road the leads to the Bruce House. The road has been plowed, but you can ski on the snow banks along the edge of the road and they’ll take you right out to Route 108 as usual. The whole trip down the Bruce was extremely quiet today – we didn’t see a single soul on the Bruce itself, and we only saw one family touring on the trails of the Stowe Mountain Resort Cross Country Ski Center. Perhaps the holiday kept the numbers of visitors down relative to a typical Sunday, but the resort looked pretty busy overall. I didn’t track today’s travels by GPS, but for a representative GPS/Google Earth map or elevation profile plot of the general route of the Bruce Trail, refer to my Bruce Trail trip report from January 21^st.

An image of Jay, Ty, and Dylan giving each other a "high five" near the Matterhorn in Stowe, Vermont after finishing off a run of the Bruce backcountry ski trail — Dad, Ty, and Dylan celebrate finishing off another fun trip down the Bruce.

It was fun to get E’s impressions of the trail since this was her first trip down the Bruce. She found, and I entirely agree, that on today’s outing the combination of the relatively narrow nature of the trail, the areas where the formation of moguls tended to dictate specific locations for turns, and the concave sculpting of the snow due to skier traffic, all come together to create quite a challenging ascent on Telemark gear. I noticed those aspects as well, and indeed in this case what is really pretty standard intermediate or advanced fare on alpine equipment, is much more technically demanding on Teles… or at least it is if you’re trying to make Telemark turns. Trying to navigate those concave edges while snaking down a narrow line (and even feeling narrower in a Telemark stance) among moguls on terrain with decent pitch will certainly push your skills. Fortunately one can use alpine turns as a fall back, and those are certainly a lot of fun too, but of course trying to be strict with those Tele turns keeps the bar up. Even with the great spring snow, E favored alpine turns heavily in the steep, upper sections of the trail, but there were plenty of areas where her Telemark turns would flow. I threw in good doses of alpine turns myself in spots, because sometimes it’s just too hard to plot a solution with Tele turns through certain areas. But, every run gets more turns under your belt. Dylan threw in a few Telemark turns here and there, but he already knew going in that he was going to mostly alpine and just enjoy the ride in that fashion.

The final part of today’s outing was an early dinner at The Matterhorn. I’ve actually never eaten at The Matterhorn, since I’ve thought of it generally as an après ski bar. As it turns out though, they’re a restaurant as well, and to my amazement, they’re pretty well known for their sushi. I tried for a visit to get some sushi back on Bruce Trail trip on January 21^st, but the sushi bar is closed on Mondays, so I decided to wait until my next visit. Well, today was that day, and I’ve got to say that indeed the sushi was quite good. I went with a Salmon Maki Roll and one of their specialty rolls, the Crab Rangoon Roll, and both were great. E and the boys didn’t get sushi, but everything we had was good. Sitting out back by the river is also a nice perk – there was a feel of early spring watching the water roll by amidst the snow.

An image from a table along the Ranch Brook at the Matterhorn Restaurant in Stowe, Vermont — Riverside at the Matterhorn this afternoon

Based on forecast for the coming week, I’d say the Bruce will probably still be good to go next weekend as well, so keep it in mind if you’re looking for something to do as we move on to April skiing in the Northern Greens.

March 30, 2013June 15, 2013

Bolton Valley, VT 30MAR2013

An image of Ty skiing in spring corn snow on the Spell Binder trail in the Timberline area at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont — Spring corn snow at Timberline today

We planned on getting in some skiing on soft, spring snow today, but Mother Nature had different plans and gave us a lot more than that. Temperatures were below freezing at all elevations last night, which is good for running the corn snow cycle, but it meant that surfaces would need some time to soften into what we were seeking. With that in mind, we took care of other projects in the morning and let the sun do its thing to warm up the snow. At around midday I checked on the temperature in the Bolton Valley Village (elevation 2,100’), and it was still reading just 34 F despite being in the low 50s F down at the house (elevation ~500’). Although skies were clear and that late March sun is getting powerful, 34 F at the base meant that summit temperatures were likely below freezing, so if that snow needed softening, it probably wasn’t going to get it. An hour or so later, I checked and found that the Village temperature had only risen to 37 F, but we figured that the lower slopes, especially those at Timberline below the elevation of the Village, would certainly be softening by that point. With Bolton Valley having an extensive amount of west-facing terrain, softening in the morning can be slow, but it really gets rolling in the afternoon sunshine.

“It was really interesting to
find the mountain featuring
essentially everything from
mid-winter to spring
conditions today…”

The snowpack has mostly disappeared from the bottom of the Winooski Valley as we approach April, and even on the lower sections of the Bolton Valley Access Road the situation is the same. It’s not until climbing to around 1,000’ that substantial snowpack starts to return, and then it really snaps into place once you get above the big S-curve in the access road and up to the base of Timberline (elevation ~1,500’). We parked there, finding that the temperature was around 40 F, and as we rode the lift we could immediately see that the snow in the Timberline area had nicely softened into corn. I was also impressed with how extensive and complete the snow coverage was on the trails, even all the way down to the Timberline Base. There were a few bare spots around in some of usual sensitive areas, but the natural snow terrain was really in good shape.

“We made our way over
toward Dylan’s “Heaven”
line, which turned out
to be more like “Hell”…”

The resort’s Rock and Roll Pond Skimming event, which had been postponed from last Saturday due to the winter-like temperatures, was just finishing up as we boarded the Vista Quad. With the full sun, today was a much better fit for the pond skimming, even if it wasn’t outrageously warm. Riding on Vista we began to see that conditions actually appeared to be wintry on the upper mountain, and indeed that’s what we found as we made a run on Spillway. There was even some powder off to the sides, and I caught some nice turns in there, but for the most part it was standard packed winter snow. It was nice, but nothing that was going to compete with the powder or corn snow. The conditions then transitioned into a mix of winter and spring snow on the lower half of the main mountain, depending on sun exposure and aspect.

An image of Dylan skiing some spring snow in the Villager Trees at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont — Searching for that perfect aspect in the Villager Trees

The plan today had initially been to work on some steep terrain like Spillway and Devil’s Playground in soft spring snow, but with the discovery of some powder on the upper mountain, we decided to visit “The Crack” to see if there was any untracked powder up there. The boys had some fun as we made the ascent, climbing other routes that Dylan pioneered over by the icicles, and starting a snowball fight with me when they had the high ground. We made our way over toward Dylan’s “Heaven” line, which turned out to be more like “Hell”, since the snow wasn’t softened. Indeed the snow remained wintry, but it had taken on a dense layer of about an inch thick from previous elevated temperatures. That line is north-facing, but at around 2,500’ or so, it wasn’t quite high enough to avoid whatever warming had taken place earlier in the week. It turned out that someone had already skied Heaven anyway, so we ventured left and changed to a more westerly aspect. Ultimately, we actually found far better turns in the Villager Trees on west-facing terrain that had been softened by the sun today.

