Trip Report Archives - Page 56 of 64

December 23, 2011December 30, 2011

Bolton Valley, VT 23DEC2011 (A.M. Session)

An image of ski tracks in the fresh powder along the edge of the Sherman's Pass Trail at Bolton Valley in Vermont - December 23, 2011 — Making some tracks in the fresh powder along the edge of Sherman's Pass on the upper mountain

The potential storm system that we’d been watching for the past few days started trending warmer in some of the later weather model runs – warm enough that even the lower valleys in Northern Vermont looked like they might be dealing with a little rain before the snow moved in. That wasn’t the case though, at least in the mountain valleys east of the Greens. This morning when I got up I found 2.2 inches of snow on the snowboard at our house in Waterbury, and no sign of rain. Light snow was still falling at the house, and with even more snow expected to fall in the mountains throughout the day, it seem like an opportune time for some storm day skiing.

I decided to head up to Bolton a bit early to earn some turns ahead of the 9:00 A.M. opening of the Mid Mountain Double. I couldn’t quite convince the boys to go with me, but I figured I’d come home after a couple runs and get them to go up later in the day. The valley snow accumulations certainly dropped off as I headed west to the town of Bolton, and at the bottom of the Bolton Valley Access Road (340’), I’d say the accumulation looked like about 1”. As I ascended the road, I was surprised at how slowly the accumulation increased – even up at 1,000’ it didn’t seem like there was too much more than at the base of the road. Eventually the depth of snow started to increase though – up at 1,500’ at the base of Timberline, the trails had a decent covering of a few inches (although they may have had some base left from earlier storms). The ascent of the road was a little tricky; with temperatures near freezing, the new snow was a bit greasy. The traction control in the Subaru came on a few times in the slickest spots, but the ascent was pretty controlled and uneventful. Watching how slowly cars were descending in the other lane had also been a tip off that the conditions warranted caution. Up in the Bolton Valley Village area at 2,100’ I found 2-3” of fresh snow on the car next to me when I arrived, and I suspect that car had been there since the start of the snowfall. It was snowing a steady light snow as I prepared my gear, and there was no wind, so the potential for fresh tracks was looking good.

I ran into patroller Quinn at the base of the Mid Mountain Double Chair, and since it was getting close to the 9:00 A.M. opening time for the lift, he said that I should avoid skinning right up Bear Run to keep out of the way of downhill traffic on open terrain. Fortunately, this round of snow was enough to make skinning practical on natural snow terrain – even on the lower part of the main mountain. I was able to skin up Villager to Foxy, and with the addition of the new snow the natural snowpack was generally 3 – 4”. The fresh snow was reasonably dense, so it was plenty to keep my skis away from the ground underneath. I stopped in at the summit station of the Snowflake Chair, grabbed some snow photos, and spend a few moments enjoying the quiet and the snowfall.

I continued on over to the mid mountain area, then headed up Bull Run to Sherman’s Pass. The mountain was running a couple of snow guns on Sherman’s, presumably in spots they wanted to finish up for tomorrow’s planned opening from the Vista Summit. The snowfall definitely intensified on the upper mountain, coming in at a moderate level with some larger flakes up to 7 – 8 mm in diameter. The more intense snowfall had made a difference in the accumulations as well. Up around 3,150’ near the Vista Summit, depth checks revealed that new accumulations were 4”+, and I found total natural snowpack in the 6 – 8” range. That snowpack is actually pretty substantial, since there is a good layer of consolidated stuff on the bottom that went through the recent thaw/freeze. With this new snow on top, which is certainly not ultra fluff, one good storm is all it will take to open some of the mellower natural snow terrain on the upper mountain. As I put away my skins and got ready for the descent behind the top station of the Vista Quad, I check on the thermometer and the temperature was 28 F. Unlike below, there was a bit of a breeze, perhaps 10 MPH, and the wind turbine was running. I got a call from Johannes asking about where I was and if I wanted to ski with everyone, and I told him that I was at the Vista Summit and would be down soon.

The descent was nice. Although most of Sherman’s was messy with track marks and ruts from all the snowcat and snowmobile traffic, I was able to find some fresh turns off to the sides of the trail where equipment hadn’t blemished the snow. Just as I was descending to mid mountain I saw Helena getting off the Mid Mountain Chair, so the timing was perfect for meeting up. Helena was on her new twin tip skis, and although she commented that they felt weird at first, she made some beautiful, controlled turns, and it looked like she was going to take to them pretty quickly. Thomas and Johannes soon caught up to us on our descent, and we did a couple of runs while Stephen finished getting into his gear. At some point during that time we started to get some nice big 1” upslope-style flakes of snow – the intensity was still generally light to at most moderate at times, but it had that nice winter maelstrom look to it and it was helping to keep things fresh. I caught one more run once Stephen joined the group, and then I decided that I should head home for lunch and see if I could get the boys to come up for some turns. Even with the limited terrain that was open, the resort had that powder day buzz and the quality of the skiing was pumped up a notch due to the new snow. There were powder pockets off to the sides in which one could play around, and it made Bear Run all the more enjoyable.

An image of the Mid Mountain Chairlift at Bolton Valley with snow falling on December 23, 2011 — Thomas and Johannes enjoy a ride on the Mid Mountain Chair amidst big flakes of upslope snowfall.