Since the Timberline area seemed to be low enough in elevation to support soft snow from top to bottom, we finished off the day there, with Spell Binder being our favorite run. We found lots of excellent corn snow from top to bottom, but a few shots were getting sticky if they were in direct sun and hadn’t seen traffic. As good as the snow was down there, I think the boys had just as much fun throwing snowballs around in the sunshine as they did making turns. It was really interesting to find the mountain featuring essentially everything from mid-winter to spring conditions today based on how warm it got in the lower mountain valleys. I’d break it down as the upper mountain from around 3,200’ to 2,500’ featuring winter snow on all aspects except directly south-facing, the lower mountain from ~2,500’ to ~2,000’ featuring a mix of conditions depending on sun exposure, and then most of Timberline featuring spring conditions with its lower elevations down to 1,500’. Hopefully we’ll get to do something similar next weekend as Bolton Valley rolls into April.

March 24, 2013April 1, 2013

Stowe, VT 24MAR2013

An image of Ken jumping off a rock on skis into the powder above Green Acres at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont — Ken tests out the powder landings above Green Acres.

I made a Bruce Trail reconnaissance run back in January, and since then we’ve been waiting for the right combination of snowpack, weather, and coach availability to bring our BJAMS group for a trip down the Bruce. A couple weeks ago, the forecast began to suggest that the snowpack was just going to continue to build through March, so we decided to bide our time. Indeed as the forecast suggested, this “powder week”, with between 30 and 50 inches of snow at the Northern Vermont resorts along the Green Mountain spine, has bolstered base depths. One result of all that snow has been the growth of the snowpack at the Mt. Mansfield Stake; it’s finally crept above average this week, reaching a depth of 82 inches as of yesterday. With excellent snowpack now all the way down to the mountain valleys, a forecast for partly cloudy skies with temperatures around 30 F, and good availability of the BJAMS ski program coaches that wanted to ski the Bruce… today was the day for our trip.

“All in all that had
to be just about
perfect conditions
today for skiing
the Bruce…”

We had a little time before our group got together, so we did a warm up run on Sunny Spruce with Connor and his dad. As expected, the snow quality was excellent – it was packed powder on the trails and powder off piste, with just a few bare spots here and there on steeper south-facing terrain like Freddie’s Chute. One of the highlights of that run was West Slope, where we rode the ridge along the skier’s left with big swooping drops into the chowder on the left side. At one point I heard Luke screaming out behind me something like “That was so intense!” after launching a huge drop on one of his turns… intense indeed!

We gathered up our group, which featured Claire, Ken, Julia, Luke, Ty, Dylan, and me. Along with Joana and big Luke, we were missing Joe, Sam and Ethan today, and I suspect they would have loved to make a run down the Bruce, but hopefully they’ll get to do it next time. Apparently Joe did have a great day out on the mountain on Friday with Ken though, so he’s had a good dose of all this new snow. We debated briefly about whether we should do our Bruce run at the beginning of the day or the end of the day, but with some folks having obligations preventing them from lingering at the mountain too long at the end, we decided that we’d better start with the Bruce and fill extra time in with some other runs at the end of the day. Based on my reconnaissance day, I was going with a fairly conservative estimate of two hours for us to complete the run to the base of the Bruce. I knew there wouldn’t be any problems for anyone in terms of the skiing, I was just unsure about what our pace would be through the flatter terrain in the Nordic areas. If the kids found it tiring it might take longer than what I’d experience on my own, so I figured it was better to be safe than sorry.

An image of Ty skiing powder at the top of the Bruce Trail at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont — Dropping into the Bruce Trail for an afternoon run

An image of Luke, Julia, and Dylan making their way down the Bruce backcountry ski trail near Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont — Luke, Julia, and Dylan make their way down a narrow section of the Bruce Trail.

We didn’t waste any time getting to the top of the Bruce, we crossed on the Over Easy and went right up the Fourrunner Quad. Unlike down in the base elevations, there was a brisk wind up there around 3,600’. Some of the boys dropped in the alternate entrance to the Bruce for a bit of powder and I grabbed a few pictures there and some more as they dropped below me on the trail. It was packed snow on the trail, but the quality was excellent, far better than what I’d experienced on my January trip, which was after a thaw the previous week. The skiing in the upper sections went pretty much as expected, the boys were having a blast with the bumps and jumps, and one could explore the powder off to the sides when areas opened up in the trees. A few of the steepest pitches were a little scraped down in spots, but that was pretty minimal because of the deep base and recent snow. As we got down into the hardwoods and the forest began to open up even more, I started venturing father off the trail into powder lines based on my previous knowledge. The powder was generally a foot plus in most places, and that worked well on most pitches – enough to slow you down on the steeper stuff, but not bog you down too much in the mellower areas. Down on the Nordic trails, the final, flatter part of the descent went very smoothly. Ty noticed one of those wavy green lines one of the trail signs, indicating beginner Nordic terrain, and with regard to the perceived flatness he said, “Oh no, that type of sign is never good!” I’d say he found out that it really wasn’t that bad. The kids did a nice job of keeping their pace on the flatter areas, and I’d give Ty and Dylan occasional boosts to keep their pace up. They started to play around and get tangled up with each other as they skated and poled their way down the trail, so that kept them entertained even on the flats. As a bonus we got those beautiful views of the snowy Ranch Brook, and the snow stayed quite powdery all the way down to 1,000’. All in all that had to be just about perfect conditions today for skiing the Bruce, comfortable temperatures, partly cloudy skies, and dry snow all the way to the base. I’m not sure what more one could ask for aside from getting first tracks!

An image of skiers riding the Mountain Road Shuttle Bus in Stowe — Riding the Mountain Road Shuttle – it’s almost worth doing the Bruce Trail just for that!

From leaving the Spruce Peak Base to reaching the bottom of the Bruce at Route 108, it had taken a bit under 90 minutes, so we made it well under my two-hour conservative estimate, even with the large group. We were about 20 minutes ahead of the next Mountain Road Shuttle when we reached the end of the trail, so we popped into Notchbrook Convenience Store for some snacks, and enjoyed the early spring weather while we waited. The March sun is quite nice right now, and it’s the beautiful sort of weather that is keeping the snow dry instead of sticky, even with relatively warm air. Ty and Dylan loved the ride on the shuttle, and Ty only half jokingly insisted that “The Bruce was nice, but it’s the bus ride that’s really my favorite part of the trip.” He certainly does like to ride buses. For a representative GPS/Google Earth map or elevation profile plot of the travel circuit we used to ski the Bruce Trail, refer to my Bruce Trail trip report from January 21^st.

An image of Luke completing a jump turn at the top of the Green Acres area at Stowe Mountain Ski Resort in Vermont — Luke comes out of a jump turn in the Green Acres area.

When we arrived back at the Spruce Peak Base Area, we had another hour or so before the lifts stopped running, and we decided to use our remaining time for a trip over to the Sensation Quad. With the relatively deep March snowpack, it seemed like a good time to ski as much of Spruce Line as we could. The strengthening sun is only going to start beating on that south-facing terrain more and more. I was surprised to find that the steep terrain above Green Acres was fairly wind scoured, but we found a line through and the boys did some great steep turns and jumps off one of the rocks there. Dylan led the charge with an impressive jump turn off the rock, landing in a sea of deep powder. He was followed up by the other boys, including Luke who was totally jazzed at how high he went. That steep pitch used to intimidate him, and now he’s launching huge jump turns off boulders into powder. It’s great to see him expanding his skiing literally by leaps and bounds. Ken launched a beautiful air off the rock as well, although he had to deal with sloppy fourth or fifths in terms of the powder on the landing. The snow in Green Acres was excellent – powder of well over a foot in depth, which was plenty to slow you down in some of those tighter tree lines. We couldn’t ski all of Spruce Line because parts were closed, but we did get the middle section that was fairly lightly tracked with some beautiful snow. The group also enjoyed the chance to ski Main Street since there weren’t any races taking place – having Main Street open up for general traffic is one of those great things about approaching the spring season at Stowe.

“The Bruce was nice,
but it’s the bus ride
that’s really my
favorite part of
the trip.”

While most of the group had to leave a bit early, Ty, Dylan, and I found time to squeeze in one more run on Sunny Spruce. We dropped into Freddie’s Chute, and Dylan worked his way to the woods on the skier’s right for some powder. He ended making an impressive drop off a log, which had to be 8 to 10 feet high. He did manage to hit his chin with his knee on the landing, and it wasn’t of any consequence, but I did stress the point of being aware that that can happen and making sure that your tongue is not anywhere near your teeth. That was really an aggressive drop that he made, and between Bolton yesterday and Stowe today, he’s really been on fire with the airs this weekend. With deep bases and deep powder though, ‘tis the season for such things. We followed that up with some exploration of the trees off to the skier’s left of Lower Smuggler’s – a section that none of us have ever explored before. We found some good lines, with just a bit of a slow exit on flat terrain. We finished off with a final descent down West Slope, making use of that ridge and flying off the edge into the powder.

I just checked the forecast, and we’ve apparent got more snow on the way this week. Nothing too big is expected, but the mountains often seem to do a lot with just a little moisture in the forecast. Indeed this is turning out to be quite a March for skiing in the Northern Greens as we make up for the rather paltry snowfall of January and February.

March 23, 2013June 14, 2013

Bolton Valley, VT 23MAR2013

An image of Dylan skiing deep powder in the KP Glades area at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Dylan working the powder in the KP Glades today

In Northern Vermont we remain under the influence of an area of low pressure stuck over the Maritimes, and it dropped another round of snow overnight. We picked up just shy of 4 inches down here at the house, and Bolton Valley picked up 7-10 inches. That amount of fresh snow changed my thoughts for today from a more sidecountry or backcountry outing, to a lift-served one. There’s been close to 30 inches of snow on the upper mountain in the past week, and with this latest round from last night I’d expect even the on piste skiing to be great.

We arrived at Timberline right around the opening of the Timberline Quad, and kicked things off with a Brandywine to Intro to Spell Binder run. There was some decent powder off to the edges of Brandywine and Intro up top (including enough to bog Dylan down for a great crash that delighted the folks on the lift above), but it was Spell Binder that had the real pay dirt. There were a few tracks that had been set down, but other than that it was a sea of untracked snow. I suspect that run would be picked as a favorite in the group today. The snow wasn’t especially deep, but there was plenty of it for bottomless turns and the density worked out pretty well. We went with Adam’s Solitude next, and had the fortune to meet Steve from thesnowway.com. We had an enjoyable run with Steve, and I even managed to sneak in some ski-related conversation. I’ve avoided Adam’s Solitude over the past several weeks, not being really sure that it had the coverage I want to see in there, and based on what I saw today, it really needed this latest storm. I know that Steve has been visiting a variety of resorts this season, and it’s great that the recent snowfall brought him over to Bolton for some turns. I see that he’s already written up his report from the day, so click on over and check it out. Hopefully Steve can get back for another Bolton trip to check out Wilderness (the Wilderness Chair was down on wind hold today) and some of the backcountry.

An image of Dylan and Ty skiing powder on the Spell Binder trail at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont — The boys teaming up to shred the great snow on Spell Binder today

Dylan was really hankering’ a waffle from the Waffle Cabin – in the spirit of what we were calling his hobbit-style “second breakfast”. We made our way over only to find that the Waffle Cabin was closed, but we went for an inside snack nonetheless and had a good time sitting by the fire. We made a Vista run after that, and I directed everyone to Devil’s Bowl… or at least close. We overshot it a bit and ended up skiing the trees off to skier’s left, but there was a lot of untracked snow in there. Ty called for a return to Timberline, which went over pretty easily with everyone else since the winds, which were definitely howling at the top of Vista, were notably lower down there. We caught the lower part of Tattle Tale on the return, and noticed three guys that were actually skiing Upper Tattle Tale – but the Tattle Tale headwall looked really bony from wind scouring and they were essentially skiing around it on the edges of the trail. Lower Tattle Tale had some decent powder, but a lot of tracks on it. Fortunately even the previously tracked snow was good, and Ty said he liked it a lot. We decided on one more run before breaking for lunch, which included the Intro Trees followed by a trip through Doug’s Solitude. That run was mostly satisfying Dylan’s request to see a lean-to that E and the boys had built during the summer a couple of seasons ago in the Timberline Mid Station area. It’s still standing, despite the deep snow. The boys launched some nice airs at the end of those lines though – Ty’s was very smooth with a nice sloped landing, and Dylan’s was flatter with a couple of tiers. We did discover though that the route back to the Solitude traverse needs some definite trimming this off season as it’s got a lot of small vegetation clogging the lines back there.

An image of Dylan dropping off a cliff into the powder while skiing at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont — Dylan on a drop in today

After lunch it was the Wood’s Hole/KP Glades show for the boys. We took the first run with E and she stuck to the trail because her legs were getting a bit cooked for too many more Telemark turns in the steep trees. The boys were looking to drop some cliffs, and drop them they did. They were so excited that we hit two more rounds in there even after Mom called it quits for the day and headed for the lodge. The boys were definitely in the zone during that afternoon session, and the vibe was good because they kept feeding off each other and the whole scene. The powder out there was set up well for dropping off the various ledges and cliffs – I checked a number of times and was getting depths of 22 inches where snow hasn’t been disturbed during all these recent rounds of snowfall. Landings were very soft, although Ty did have to walk away from one that I judged just a bit too dangerous with a log and a rock in the landing zone. He was all set to charge it based on what he saw from above, but once he got down and had a look he thanked me for the warning.