Back down at the car I found close to an inch of new snow on it, and since I’d been there for a couple of hours, that would suggest a snowfall rate of ~0.5”/hr during that period down at the main base elevations. The temperature was a bit below freezing at 2,100’, but back down at the bottom of the access road it was certainly above freezing at ~35 F. Even back at the house it was above freezing at 34.3 F, and although the snow had continued to fall, the accumulation on our back yard snowboard had not gone above the 0.7” from this morning, presumably due to consolidation and warming. I told the boys that the skiing was a lot of fun up on the mountain, and that they should get in some Telemark practice – it was the perfect time to do it with fairly minimal, mellow terrain being open. Click through to get to a report on our afternoon session back up at the mountain.

December 17, 2011July 30, 2012

Stowe, VT 17DEC2011

An image of the Spruce Peak Village area at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont on a snowy morning - December 17, 2011 — Stowe Mountain Resort: A quiet morning in the Spruce Peak Village area

Today started off great when E woke me up and said that it was snowing, and that we’d already picked up an inch of new snow. Last I’d heard, the overnight forecast was for partly cloudy, so the snow was quite a surprise. I measured 1.1 inches of snow on the snowboard at 7:00 A.M., sent in my observations to CoCoRaHS and posted them on American Weather, and then E and I were off to Stowe for school ski program training day. There was some snow on the way to the mountain, but once we got there we found consistent light snowfall, and it turned out that that’s what we’d encounter all day. E had arrived early as one of the program coordinators, so the scene in the Spruce Peak Village was incredibly quiet for a Saturday morning. It wasn’t long though before people began to arrive and the old Day Lodge building where we were set up was bustling.

After about an hour or so of taking care of paperwork for passes and getting tickets, we met up with our instructor Tom, whom we’d had as our instructor a couple years in the past and really enjoyed. We started out with a few runs on the Adventure Triple Chair on Spruce Peak, where we practiced drills for beginners; it was our first chance to try out Stowe’s new RFID system for lift access. It worked really well as far as I’m concerned; you just stick your little card in a pocket of your clothing (we were instructed that it’s best to choose a pocket without your credit card or cell phone) you walk up to the turnstiles at the lifts, and they open for you. You do want to move right through the turnstile though, as I found out when I got lightly smacked from behind by the next bar coming through. Turnstiles are used for a wide variety of different purposes and are also widely used as a method of physical access control. You can find more information about the security benefits of turnstiles on the DaoSafe website. The conditions on the Inspiration trail were certainly decent, a typical man-made surface, although the falling snow did help to freshen it a bit.

“…on my first run I
popped into some
fresh powder below
the Octagon and it
was simply glorious!”

After our time at Inspiration we headed over to Mt. Mansfield for some more advanced drills. The new Fourrunner Quad is very cool, and whisks you right up the mountain like the old one. Our ride up felt surprisingly cold though, and with temperatures that we thought were in the 20s F, we figured it had to be our acclimatization. However, it turns out that temperatures were in the single digits F with wind chills below zero F up high, so it was legitimately cold out there. I’d heard from Powderfreak in an early morning report on the American Weather forum that they’d received 3 inches of new snow up high, so I was curious to see what the conditions were like. With only so many trails open, it wasn’t like there was going to be tons of fresh powder, but on my first run I popped into some fresh powder below the Octagon and it was simply glorious! I’d say there were four inches down by that point, and I wasn’t even touching down to the base on the moderate angle terrain, so it was a real treat. In fact, the whole top half of that first run on Upper Lord was really impressive in terms of snow conditions. While it wasn’t fresh powder beyond that first stretch, the new snow added a lot to keep the conditions nice along the side of the trail. With less fresh snow it wasn’t quite as good on the lower half of the mountain on North Slope, it was more typical surface that one would find any time of year with high traffic. On our second run we took a different route, with Ridge View up top and Lower Lord down below. That run was certainly not as glorious, perhaps in part due to another few rounds of traffic, or the fact that Lower Lord was notably scratchier than North Slope.

We headed back to Spruce Camp after that to get our pass pictures taken, have some lunch, and finish up additional paperwork. It was our first chance to get back to some of that excellent food from the Great Room Grill after the off season, and E and I had a nice lunch of soup and salad. Tom continued with some great training discussion at lunch, and then E and I headed back over to Mt. Mansfield with him for a couple more runs. Everyone else had had to leave for various commitments, so basically E and I got a private lesson with Tom for the afternoon. We had a great time there with a lot of advanced drills and private tutoring.

Heading back home later in the afternoon, we stopped in at the Alpine Mart on the Mountain Road for some gas and a snack, and the cashier asked how we were enjoying the sunshine. I told him that we’d been up on the mountain all day and we hadn’t seen much sun because it was snowing the whole time. He was pretty excited by that, and commented that they were expecting and other 2 to 4 inches tonight, and then we were going to get blitzed Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, with 8 to 10 inches on Christmas Eve. The woman next to me commented on how that was going to be horrible for travel, and he said the plows were going to be out all night. I hadn’t looked at the weather models in a while, but with the surprise shot of snow I could only assume everything had gone topsy-turvy with the forecast. Anyway, I think his estimate might be a little on the high side for tonight – the forecast seems to be more like partly cloudy and very cold. I do see the potential Monday, Thursday, and Saturday snowfall events on the ECMWF, but I’m not sure where he’s getting his weather information because it doesn’t look quite like we’re getting the storm he was talking about.

It looked like the sun came out in parts of Waterbury today, because the new snow had disappeared in a lot of spots east of the mountains, but once we headed back toward the spine the accumulations picked back up. The fluff we’d received overnight at the house had certainly settled some, but I did find a couple of additional tenths of an inch on the snowboard. It’s also interesting to note that there seemed to be more snow left on the west side of the range – we were in South Burlington in the evening for my sister’s birthday, and they had a good inch of snow there, which is more than we saw back toward the center of Waterbury. They may have gotten in on some lake-effect snow or enhancement that was going on. It’s nice to have snow on the ground at this point though, and we’ll have to watch what Mother Nature brings this week as we head toward the holiday.

December 10, 2011December 13, 2011

Bolton Valley, VT 10DEC2011

A December image from the mid mountain area of Bolton Valley looking up toward Ricker Mountain — Checking out a December scene from mid mountain as the snow clouds pull away

With lake-effect snow coming off the Great Lakes, and some upslope hitting the Green Mountains, we picked up about a half inch of snow at the house overnight. The local ski areas also picked up an inch or two, which was enough to get me interested in heading up to Bolton for opening day. Checking their morning update on the website, I found out that they weren’t opening until 10:00 A.M., so that gave me a chance to take it easy for a while in the morning.

At some point after 9:00 A.M., I headed up to the mountain – I did check in with E and the boys to see if they wanted to head up for turns, but none of them were interested. I can’t blame them, since I knew it was going to be pretty vanilla with just Bear Run off the Mid Mountain Chair and the Mighty Mite learning area going. In terms of natural snow, at the base of the Bolton Valley Access Road (340’) the snowpack was sitting at around an inch, with snow melted out on south-facing slopes, pretty much like it is at our house. At around 1,000’ the snowpack became consistent on all aspects – the depth was only about an inch or so, but the consistent snowpack gave everything a much wintrier look. Up above 2,000’ in the Village there was a general 2-3” inches of snow everywhere – not enough to open any natural terrain, but certainly enough to know that winter was here. Temperatures were in the mid 20s F, and there was on and off light snow falling, so that really helped to fill out the wintry scene.

An image from the Bolton Valley Village area - December 10, 2011 — Checking out the snow in the Bolton Valley Village area this morning

I still had some time before the lift would be loading, so I skinned up Bear Run to catch an early descent. I could see that the mountain had made just enough snow to get the Bear Run area open wall to wall, and it sounds like they were crunched for time to even do that. Up at Mid Mountain I enjoyed the solitude while I de-skinned, and took in the scene for a few minutes. There were patches of blue sky appearing as the snow clouds began breaking away, and it was turning into a nice December day. I had a nice mellow descent of Bear Run, enjoying my first groomed turns of the season. The snow was a little firm since it was almost 100% man-made, but it was decent enough for opening day. I poked around a little off the edge of the trail at the junction with Sprig O’ Pine, and there was that roughly half inch to inch of new snow to be found, but they had groomed essentially everywhere that they had put down the man-made base so there weren’t really any fresh turns to be had. The few inches of snow on the natural snow trails actually looked pretty nice aside from the tall grass sticking through, and there’s plenty of snow out there to make it a paradise for junkboarders.

It was just after 10:00 A.M. when I got to the bottom, and a queue was already forming at the Mid Mountain Chair, but I decided to hop on and catch a lift-served run before I left. I got a nice little burn going from continuous Telemark turns, and was reminded of the benefits of lift-served skiing in that regard. Heading down toward the lodge after my run I ran into Jason, one of the instructors I know from the summer glade crew, and we chatted for a while. They had about 200 people from some group visiting the resort that were skiing and taking lessons, and they were all still quite keen to go despite the limited terrain. I popped into ski patrol to pick up my Powder Pass tickets from summer glade work, and then I was able to find patroller Quinn in civilian clothes up in the lift queue to thank him for getting all of us the tickets. The mountain appeared to be running the lift a little slow, perhaps to keep any trail crowding to a minimum, and there had been some starts and stops of the lift, so the queue was actually getting pretty big. It would have been a bit of a wait for another lift-served run if I had been planning to do any more.

A picture of some of the Vermont food vendor tables at Bolton Valley - December 10, 2011 — Vermont food vendors hosted by Bolton Valley Resort upstairs in the main base lodge

I checked the time and decided that I could catch the start of the Vermont food vendors display that was going on upstairs in the main lodge, so I stopped down at the car, changed out of my gear, and then headed up. I sampled everything they had and got some of their business cards to keep for holiday gift options, clearly timing was great in that regard for all the vendors that participated. The mountain really got together a lot of fun stuff to make opening day festive; they were having an Eastern Mountain Sports Telemark Demo Day and a Christmas tree lighting and visit from Santa later in the day as well.

The resort is planning to go top to bottom on the main mountain for next weekend, which should be possible with what looks like decent snowmaking temperatures for the coming week (low in the 10s and 20s F, and highs generally in the 20s and 30s F). In terms of natural snow, the next shot appears to be in the Wednesday through Friday period; it’s not expected to be any huge dump as far as I know, but we’ll see what plays out when we get there.

November 23, 2011November 24, 2011

Bolton Valley, VT 23NOV2011

An image of fresh snow on an evergreen at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont — Fresh snow from our pre-Thanksgiving storm coats an evergreen near the 2,800' elevation as I ascended Bolton Valley's Schuss trail today.

Our first big Northern Vermont storm of the season came in with a nice thump of snow during the overnight hours, and I awoke to find 7.1 inches of moderately dense snow on the snowboard for my 6:00 A.M. report to CoCoRaHS. Later in the morning the National Weather Service Office in Burlington put out a map showing the overnight snow totals, but the snow was still coming down. Snow continued to fall at the house all morning, and while it gradually tapered to very light snow, we picked up a few more inches to bring us into double digits for the storm total.