It was a wintry March day today, not especially cold with temperatures in the 20s F, but brisk enough with the wind that the pond skimming had to be postponed. This cold weather is really keeping that powder in great shape however, and we’re not worried because we know that spring weather will come eventually. Until then I say keep the snow flying to make up for the slow January and February. The season is still below average on snowfall (~90% of average at the house), so even though the snowpack at the Mt. Mansfield Stake sailed above average to 82 inches today, we’ve still got some catching up to do in that department. We could actually be in for a repeat of last night’s snow tonight. Winter weather advisories up for the Northern Greens for as much as 10 inches of snow, but we’ll have to see how that plays out – so far the radar hasn’t really seemed to light up the way it did last night.

March 19, 2013

Stowe, VT 19MAR2013

An image of Erica Telemark skiing in powder on the Lower Tyro trail at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont during a nor'easter — The latest nor’easter had delivered about a foot of fresh powder to Stowe by the end of the day today.

This morning I awoke to the first accumulation of snow from our current nor’easter. My early estimation was that there were 3 to 4 inches of snow on the snowboard, and that was pretty close, with 3.8 inches measured for my 6:00 A.M. CoCoRaHS observations. Once reports from the Vermont ski areas started coming in, the trend was ~6 inches in the northern resorts, and 8 to 9 inches at the southern resorts. E and the boys eventually got the word that school was cancelled for the day, which meant it was time to decide where to ski. E was initially leaning toward Bolton for the shorter drive in the snow, but we found out that Claire, Luke, Jack, and Madeleine were going to be at Stowe, and that shifted the balance.

After the initial overnight snowfall, precipitation slowed down for the first half of the morning, and then resumed with greater intensity around mid morning. It was starting to coat the roads again as we made our way to Stowe, but the driving conditions were still decent. Based on the day’s ski plans, we parked over by the Mansfield Base Lodge for the first time this season. The scene had that retro flair, complete with a train of classic, bluesy rock playing on the audio system.

An image from the base of the Fourrunner Quad Chairlift at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont showing a sign indicating that it was going to be a powder week — It’s Powder Week!

Stowe had indicated about 5 inches of new snow in their morning report, so I decided that we’d focus on some moderate angle terrain for a bit and see where that led us. We’d had such success with areas like the Chapel Glades and various surrounding trees, that it seemed like a good place to start. From the summit of the Fourrunner Quad we made our way down some of my favorite mellow routes in the Toll Road and some of the Upper Sunrise Glades. We explored a new route and found that there has been a LOT of off season work done in those areas. We followed that up with a trip through the Chapel Glades, where E was having a lot of fun on here Teles. E’s favorite part of the run was probably when we dropped into Lower Tyro and found very few tracks, just vast areas of fresh powder at a nice pitch for powder skiing. As an added bonus, the sky was just unloading snow on us at that point with some of the heaviest snowfall of the day. We followed that up with a run from the Mountain Triple, where we traversed even farther before dropping into the Chapel Glades and found that there had been a lot less traffic.

Dylan was ready for lunch at the bottom of the next run, so we hit the Mansfield Base Lodge, and we were pleasantly surprised by the variety and quality of food that they had available. Once you get used to the plethora of great options at the Great Room Grill, other dining spots might seem limited, but there was a good selection at the ‘ol Mansfield Base Lodge. I got the soup of the day, which was corn chowder, in a bread bowl, and E and I were able to share it. Claire called while we were eating, and by the time we were finishing up, she and her crew had arrived.

An image of Dylan skiing in powder snow above his waist in the Hayride Trees at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont — Deep Dylan

We decided to show everyone what we’d been skiing in the morning, and varied it by pushing even farther into the Upper Sunrise Glades toward a line we’d seen from below. It was quite steep at the top, which got some of the boys like Ty excited, but meant a bit slower going for Madeleine. In subsequent runs we hit some of the Hayride Woods that we’d wanted to try and finished off the day visiting Duck Walk and the half pipe. We actually had to start picking up the pitch of untracked terrain as the day wore on, because the powder was getting deep enough that the gentler terrain wasn’t quite cutting it. It’s a good sign that the subsurface is getting covered. It’s been quite fun exploring the far southern side of the resort after so many days earlier this season in the northern areas.

Overall it was a sensational powder day, since temperatures were comfortable and there was little if any wind away from the highest elevations. There were numerous times today where we enjoyed the silence that comes from heavy snow in the air. It looks like this snowfall could continue for quite a good period this week, and Stowe actually had a sign at the bottom of the Fourrunner Quad indicating not just a “powder day”, but a “powder week”. That’s a good way to run a week. The Mt. Mansfield Stake hit 70 inches today, which is the highest it’s been this season. It’s still a little bit below average, but the mountain is skiing really well and should be in really great shape if the snow keeps up this week.

March 17, 2013March 18, 2013

Stowe, VT 17MAR2013

An image of Dylan skiing powder in the trees above the Chapel Glades at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont — Dylan enjoys some of the powder today at Stowe

The temperatures are staying cold, the powder is staying dry, and we were off to Stowe this afternoon to check it out. Stowe reported similar snowfall numbers to Bolton Valley for the past couple of storms, and based on what we experienced yesterday, I knew that there was going to be some great powder skiing out there on parts of the mountain. The current conditions are just excellent for powder skiing on moderate angle terrain; the warmth from earlier in the week set up a smoothed subsurface to support the new snow that fell later in the week. As I tossed around ideas of where to bring our BJAMS ski group today, I eventually realized that the Chapel Glades and the other woods surrounding that area were going to be just what we needed. I haven’t brought any of the kids there that I can remember, nor had I been there much myself in the past few seasons, but it looked like it was time to change that.

Peering out from the car as we arrived at the mountain, it looked cold and windy at the Spruce Peak Base Area, and indeed it was. It wasn’t January cold, but it was on the cold side for March, with midday temperatures around 20 F and plenty of wind to add some extra bite. While we waited for the entire group to assemble, we did a quick run off the Alpine Double Chair, and as a prelude to the day, I brought Ty, Dylan, Luke, and Jack into some of the Upper Meadows Trees. It was a test to see just how good the powder skiing was going to be, and it was a perfect introduction. The pitch in there is somewhere in the light blue range, which was just right for the 6 to 8 inches of settled powder lying on the ground. There hadn’t been a single track in there before we entered, but after everyone in the group dove in after us to try their hand at the powder, it looked quite different. The whoops and shouts as people passed through made it pretty clear that we were going to have a lot of fun finding more of that terrain throughout the day. That section of trees has a tight exit, and you could certainly tell the more veteran tree skiers from those that were still learning the ropes, but everyone eventually made it out successfully. Farther below, on the open terrain above Meadows, we found very good chopped up powder with some fresh snow thrown in by the winds, so that was also encouraging with regard to overall conditions.