We played out in the snow for a while with the boys, and then in the mid afternoon I had to decide if I wanted to get out and make some turns in the new snow. Ideally I was looking for a place where man-made snow had been put down as a base, but unfortunately most of the mountains that had been making snow were actually opening for lift-served skiing. I thought about Sugarbush, since they aren’t opening until tomorrow, but they’ve been a bit testy with people earning turns in recent years and I didn’t want to drive over just to get turned away.

I eventually decided that I’d pop up to Bolton and see how the snow looked. I wasn’t expecting much in terms of skiing without a prior base, but perhaps I’d be pleasantly surprised. The temperature had gone a couple degrees above freezing at our house (elevation 495’), so the snow had been falling off the trees and the snow in the yard had also settled a bit. As Powderfreak had mentioned, the snow accumulations really did fall off as I headed a couple of miles west past the Waterbury/Bolton line. At the base of the Bolton Valley Access Road (340’) it was really amazing, there were just a couple inches of snow on the ground from the storm. It had me really worried about what went on up at the mountain, but fortunately the snow depths began to increase as I climbed in elevation as usual. Up at around 1,000’ near the Bolton Valley Resort sign, it looked like there were about 4 inches on the ground, and by the time I reached the Timberline base at 1,500’ it was notably deeper. I stopped in near the lodge and did a quick measurement with my pole to reveal 8.5 inches of settled snow. I saw one guy putting his skins on his skis for a tour, and noticed a couple of other cars that might have belonged to skiers, but I decided to head up to the main base area and see if things got a bit deeper. While at the base of the access road the temperature had been a couple degrees above freezing just like at our house, it dropped to around the freezing mark by the Timberline base, and it was a couple degrees below freezing up at the village (2,100’). As soon as I parked the car I checked the snow depth there, and found that it was about 10 inches. To read the full report and check out the rest of the pictures, head to the Bolton Valley trip report from today.

October 30, 2011November 6, 2011

Pico, VT 30OCT2011

An image of Erica skiing powder on the Birch Glades Trail at Pico Vermont - October 30, 2011 — E enjoys some of the October powder at Pico after back to back storms set up some great ski conditions.

On Thursday, Vermont got hit with its first major storm of the 2011-2012 winter season. The greatest effects were felt in the central and southern parts of the state, where areas like Killington picked up about a foot of snow. Then yesterday, an early season Nor’easter came through the Northeast, and it turned out be historic for the Mid Atlantic and Southern New England, where some areas picked up more than 30 inches of snow. That’s a good dump of snow for any time during the winter, but it’s incredible for October, and numerous October snowfall records were shattered. Through the combination of the two storms, some areas in the Berkshires of Massachusetts had already picked up over three feet of snow for October. Up in Vermont, the Nor’easter was focused on the central and southern parts of the state, just like the previous storm. We did actually pick up 1.2 inches of snow at our house in Waterbury last night, but with areas south of us getting another good dump of snow on top of the base they already had from the previous storm, our eyes were definitely drawn southward for some potentially great October skiing.

Since Killington had already opened for lift-served skiing, we decided that Pico would be a much mellower option for earned turns, with similarly great snow. Despite many days of skiing at Killington in the past, nobody in the family had actually ever skied Pico, but it’s hard not to admire the way 3,967’ Pico Peak towers well above Sherburne Pass on Route 4. Since the base area of Pico sits at an elevation of ~2,000’, it’s got plenty of elevation to help keep the snow dry if lower elevation temperatures are above freezing.

E hosted a Halloween pumpkin-carving party last night, but I still had plenty of time after clean up to prep some of the gear and put the skins on the skis so that we’d be able to save time this morning. After a hearty breakfast to ensure that the boys were charged up for the mountain ascent, they got dressed very quickly and headed out to play in the snow while we got everything together for the trip. I recorded the final couple of tenths of an inch of snow that had accumulated on our snowboard from the morning’s light snow, and we were on our way southward. To read the details about the skiing and see all the pictures, head to the full report from Pico on October 30th, 2011.

An image of Sherburne Pass from Pico ski area in Vermont with October snow — Looking down from the trials of Pico at the base area and Sherburne Pass, October almost seemed like mid winter.

September 12, 2011September 10, 2013

2010-2011 Ski Season Summary

Having now compiled all our ski trip and winter storm summary reports for the ’10-’11 ski season, I’ve put together this season summary as a view of how things transpired from a Northern Vermont local perspective. It’s interesting to note that for Burlington, winter ’10-‘11 was well above average for snowfall (128.4”, 175%), while out in the mountains at our house the deviation was much less (197”, 114%), and indeed in the higher elevations of the Northern Greens like Bolton it was even closer to average (330”, 106%), so ski resort snowfall around here was essentially average. I actually made a chart for a post at Americanwx.com concerning the ’07-’08 season, which used Bolton’s snowfall from the past several seasons as a general indicator of how the snowfall has been in Northern Vermont:

One can see from the chart that ’10-‘11 was basically average for snowfall, and that the amount of snow (330”) was identical to ’07-’08. I would add that the general impression was that consistency of winter temperatures was a bit better than average in ’10-‘11 due to fewer warm events, so the quality of snow surfaces was higher. I’m not sure how much better than average it was though, since it seems that during midwinter, the norm in the higher elevations of the Northern Greens is to have about one warm episode per month. Also, since we were essentially out of the main track of synoptic storms until February, there wasn’t much in the way of moderate-density snowfall to resurface the slopes. I try to address the consistency of temperatures/quality of the snow surfaces in the text below though, at least in the context of weekends; I should note that it’s possible there could have been some midweek weather issues that simply flew under the radar for me. For the quality assessment I simply focused on whether or not we were skiing powder, because unless there is some sort of notable rise in temperatures, there is always powder available.