With Claire, Joe and Ethan, Ken and his family, and some additional family and friends of Ken’s,, our group numbered 16 as we headed over to Mt. Mansfield. There was no way we were going to hold that large a posse together, but we set our meeting point as the bottom of the Fourrunner Quad and knew that we’d all get there. The trip down Cliff Trail was OK, even if it felt a bit cramped with such a large group, but conditions really became icy once we got to Nosedive. I’m not sure if it’s the manmade snow or the traffic levels there, but if we hadn’t already been set on our course toward better snow, that experience would have done it. The highlight of that run was discovering the Liftline Trees that brought us all the way from Midway down to almost the base. I can’t believe how open those trees are, or that we haven’t been skiing them all season. They are going way up on our hit list as an alternative to skiing Lower Liftline. We hopped on the Fourrunner Quad, and at the summit I showed the group the top of the Bruce Trail since we’re contemplating a sidecountry trip in that area next week if conditions cooperate. We proceeded toward Ridge View and Sunrise, and I showed the group some of the Sunrise Trees above Toll Road. The powder was really good in there, especially as we worked our way over toward some of the less tracked areas. Dylan and I found lines with 8-12” inches of accumulation in there as we worked our way farthest to the skier’s right for a pit stop, and the turns were very impressive.

Below Toll Road we all dropped into the Chapel Glades and, they delivered just the kind of skiing that I’d expected. The main lines were fairly tracked, which is not surprising since they are an official glade on the map, but just a little venturing off to the sides revealed lots of untracked lines with a consistent 6-8” of powder. The pitches were just perfect for the snow we had. We regrouped at the Chapel, and as we passed along some of the Toll Road trees, we ogled the acres and acres of untracked snow that sat below us. We decided that we’d do another lap on the Mountain Triple, and we set our sights on a big run all the way down to the Toll House. As a bonus, we caught a lap through the half pipe and the terrain features on Standard – although a great part for some of us was the powder off to the sides more than the terrain features. Joe was having a blast with the skiing, and he commented on how he was quickly gaining confidence and an understanding of what was possible among the trees. It really is an eye opening experience for skiers that get past that tree skiing threshold, because they start to appreciate that they’ve got thousands of acres between the in bounds and sidecountry terrain of Mt. Mansfield and Spruce Peak. I started pointing out lines to Joe and Claire on our next lift ride, and it seemed like everywhere we looked, large expanses of open tree skiing terrain were just sitting there. Even though base depths haven’t really gone up too substantially over this past week, it’s as if a switch was flipped and lines hit some sort of threshold. That warming and base consolidation must have locked up some obstacles the previously might have been lurking in the soft snow.

We’d temporarily lost Ken and his family, but with a bit of cell phone help we managed to get back together for our next run. We traveled farther along Toll Road before dropping into the Chapel Glades, and I regained a perspective on just how large that complex of glades actually is. This time, we continued down into the Toll House Woods, and really got a long run through the powder. It’s over a mile down to the Toll House, and we couldn’t ski the woods the whole way, but I bet we were in there for close to half of it, with the Tollhouse trail also got us some great fresh snow. When folks asked me why nobody ever skied down there, I said it was because of the long, slow return back to the rest of the resort, but on days like this when the conditions fit the terrain just right, it’s certainly worth it.

After our long trip on the Toll House Lift, we collectively decided to call it a day, but a few of us hit one more glade in the Lullaby Lane Trees, and that was a fun discovery. This was definitely one of those days where you really start to gain an appreciation for the vastness and seemingly limitless ski options available at Stowe. Despite years of skiing there, I just keep finding entirely new areas to ski.

E and the boys and I went to the Whip for dinner on the way home, and met up with Claire and Luke in the dining room. The Whip is one of our favorite places because they’re open all day, and you can get great food there while other places are in between lunch and dinner. So if you have an early ski day at Stowe and finish in the mid afternoon, you can stop in at The Whip and get a great meal. It’s going to be interesting to see how things work out next weekend in terms of conditions, because we could be in for quite a snowy week if the forecast is correct.

March 16, 2013June 14, 2013

Bolton Valley, VT 16MAR2013

A black and white image of Ty Telemark skiing in powder on the Wilderness Lift Line trail at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont — Back to reality today with some good powder at Bolton Valley

Since we had some warm weather at the beginning of the week that brought all elevations above freezing, and a return to more wintry temperatures by midweek, I wasn’t even sure that we were going to ski today. The snow surfaces were simply going to be hard, the only way around that would be fresh snow, and there were no notable storms in the forecast. Because the weather pattern has been relatively prosaic over the past month or so, there hasn’t really been much of need for refresher storms, but they were definitely needed this week. The only winter weather events in the forecast were a couple of small, upper level low pressure systems that were expected to pass through the area. Each one looked like it would be a 1-3” type of event, which would hardly be enough to get past “dust on crust” conditions. The Green Mountains came through though, working their magic to pull out up to 10” of snow from the first event, and another 6” from the second in the north central areas. Even areas father north that didn’t jackpot with those two storms were well on their way to some nice conditions.

“I did numerous depth checks
on the powder up there in the
3,000’ range, and was getting
readings from 6 to 9 inches in
areas that didn’t have drifting.”

With the storms delivering, it was time to make a plan for some Saturday turns at Bolton Valley. I expected that the 7” they’re reported in the past couple of days was a bit conservative, but with the new snow being split between Thursday and Friday, the best turns were going to be found on terrain that hadn’t been touched at all. I decided that some moderate angle terrain on the backcountry network would be the way to go, and it seemed that one of the glades we’ve been skiing the past couple of weeks would fit the bill nicely. With some sidecountry laps off the Wilderness Lift, we could get good access there. That plan actually went by the wayside when I saw that the Wilderness Lift wasn’t running, but of course that opened up a whole new realm of untracked terrain in the Wilderness area itself, and we could certainly make use of that.

“The three of us packed
our bags with skins and
snacks, and headed up to
the mountain in the late
morning.”

E was dead set that she wanted to do a bunch of cleaning in the house today, so I couldn’t convince her to head out for turns, but she did insist that I get the boys out of the way. No problem. The three of us packed our bags with skins and snacks, and headed up to the mountain in the late morning. Temperatures had been hanging in the low 20s F all morning in the valleys, and even colder in the higher elevations, so we knew that powder would be staying light and dry. The on and off sun that we’d had in the lower elevations much of the morning was quickly replaced by light snowfall as we hit the 1,000’ elevation mark on the Bolton Valley Access Road – the mountains just didn’t seem to want to let go of that moisture. The resort looked like it was doing a brisk business, with the fourth tier of parking in the Village lots just about full. I chatted with the parking attendants about potential spots higher up from people that had already left, and ended up getting a good parking location right along the south edge of the lot.

There was lots of activity at the main base area as we boarded the Vista Quad, because the Mountain Dew Vertical Challenge was taking place. It would have been fun to hang out and join some of the festivities, but there was powder to be skied. Our first test of the day’s conditions was Alta Vista, and indeed one could see that surfaces were much firmer than last weekend. The grooming had definitely tilled the new snow into the base, but traffic had also made its mark on the terrain. I’d hit some areas of excellent packed powder where my skis could bite soft and deep, but plenty of others where it was quite firm, and at 115 underfoot, the fat skis certainly weren’t the tool for the job there. The skier’s left offered up its usual supply of powder, but it wasn’t quite the effortless, soft flow that it sometimes is; the powder hadn’t quite hit that threshold depth to really let you crank hard in there while totally avoiding the old base snow.

At the base of Upper Crossover, we began strapping on the skins to head upward. Josh, who had found time for a break from his day’s duties, was out taking a run and spotted us in preparation for the ascent. We chatted for a bit about the festivities going on with the Mountain Dew Vertical Challenge, and he brought up the fact that part of the event was a race. I think they boys might have fun with that, so we’ll have to keep our eyes peeled if they do it again next season. We bid Josh adieu as he continued with his run, and we finished preparing for our ascent. I finished with Dylan’s skins first, and let him go to get a head start, then followed up with Ty and let him go. They’re definitely becoming faster ascenders, but I knew I’d be able to catch them pretty quickly. We found that there was a skin track in place, but it looked like only one other person had used it at that point, and that bode well for encountering lots of untracked terrain. The weather was just perfect – wintry and moderately cold, with no wind. I did numerous depth checks on the powder up there in the 3,000’ range, and was getting readings from 6 to 9 inches in areas that didn’t have drifting. That’s after some settling over the past couple of days, but the 7 inches reported for the past two events certainly seems to be in the ballpark. The crux of the ascent was actually right at the top of Bolton Outlaw. New snow hadn’t settled in well there, and previous scouring left a lot of ice. We really had to work our edges and do some side stepping and pole work to pass through that area. Dylan muscled his way through a challenging slick spot that Ty and I staunchly avoided, and it was quite impressive to see him stick it out. The boys recharged with some GU at the Wilderness Summit, and then we headed in the direction of Peggy Dow’s.

The descent featured some great snow, with generally that 6+ inches of untracked powder unless the wind had played around with it. The best part of the descent was that the boys had plenty of time to work on their Telemark turns in powder, which is something they only get to do so often because they’re typically using their alpine equipment. Today, with the quality of the snow and the very even subsurface, they were really making strides on those turns. Time and time again I’d hear them hooting about how they’d just made “their best powder Telemark turn ever”. Naturally the powder skiing wasn’t 100% bottomless everywhere, but you could definitely get a good percentage of bottomless turns on most pitches. Since we’d all pulled out the fat skis to help in that regard, we were enjoying the fact that they were clearly doing their part to keep us off the subsurface. Lower Turnpike was mostly groomed and had seen a little traffic coming over from Vista, but the edges held a lot of untracked snow, and powder turns were plentiful for essentially the entire descent. It wasn’t going to be too hard to get the boys to do another lap if it seemed like that was the way to go.

Ty was raring to go again, but Dylan was calling for lunch after that lap, and the choice was made to head up to Fireside Flatbread. The upstairs of the base lodge was full of people taking part in the various festivities of the day, so we sat at the bar and had our slices while we soaked up the scene. My pizza was a fun combination of vodka sauce, broccoli, sun dried tomatoes, and red onions, and Ty and I joked about how my slice was almost half of a large pizza. That was Ty’s estimate, and I’d say it was more like 1/3 of a pizza, but it was a monster. We enjoyed watching the pizza guys doing their quick and masterful assemblies of various pies. I overheard them talking with one of the managers about the potential Fireside Flatbread schedule midweek next week, discussing the options for what they’d do it if dumps. There’s the potential for a significant synoptic storm in the Tuesday timeframe, and that’s something we really haven’t seen much of in Northern Vermont so far this season. We’ll be watching the forecast with anticipation just like them.

A black and white image of Ty and Dylan at the Fireside Flatbread restaurant at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Pizza boys

After lunch we hit the lower half of Wilderness and worked our way over to Snow Hole. The boys had already asked about it on their first run, and it seemed like a great idea. The snow was quite good in there, with just a couple of other tracks. The light snowfall that had been with us during the morning had tapered off after a couple of hours, but clouds were generally around and the snow was still staying wintry all the way down to the Village. We also did a run on Snowflake to work in some of the powder on Snowflake Bentley, and it really was still sitting there along the edges even as we were moving past mid afternoon. The boys worked in some additional excellent Telemark turns on those pitches. Conditions really only get marked down today because of the subsurface that is firmer than usual due to the warmth, and some spots being closed because coverage was a bit thin, but if this next storm is substantial enough, those issues could be remedied quite well.

March 9, 2013June 14, 2013

Bolton Valley and Backcountry, VT 09MAR2013

An image of Ty Telemark skiing in powder of the back side of Bolton Valley Resort — Heading up in elevation today to find that powder

Josh has been waiting for a while to get that perfectly clear day to finish up some media work at Bolton Valley, and today it finally came. With the anticipated forecast, he set up for a 7:30 A.M. meeting today in his office, with the plan to catch an early ride on the Vista with the ski patrol. Along with Josh and our family today, we had Leslie from ski school with her girls Alice and Laura, Vince on video, Shem on stills, and Brad from sales as another skier. After catching that early Vista ride, the guys shot stills and video on Alta Vista, Sherman’s Pass, Sleepy Hollow, and then Fanny Hill. They were using the early morning light well, and it seemed like they got some nice material From there we caught another early ride, this time on the Wilderness Chair, much to the chagrin of people who kept coming by the chair thinking it had already opened. A bunch of material was shot on Peggy Dow’s with some views of the Vista trails in the background. All the kids were really patient with the work, which even required hiking back up some of the trails to shoot scenes again and ensure that they would be plenty of good material. We all gathered in the base lodge for some lunch to finish off the session.

“For the best powder, you
had to stay above, or at
least close to, the 3,000’
level and stick to aspects
with a fair bit of northerly
component.”

E and Dylan had to leave after lunch because of a birthday party that Dylan was attending, but Ty and I hung around with the intention of getting in a backcountry tour. With the way the temperatures were rising, I would have liked to do that tour in the morning to ensure the best powder, but the temperatures weren’t too bad up at elevation. After switching out of our alpine gear and into our Telemark gear, we caught a ride on the Wilderness Chair, and headed off the backside just like I’d done on my tour last Saturday. I had initially contemplated skinning up to the top of Ricker Mountain and starting the tour from there, but I decided to make it a bit easier on Ty since he’d already hiked a lot during the media session.

The backcountry snow conditions were certainly variable today, with the snow on south-facing or open terrain taking on a more spring like consistency, but higher elevation, protected aspects held winter snow. For the best powder, you had to stay above, or at least close to, the 3,000’ level and stick to aspects with a fair bit of northerly component. There was some mighty fine snow out there though. The dry powder skied the easiest of course, but even the stuff that was getting a bit sun baked was skiing reasonably well. Based on my observations from last Saturday, we traversed a bit more to the north before making our descent. We caught some nice new lines, and even managed to get right back to the spot where I’d stopped my descent last time. It had settled somewhat, but my skin track from last weekend was still there, so we made use of that until we merged into the upper areas where another main skin track took over.