A monthly breakdown of snowfall and my perspective on the season follows below – you can click on each month (except November) and it should bring up that month’s posts in the J&E Productions Web Log. I only have the monthly snowfall for my house and not the ski areas, but the percentages relative to average often parallel the mountains reasonably well, especially for Bolton which is right up above us:

October: Pretty typical in that we got at least some snow for skiing; we had 1.0” of snow at the house. October snowfall in the lower valleys is often minimal enough that the percentages aren’t all that relevant, but that number is 111% vs. the five year average since we’ve been at our house, so indeed that’s rather “normal”.

November: Very poor; we got just 2.4” of snow at the house (29% of average) and I don’t really remember it, nor do I have any entries for that month in my ski log, so that says plenty right there. I do have a vague recollection of storm after storm tracking to our north and west giving us mostly rain though, so that would explain the low snowfall total. The lack of snowfall wasn’t necessarily a huge concern at the time since it was “only November”, but without good November snowfall, getting to appropriate base depths and excellent skiing in December can be that much harder.

December: Quite normal, 46.0” of snow at the house (right about average at 102%). Fortunately, even with minimal November snow we were skiing natural snow terrain by December 10^th up at Bolton; the holiday period featured some decent skiing, with 7 outings for me during that stretch, indicating that the snow was obviously OK. Bolton had picked up 4 feet of snow from the storm at the beginning of the month, however, a lot of that snow, as well as what fell later in the month, was upslope fluff. So, even if one assumes a fairly average amount of snowfall for the mountains like we saw in the valley, the very dry nature of the snow meant that there was less liquid than usual, resulting in base depths that really didn’t build quickly. The Boxing Day Storm was unfortunately the start of a pattern that would last the next five to six weeks, with the big synoptic storms staying well south of the region and pounding Southern New England, while northern areas remained on the fringe and essentially survived on fluff. Temperature consistency/snow surface quality: Skiing was done on all 4 weekends of the month, and out of the 12 outings in my records, the only outing without powder skiing was Friday, Dec 31^st, so that suggests pretty consistent temperatures.

January: We got 55.5” of snow at the house, which is above average (137%) in what can sometimes be a dry, midwinter month. However, January was essentially a month-long continuation of the trend that started on Boxing Day, and we were living on mostly Northern Vermont Champlain Powder™ fluff. We had a couple of good upslope storms in the early to mid part of the month (January 7^th and January 12^th) that made for some fine skiing, but obviously since so much of it was pixie dust, the base depths just could not build the way that they would with some synoptic storms. Temperature consistency/snow surface quality: Skiing was done on all 5 weekends of the month, and out of 11 outings in my records, the only outing without powder skiing was Saturday, Jan 1^st due to the warmth at the end of December. So I think one could argue that weekend ski surface consistency through Dec/Jan was better than average with only one (instead of two) weekend-affecting warm up(s) for the two months.

February: This is when the storm track finally shifted north and we got some notable synoptic storms; the first one was right on the 1^st, and then we had a second storm on the 5^th. That first storm brought just over a foot of snow for us down in the valley, and was by far the largest for the month. Thus there weren’t really any mega dumps based on my records from the house, but there was plenty of the usual good skiing at Bolton and even good skiing at Stowe. Snowfall was 48.1”, which is roughly average at 108%. Temperature consistency/snow surface quality: Out of the 10 outings in my records, all 10 of them had powder skiing, so February was perfect in that regard. However, while skiing was done on all 4 weekends of the month, we had to wait until Monday of the long weekend to ski because there had been some sort of warm-up. So I’d say the month was pretty typical with at least that one warm-up.

March: We continued to stay in the storm track for most of March, with our biggest valley snowfall of the season (25.0”) coming from the March 5^th storm. We did wind up with notably above average snowfall in the valley for the month (39.6”; 155%), essentially due to that one big storm and aided by the fact that what I’ve got for a March average could be a bit low due to very poor Marches in ’09 (12.6”) and ’10 (2.1”). Temperature consistency/snow surface quality: Skiing was done on all 4 weekends of the month, and powder skiing was done on all those weekends, however, there was also notable infiltration of non-powder skiing days into the weekends. Relative to the previous three months, only 9 of our 12 outings for March featured powder skiing, so while still a pretty good ratio, it was certainly a decrease. Indeed there were multiple warm ups in the month because those three non-powder days were actually on three different weekends (the 1^st, 3^rd, and 4^th weekends). Fortunately, those weekends were somewhat redeemed by powder on the other day. By March, especially toward the end, things may start to fall off a bit from the typical rate of one warm episode per month, but I would expect that with at least 3 individual warm ups in March, it was nothing great or even above average in terms of consistency.

April: This was again quite a poor month in terms of snowfall and powder skiing; although snowfall correlation between our location down at the house and the mountains can really start to wane as one moves through April and snowfall becomes more and more elevation dependent. Snowfall at the house was well below average for the month (4.4”; 61%). We did at least start out the month with a snowstorm on the 1^st and another one on the 4^th; these events produced some good weekend powder skiing at Bolton and helped the mountain snowpack to surpass 100 inches at the Mt. Mansfield Stake. However, the snowfall really fell off after that. Temperature consistency/snow surface quality: Skiing was done on all 5 weekends of the month, but only 3 out of 9 days had powder and only 2 of the weekends had powder skiing. People were excited because we had a relatively deep snowpack during the month and coverage stayed longer than normal, but after that first week the storm track had shifted to the north/west and it was just storm after storm that featured warmth and little to no snow, even for the mountains. I commented on that trend in a post at Americanwx.com, since there can easily be feet of snow in the higher elevations in April, and instead of just some corn days or spring crud, we could have been skiing some great powder.