To get to our front side descent, I changed up our route a bit, using Paradise Pass in the southerly direction to hook up with Heavenly Highway. We then used Moose Glen to get us into position for the descent. I think this option might be easier than what I did last time. We took a break before we started out final descent, making use of the hot soup and cocoa that I was carrying. They weren’t quite as necessary in terms of the cold relative to a tour in colder weather, but they hit the spot after using all that energy to tour around. For our front side descent we used the route that drops us down to Snow Hole, and even when the snow had warmed, it was actually quite easy to ski. Ty had a blast, and our route back to the base area was quite smooth – since I’d explored it already, I know just where to go for the best lines. One of the best parts of the day was that Ty had a great attitude throughout – he was really positive about the whole experience and seemed to be having a blast.

A Google Earth map with GPS tracking data from a front and backcountry ski tour at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont on March 9th, 2013 — Google Earth map with GPS tracking data from today’s tour – Click for full size image

It certainly did get above freezing up there at some point today though, as the high temperature at 2,100’ today was 44.2F, but there were very nice turns to be had up high. The weather is expected to be warm and sunny again tomorrow, but hopefully we’ll be back into some snow during the midweek period to keep building the base.

March 3, 2013March 6, 2013

Stowe, VT 03MAR2013

An image of Ken on skis dropping into the Gondolier Woods at Stowe Mountain Ski Resort in Vermont — Conditions are outstanding right now at Stowe – Ken demonstrates as he drops into the Gondolier Woods.

We’ve been under the continued influence of an upper level low pressure system off to our northeast for the past couple of days, and it’s brought persistent light snows to the mountains and even the valleys in Northern Vermont. As of this morning we’d picked up a couple of inches of snow here at the house, and the mountains had received up to 7 inches of powder. The snowfall was fairly robust up around 3,000’ yesterday when I was out in the Bolton Valley backcountry, and although it had tapered off somewhat today, we knew that conditions were going to be good with the consistently wintry temperature regime we’ve had. Today was BJAMS ski program day at Stowe, and based on the latest report from Powderfreak yesterday, we knew the skiing was going to be excellent.

“It’s almost hard to get
a handle on just how good
much of the mountain is
skiing right now – each new
line we try seems to deliver.”

Claire recently returned from her trip to Africa, so we headed off to Stowe a bit early to make some initial “face time” ski runs that E and Claire could use to catch up on program coordination. We did a couple of laps off Sunny Spruce with the boys, and the conditions were fantastic as expected. The groomed surfaces were all packed powder, and the edges of the trails and the off piste areas were providing ample powder. I did encounter a bit of firmer snow beneath the powder on the open slopes above Meadows. Signs of that melt layer from last week’s bits of low-elevation warmth are certainly getting buried with the continued rounds of light snow, but low elevation and south facing areas still have some of that underneath.

An image of Ken doing a tip stand on his skis outside the Spruce Camp Lodge at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont — Ken keeps the boys on their toes as we get ready for the day’s ski session.

When it was time for our session, we gathered up our main group, which consisted of me, Ty, Dylan, Luke, and Ken. We chatted with Joe and his group about joining up for some runs – we heard about how much fun they’d had in the Chin Clip Streambed, and figured that they would love Angel Food. We were anxious to get Ken a run out there, so it was high on our hit list for the day. Our first run up on the docket though, was Spruce Line; that was Ty’s request, and we figured that we should get it in before we headed over to Mansfield. We teamed up with Joe and his group right away, since they wanted to ski that area as well. We were even able to take Horse Barn Chute on our way over; since coverage is really good right now, and that area has filled in well. From the top of Sensation we dropped into Green Acres, and Luke was very excited to be making turns down that first steep face that has intimidated him in the past. The snow in the trees there was outstanding, with a few inches of untouched powder on the main lines, and bottomless powder off to the sides. It seems like there’s been very little traffic in there as of late. In order to attempt the lower areas of Spruce Line, we connected back to Main Street, but we found the entrances to those lower areas closed (possibly because of the race taking place on Main Street) and took it as our cue to head over to Mansfield.

“Joe was amazed at how
deep and plentiful the snow
was out there – he said it
reminded him of Lake Tahoe…”

We decided to get right on with our plan to ski Angel Food, since it wasn’t the sort of endeavor I wanted to tackle late in the day with a group of eleven, most of whom had never been out there. As it turned out, we were going to appreciate that cushion of time. Our first snafu took place just as we were finishing the traverse out to the top of Angel Food. Joanna dropped a bit too low on the traverse, and wound up being committed to a lower line. Ken decided that he’d better accompany her to make sure everything went smoothly – it’s roughly a mile of distance that needs to be covered to get out of there, and the route is through forested terrain of varying densities that is typically filled with deep powder. It’s important to have a sense for where you are going, so Ken’s choice was apt. And then there were nine. The general descent of Angel Food went fairly smoothly for the rest of the group, and Joe and everyone else experiencing the area for the first time were simply having a blast. Joe was amazed at how deep and plentiful the snow was out there – he said it reminded him of Lake Tahoe, and I let him know that it’s one of the reasons people are so enamored with the skiing on that part of the mountain. That area beneath The Chin gets perhaps the most snow at the resort, on a mountain already known for getting a lot of snow. Indeed the conditions out there have just been getting better and better as the snow’s been piling up over the past month, and it was packed powder all around on the main line with virtually limitless options for powder off to the sides. Our next snafu began when we just missed the main traverse back to the gondola base. I quickly got the word out that we should start traversing hard on our own, but Ethan missed that announcement and was already a few dozen yards below us. I started a fresh traverse through the powder, with the other folks following me, and we instructed Ethan to start his own traverse below. I cut a pretty hard traverse that was doing a good job of getting us back on track, but Ethan’s traverse was not quite as strict, and before long he was a hundred yards below us. There was no way he was going to get back up to us in a reasonable amount of time. I decided that we needed to keep the entire group together, and if it meant taking one of the lines all the way down to the notch and lengthening our run, then that’s what we’d do. It’s one of the reasons we made sure we had the extra time. The bonus result of the situation of course was that we got to ski a fairly steep, very lightly tracked line. It’s one of the multitude of fantastic lines that one might ogle when they’re out there, wondering where they go… and we got to find out. As it turns out, it still has a traverse that gets one back onto the main line, and we had Ethan to thank for the discovery. I’m sure it’s got a nice name given by someone that worked hard to create such an excellent piece of ski terrain, but “Ethan’s Chute” is going to be our name for now. Honestly, today’s explorations only reinforced the fact that it could take years to really piece together the hundreds of acres of glades, chutes, and everything else that is out there. Thanks to today’s explorations though, we were able to add another small piece to the puzzle.

Ken and Joanna had made good time on their descent, which was somewhere inside of ours and more proximal to the resort, and Ken said that although there was still some undergrowth on their route like we’d experienced a few weeks back in the Bench Woods, they encountered just ridiculous amounts of untracked powder. Sam had battled just a little too much powder and a few too many trees on our Angel Food descent, so Joe brought him back over to Spruce for a break, and Joanna and Julia had some runs they wanted to do on their own, so we were down to a group of seven. After the long Angel Food adventure we decided to slow it down a bit by taking a standard run on Waterfall and Gondolier, and then giving the boys a break in the Midway Lodge. Waterfall had absolutely excellent snow after just a couple of windswept moguls at the top – it was soft packed powder with a few inches of new powder sifted in on top. It’s almost hard to get a handle on just how good much of the mountain is skiing right now – each new line we try seems to deliver. We generally stuck to Gondolier for most of that descent, but some of us couldn’t help but get sucked into the Gondolier Woods for at least part of the run. That terrain was already in good shape a month ago, so it’s not hard to figure out how good it’s getting now.

As we sat in the Midway Lodge, taking our break by the fireplace (which I think is becoming a favorite spot for Ken as well as me) we threw around ideas for our end game. We’d have time for just a run or two, and we ultimately decided to traverse over to the Fourrunner Quad and catch either Lookout or Hackett’s Highway. Lookout was closed from the top, so we wound our way down to Hackett’s, again visiting some of those Lord Trees that we’d explored last time. Ty had quite an exit there, dropping a six foot cliff back onto the trail area, and nearly landing on a rock, but he pulled it out. Hackett’s was in nice shape, and we coupled it with some Hackett’s Highway Trees as we made our way to Crossover and back to the Spruce Peak Base Area.

On the way home, E and the boys and I stopped off for some dinner at Piecasso, and while we were there discussing the day’s exploits on the slopes, a gentleman sitting at the table next to us with his family, overhead us and asked about conditions. He said that they had just arrived in town, and that they were concerned about the amount of snow that they were seeing, wondering if there was going to be enough on the slopes. I was surprised, because Stowe actually has decent coverage in town – I’m sure it’s below normal for this time of year at a bit less than a foot (March 3^rd is actually the peak for snowpack at our house, and that’s typically around two feet), but everything is well covered and white thanks to the recent light snows. Depending on where he came from though, he may have seen some rather meager looking snowpack in places. I assured him that the mountain was very well covered, and that there was over five feet of natural snowpack at the Mt. Mansfield Stake. I’m not sure where that family was from, perhaps Quebec based on the accents, but they should have a classic, fantastic Stowe experience this week. We’ve got a couple more days of this light snow, then some clear days are expected at the end of the week, and there’s the potential for a larger snowstorm next weekend. I’m looking forward to making turns next weekend already.

March 2, 2013June 14, 2013

Bolton Valley and Backcountry, VT 02MAR2013

An image of a ski track in powder in the terrain off the back side of Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont — Enjoying some of the substantial powder of the back side of Bolton Valley

Since the storm that came through in the midweek period, we’ve moved under the influence of an upper level low pressure system that is off to our northeast. It’s keeping snow showers in the area, but as of this morning the Northern Vermont ski Resorts had only picked up 1 to 3 inches of snow. Without much in the way of new powder, it was a little hard to get the boys motivated to head up to the mountain today, but E thought that they might be excited by some swimming at the Bolton Valley Sports Center. Indeed that was enough to get them excited, so while E and the boys spent time at the pool, I planned to get in a quick sidecountry and backcountry ski tour. My plan was to head off the back side of the Wilderness Summit to explore a line that I’d seen before, and then connect back onto the trails of the Bolton Valley Backcountry Network and return to the village via a front side run. Dylan had to get to a birthday party at 3:30 P.M., so I had to fit my tour into a two to three hour window.

E and the boys dropped me off at the base of the Wilderness Lift as they headed down to the pool, and light snow was already breaking out after a morning lull. Temperatures were comfortable in the low 20s F, and winds were fairly minimal. Rime still coated the trees all over the mountain, and clouds shrouded the upper elevations, leaving the overall views very white. As I approached the Wilderness Summit, the chairs ahead of me began to disappear into the clouds, but visibility at the summit itself would up not being all that bad.

I followed the main route off the back of the Wilderness Chair that I’d taken before, and found a skin track ascending as I began my descent. I initially followed the main drainage right below Ricker Mountain, but continued to head off to the north because I kept finding the terrain much more open. The skiing was quite good, even if the powder was a rather dense, Pacific Northwest style snow, but it covered everything below the snow with such effectiveness that it really proved its worth. There were numerous and continuous open areas, allowing for some big turns. I’d pulled my fat skis out after a couple weeks on skinnier gear, and they were absolutely the call today. The dense snow was accommodated well with girth and rocker, and there were minimal worries about catching a ski under the snow. I continued to descend, heading generally northward when the appropriate opportunities arose, until I’d hit the 2,500’ elevation mark after descending close to 700’. The snow was getting a bit of crust on it down at that elevation, and the terrain was flattening out, so it was the perfect place to stop. I found myself in an area that I knew fairly well from previous tours, and with a little GPS guidance I was able to plot a course up toward Paradise Pass.

As I’d done on the descent, I continued to check the depth of the snow as I skinned up. I generally measured depths between 20 and 30 inches before reaching a real solid subsurface, and although I was only skiing on the top several inches due to its density, it was still quite impressive. All that wind that I mentioned in my Bolton report from February 18^th had to put the snow somewhere, and plenty of it got thrown to the leeward slopes. Combined with all the recent snowfall from various storms, it’s mighty deep out there. The Mt. Mansfield Stake is at 63” as of yesterday evening, which is actually about a half foot below average, but at this time of year even being a bit below average means a pretty deep snowpack. The intensity of the snowfall had picked up quite a bit since my tour began, I just about had to wear my goggles even while ascending because of the snow intensity at times.

I got myself up to Paradise Pass, and had to pull out my map a few times and I wound my way over to the section of Heavenly Highway where I planned to make my front side descent. After a couple direction changes, I met my goal, and hit a glade I’d found that brought me right down to Snow Hole. I couldn’t believe that the front side snow in the high elevations was even slightly better than I’d found on the back side. I think that a little more of the recent snow had fallen there, creating a thicker coating atop the denser snow. Whatever the case, it was sweet and allowed me to rip my way down through the terrain. Once down to Snow Hole I called E to check on their status – they were done swimming and were having lunch at the Village Deli. With that info I was able to head toward the base of the Wilderness Lift, and then onward to the deli for some lunch of my own. I was pretty bushed from keeping such a high pace on the tour to ensure that I got back to the village in time, and boy did I devour that sandwich.

A Google Earth map with GPS tracking data from a front and backcountry ski tour at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont on March 2nd, 2013 — Google Earth map with GPS tracking data from today’s tour – Click for full size image

Later in the evening we went for a snowshoe tour around the neighborhood and across the Winooski, and the snowfall picked up, providing an excellent wintry scene. We’ve already had more snow tonight than last night, and all these small rounds of snow are going to really help in keeping the slopes fresh.

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