May: The May skiing was good due to the healthy snowpack, and I did get out in the powder on the 6^th for top to bottom skiing on Mansfield. We didn’t get any snowfall at the house during the month, but May’s average snowfall numbers down at our elevation are pretty minimal like October, and with the high sun angle and warming as we approach the solstice I suspect even more removed from correlation with what the mountains see. Temperature consistency/snow surface quality: I wouldn’t say May powder is consistent enough to worry about. I only got out for two days during the month, but at least one was a powder day; the other day was a corn snow day at Bolton so that was also good even if there wasn’t fresh snow.

June: Our only day in June was outside VT on the East Snowfields on Mt. Washington, and the snowfield was probably smaller than usual for that time of year due to the below average Mt. Washington snowfall for the season. There actually had been some frozen precipitation in the northern mountains leading up to that day, but we were skiing corn snow.

So in terms of overall snowfall, the two above average months of January and March were basically counteracted by the two below average months of November and April, and with the rest of the months being about average, the snowfall for the season ends up… about average. Some plusses were better than average snowpack in April and May, but that’s somewhat counteracted by the lower than average snowpack in November, December, and January. It looks like there was an uptick in consistency in the December-January period due to just that one notable warm-up, but with February and March coming in probably about average in that category, and while November is not especially consistent in terms of temperatures, even in the higher elevations, it must have been below average to get so little snow for the month. So taking the trends of consistency as an aggregate from November through April, I wouldn’t say that there was a massive improvement in temperature consistency/snow quality for this area. Something that I have noticed around here is that having a few more storms with mixed precipitation is not necessarily a huge detractor in terms of snow quality. The ’07-’08 season was a good example of this. We were right in the storm track, so if we did receive some mixed precipitation, there was often another storm on its heels so quickly, that old snow surfaces were covered up. It felt like we were right in the storm track for most of that winter, except that we had a relatively poor April with little snowfall (we picked up just 1.6” of snow at the house, even less than this past April). It is interesting to note that winter ’07-’08 (consistently stormy from November through March) and winter ’10-’11 (biggest synoptic storms focused on just February and March) provide quite disparate examples of how to get to very similar seasonal snowfall totals (203.2” and 197.0” respectively at the house, and 330” and 330” respectively up on the mountain).

Tree skiing: While working on some web page material, I came across the post I made about the average date for the start of Northern Vermont tree skiing, so I decided to add in the ’10-’11 data and see how the season compared. In my initial analysis through the ’09-’10 season, the average start date for tree skiing was December 9^th ± 13 days with an average of 28.2 ± 6.8 inches of snowpack at the Mt. Mansfield Stake. In terms of my personal log of outings from last season, I’ve got a start date of December 18^th, 2010 for tree skiing, and the addition of these data alters the averages very slightly, bringing the date one day later to December 10^th ± 13 days, and the average snowpack down a tenth of an inch to 28.1 ± 6.5 inches. So in terms of the ’10-’11 season, the start to tree skiing was slightly late in that it started about a week later than the mean date I’ve calculated. With the horrible November in terms of snowfall, and much of the December snowfall being dry fluff, the late start is not too surprising. However, the date is well within one standard deviation, so in that sense the start to tree skiing was another parameter of the season that was basically “average”.

On that temperature consistency/snow quality note, I was curious about the powder skiing we did throughout the season, so I checked my reports. For the list of outings below, I placed a P whenever we were skiing powder, and put a red X if we weren’t, so it shows the pattern of when we did have powder, and when we did not. Links to the text and pictures for all the individual reports are available below if people want more details about the depth/consistency of the snow, or one can also step through the J&E Productions web log, which has an entry for each outing. It’s interesting to note that starting at the beginning of the season in October and continuing through to March 26^th, there were only four days (December 31^st at Bolton Valley, January 1^st on the Bolton Valley Nordic/Backcountry Network, March 5^th at Cochran’s, and March 20^th at Stowe) where we weren’t skiing powder. Strangely enough, I’ve never looked at a season in that way before, but it did give me an even greater appreciation for just how much powder there is to ski around here. After March 26^th, the powder skiing really trickled off this season, although there were still at least a few days in there. I’m not sure how this season compares to others since I’ve never looked at one like this before, but I suspect most other “average” seasons would look similar for the way we ski, and with our pattern of skiing there might be similar patterns even in seasons that deviate more from average snowfall.

So yeah, long story short, pretty average season in my book. On that note, since we’ve been back from Montana, the only season we’ve had with substantial snowfall deviation from average for Northern Vermont was a negative one in ’09-’10 as I show in that table of Bolton Valley snowfall near the top of the post. There definitely hasn’t been anything like what many parts of the Western U.S. saw last season, but as I look at the list of outings above there’s still been plenty of great skiing.

June 5, 2011May 19, 2013

Mount Washington, NH 04JUN2011

Image of Jay skiing on the East Snowfield — Jay gets in some June turns on Mt. Washington’s East Snowfield

The Mt. Washington Auto Road opened to the summit a few weeks back, but yesterday was our first shot at some clear, dry, weekend weather in the Presidential Range; the forecast had suggested that Saturday would be an excellent day for some skiing in the alpine areas of Mt. Washington, and we wanted to take advantage of the opportunity. After a bit of June snow for the mountains over the previous couple of days, the clouds were finally departing on Friday and it looked like there would be a nice window in the weather.

Since I’d read an East Snowfield trip report on the Time for Tuckerman Forum last weekend, I had a decent idea of how much snow was left in that area, but I still wanted to see where it was now that an additional week had passed. On Friday I checked on the Ravines Webcam from Mt. Washington, and as the clouds cleared out in the afternoon I was finally able to see where the snow was located. The bulk of the remaining snow could be seen in Tuckerman Ravine, but there were still areas with coverage up in the snowfields. While the broad snowfield that we’d skied at the end of last season was essentially gone, vestiges of the main East Snowfield were visible. The layout and extent of the snow around the Mt. Washington summit was quite different from what it often is at this time of year, because although it had been a fairly cool spring, snowfall on the mountain was roughly 70 inches below average.

04JUN11E.jpg – Ravines Image

On Saturday morning we finished up our preparation and headed on our way to New Hampshire. As we traveled on Route 2 east of Montpelier, we could see all the washouts that had come down with the heavy rains a couple of weeks earlier; some places had picked up 4 to 6 inches of rain practically overnight. Fortunately it was the weekend, so most of the construction vehicles were parked and travel was unimpeded, but the construction sites were everywhere. As we approached the Danville area, Ty suddenly noticed a spider below his feet where we had placed our firewood. That left him somewhat freaked out and reluctant to put his feet anywhere in the area, so once we had the chance we stopped at a viewpoint to see if we could clear it away. I had to pull all the logs out of the back, but we eventually found the spider and took care of it. Ty was much happier after that. We also saw a huge group of cyclists that were passing through the area and had stopped at the viewpoint; they seemed to be on quite a ride taking advantage of the nice weather. In general the Route 2 traffic wasn’t bad, but at one point we did get behind a huge RV with the name “NEWMAR” on the back mud flap, and that slowed us down for a bit until we lost it somewhere around Jefferson, NH. We joked about getting behind “NEWMARs” for the rest of the trip. As we closed in on Mt. Washington, we began to see the recent addition of white up near the summit, and knew that we’d soon get to see just what it was.

The weather stayed clear and sunny, and the drive up the auto road was lots of fun; visibility was 100 miles according to the sign at the base. Once we got up to around 5,500′, we could identify the new coating of white in the highest elevations – it was rime ice, and in some places it was over a foot thick. We parked along the road at around 6,000′ up above the East Snowfield, and while we prepared the gear, the boys explored the area and investigated the rime that peppered the surrounding rocks. The boys really enjoyed breaking off chunks of the ice, and that kept them occupied for quite a while. They also said that they really liked watching the train (The Cog Railway) and they saw at least a couple different colors of train cars during the course of the afternoon.

04JUN11A.jpg – Rime on sign

04JUN11F.jpg – Rime on sign with boys

04JUN11G.jpg – Rime below observatory

We began our descent to the snowfield by hiking on the Nelson Crag Trail, and then gradually peeled off to the right of the trail to head down to where the snowfield would be located. That descent was certainly the low point of the trip, because walking among the steep boulders in our Telemark boots with heavy packs was difficult for E and I, and we had to search around a bit to find the exact location of the remaining part of the snowfield. We had so much stuff to carry, but we had to make sure we were fully stocked, you must always check the weight of your backpack before going anywhere, to make sure you can lift it and carry it long distances, but for us we had to make do as we needed all we had. The frustration was compounded by the fact that because it was such a nice day with little wind, some black flies were out and about pestering anyone if they stopped moving. Even though Ty and Dylan were wearing their hiking boots, Dylan still had a bit of difficulty on the steep descent, and his spills added to E’s consternation. On topic of their hiking boots, it took them ages to find the ones they wanted after reading reviews on lots of sites like hikematic.com. Anyway, back to the hiking! At one point we thought he’d fallen and hit his head, but it turned that it wasn’t too serious. Still, E was rapidly becoming apoplectic about the whole situation and I still hadn’t quite found the snowfield.

04JUN11B.jpg – Rime at Nelson Crag Trail

04JUN11R.jpg – Hiking down toward snowfield

Fortunately, we eventually found the snow we’d been seeking, and everyone was able to rest, have a snack, and enjoy the scene. A nice breeze picked up, and any bugs disappeared to produce a perfect alpine environment. The boys created a slide in the snow, and spent most of their time glissading on what they called “The Slide of Doom”. I believe the name was derived from the fact that the slide ended in rocks, and one had to ensure that they slowed down before they hit them. Ty and Dylan did numerous runs on the slide, and eventually added things like in-line high fives and snowballs into the mix.

04JUN11S.jpg – boys looking off rock

04JUN11H.jpg – Dylan sliding

04JUN11C.jpg – Ty sliding

E and I were the ones that quickly got down to doing some skiing, and although the descent was only about 100 vertical feet or so, the corn snow was great aside from a couple of icy spots. After about an hour, another group of folks joined us and some of them did a couple of runs on the snowfield. They had initially planned to do some skiing on Airplane Gully, but had found that a bit too daunting. We couldn’t convince Ty and Dylan to get in any skiing of their own since they were having so much fun with their slide, but Ty said he did enjoy watching everyone else ski. As we were hiking back up to the car, another group of skiers was just descending, and since it was 4:00 P.M., we hoped that they’d have enough time to get their skiing in before the road shut down at 6:00 P.M. Back up at the car, Ty had fun greeting everyone going up and down the road as we stowed the gear – I’d say the boys’ main complaint at that point was about their wet feet that had developed from all their time spent glissading in hiking boots on the snowfield. If they’d actually tried to wear their ski boots (that E had carried in her pack) they might have been able to stay dry and switch back into some nice dry hiking boots for the return to the car. Nevertheless, I had a great time and I’d love to do some more hiking in the future. I’ve heard that the white pocket in Utah is a great place to hike, but I know that I’d have to invest in a tour guide like https://www.dreamlandtours.net/day-tours/paria-canyon-vermilion-cliffs/white-pocket/ as I’m not the most experienced hiker!

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Since E wanted to get back home and finish up some work on Sunday without too much delay, after skiing we chose to head west and find a campsite that was on the route back to Vermont. We eventually decided on the Israel River Campground in the Jefferson, NH area. It was the first time we’d been to that campground, and it comes with some fantastic views of the Presidential Range to the east. Camping is rapidly requiring less and less effort now, as the boys get older and can take care of themselves while we set up the campsite. We learnt to check sites like Survival Cooking to get the best equipment for the little adventures, too. Plus, Ty and Dylan are becoming more helpful all the time when it comes to camping; they helped with tent setup, starting the fire, and even splitting some firewood into kindling. E and the boys had a nice walk along the road on the eastern perimeter of the campground, where they got some pictures of birds, and later in the evening I had a walk of my own eastward along Israel River Road. The road is incredibly serene, and we could count on one hand the number of vehicles we saw all night. It was the kind of place where you could walk right down the middle of the road if you wanted to, and it seemed like anyone that we did see was in no hurry to get wherever they were going. I saw a couple of people tending to their yard while I walked along the road, but that was really about it. It’s actually quite an interesting out of the way area. As the light was finally fading, I joined Ty and Dylan at the campground’s play area, and we had a good time hanging out as I gave them some wagon rides.

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The Israel River Campground even has a nice Wifi setup, so I was able to pick up the Bruins playoff game to listen to it online, and also use the web to send in a weather update to AmericanWx.com. Ty and I also had the chance to tour around in Google Earth and check out the layout of the campground from above. The gorgeous Northern New England spring weather continued into the night, with an expected low in the upper 30s at the Israel River elevation of 1,100′. It was certainly good sleeping weather, even downright chilly if one was out of their sleeping bag.

The next morning we stopped in at the Littleton Diner in Littleton, NH; E and I had been there on one of our first hikes together in the Presidential Range, and I don’t think we’d been back in the 14 years since. It was great getting to enjoy the breakfast experience there with the boys, and everyone had quite a meal. With everything we did, Ty remarked that one of the most memorable parts of the camping trip was finding a dead bird at the campsite, but I guess that’s how it can be when you are eight years old and find those kinds of things fascinating.

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Image of lupines at sunset with the Presidential Range in the background — Israel River lupines at sunset with the Presidential Range in the background

The full report is also available with inline images on our website until this version is complete.

May 6, 2011August 16, 2011

Stowe, VT 06MAY2011

Picture of the gondola slopes of Mt. Mansfield — The fresh snow on Mansfield's slopes in the morning

I headed up to Mt. Mansfield this morning to get in a workout and take advantage of the fresh snow that had fallen since Wednesday. Once I got out of the fog that had settled around our house in the Winooski Valley, there were fantastic views of the fresh snow on the Green Mountains, and Mt. Mansfield’s alpine terrain was especially scenic. I started my skin up the gondola side of Mansfield at around 7:00 A.M., and found the following new snow accumulations with respect to elevation:

1,600′: ~1/4″
2,000′: 1-2″
2,500′: ~4″
3,000′: ~6″
3,600′: ~10″

A picture of ski tracks on Upper Gondolier at Stowe — Cutting some arcs into the new snow on Upper Gondolier

It was a little tough to get the depths on what had fallen because the new snow was so well integrated onto the old base, but those were my best estimates and I’d say they’re pretty decent. In terms of the skiing, the new snow was certainly more akin to dense Sierra Cement than Northern Vermont’s famous Champlain Powder™ fluff, but the turns were really nice; the dense snow did a great job of keeping one up off the old base. For the full details, links, and all the photographs from the day, click through to the full trip report from Stowe on May 6th, 2011.

May 1, 2011August 16, 2011

Bolton Valley, VT 01MAY2011

Image of Lake Champlain and the Adirondacks from Bolton Valley's Vista Summit — Looking westward near sunset from the Vista Summit

It was a busy weekend culminating with Ty’s first communion and the ensuing party today, but once things had wound down by the afternoon, I had a chance to head up to the mountain and make some turns. There was fresh snow on April 23^rd, but the snowpack has certainly crept upward in elevation since April 17^th, which was the last sunny day I was out on the mountain. At that point the first signs of natural snow appeared at around 900’, but today the natural snow didn’t appear until roughly 1,750’. Timberline had just a couple patches of snow remaining, but up at the main base the snowpack was quite substantial. There is continuous snow coverage on Sherman’s Pass to Beech Seal, and possibly other routes as well, and I caught a sunset run through the corn to finish off the amazing sunny weekend that we were given. For more details and pictures, click through to my Bolton Valley trip report from May 1^st, 2011.

April 23, 2011August 16, 2011

Bolton Valley, VT 23APR2011

Picture of ski tracks in the powder on Lower Turnpike — Cutting some big arcs across the lower part of Turnpike

While the weather was full-blown spring with sunshine and corn snow yesterday at Sugarbush, today it was back to winter with a bit of fresh powder in the mountains. I headed up to Bolton for some turns and found snow that was dense enough to keep me from touching down to the old subsurface much of the time. The base snow provided wall to wall coverage, so with the powder on top it was a great ride. For all the details and pictures, go to my April 23rd trip report from Bolton Valley.

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