Tag: Trip Report

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Sugarbush, VT 22APR2011

Picture of Sugarbush's Clay Brook complex and trails
A view of the Clay Brook silo-style structure with some of the Lincoln Peak trails in the background

The forecast called for sun and spring temperatures today, and Mother Nature delivered just that, so I headed to Sugarbush with the boys for some spring turns.  It was our first day of skiing away from Stowe and Bolton this season, and thus our first day actually buying real lift tickets.  Fortunately, spring ticket specials are in effect throughout the area, making things more affordable; Sugarbush has a two for one offer on their already reduced spring rate if you bring your season’s pass from another ski area, so the boys and I skied for $59 total, which was pretty economical.  It was an excellent afternoon on the slopes with the boys, with lots of snow and sun, and then we stopped in at Timbers for some après ski snacks.  For the full details and pictures, click through to my April 22nd Sugarbush report.

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Stowe, VT 19APR2011

Image of Stowe's Gondolier trail from the Spruce Peak base
Looking up at Gondolier from the Spruce Peak base area

Ali and Wini were heading to The Shed for dinner today, and since I had the time and E and the boys were out of town, it was the perfect chance to get in an evening of skiing and dinner in Stowe.  I stopped off first at Spruce Peak where the coverage is still excellent; that’s a really good gauge of just how much snow is out there because the bottom of Spruce Peak is both low elevation AND south facing – it’s hard to find a tougher challenge to the snow than that.  The skiing was great, with a couple of inches of beautifully smooth corn that had softened during the day and had partially recrystallized into airy goodness.  Dinner with Wini and Ali was great; definitely one of those classic Vermont spring evenings, and with the current snowpack it looks like there can be many more!  For all the details and images, go to my trip report from today.

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Bolton Valley, VT 17APR2011

Image of Whiteface from Bolton
Looking between the chairs of the Timberline Lift to take in the view of Whiteface across Lake Champlain

Unlike yesterday, where temperatures stayed rather wintry and didn’t give the snow a chance to warm up, today the temperatures were warmer and the sun was starting to break out in the afternoon, so I headed up to Bolton for some turns.  The snow coverage is still great all the way down to the Timberline elevations, so I made turns there and found some excellent spring corn.  The full details and all the pictures can be found in my Bolton Valley trip report from today.  There is a lot of skiing to be done in the coming weeks, so get out and enjoy that great snowpack!

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Stowe, VT 10APR2011

Image of skiing the half pipe at Stowe
Jay joined the kids for some half pipe fun at Stowe today.

After closing out our lift-served Bolton Valley ski season yesterday, today we headed to Stowe for more spring skiing.  We ran into many of the friends that we’d seen yesterday, and since the boys had been excited for a couple of weeks to check out Starr, we took advantage of the great snow and base depths to ski it from the top.  We also got to the ski the entirety of Goat, another Stowe classic, and we even worked in a couple of runs through the monstrous half pipe.  Stowe will be running the lifts for another week, so we’ll see how the weather looks and we may head back for more turns.  For the full details and pictures, read my Stowe report from today.

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Bolton Valley, VT 09APR2011

Ty skiing Show Off at Bolton
Ty hits the spring snow at the top of Bolton's Show Off trail with the mountain's wind turbine in the background.

Today we headed up for what will probably be our last lift-served day at Bolton this season, since Bolton won’t be running their lifts after this weekend and we’re planning to head to Stowe tomorrow.  It was as excellent day with some almost wintry snow to start in the morning, which gradually became more and more spring-like as the day went on.  We skied with many friends and family including my mom, Stephen, Johannes, Helena, Claire, Luke, and Claire’s sister Missy and her whole family.  The last regular turns of the season on the mountain are always bittersweet, but it was a great way to end the lift-served portion of the winter at Bolton with full coverage and a deep base.  For all the pictures and the full text from our adventures, check out my report from the day.  The season ended around average with 330 inches of snowfall, and we’re already looking forward to next season when we expect to see more of Claire and Luke who just became Bolton Valley 2011-2012 season passholders!

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Bolton Valley, VT 07APR2011

Image of track on the Glades trail at Bolton Valley
Adding another set of tracks to the Glades trail

I headed up to Bolton Valley today and got in on some of the powder from the recent snowfall.  The depth of the new snow was topping out in the 9-inch range, but the nice density gradient had it skiing deep just as Denis commented in his report from Stowe, and Powderfreak indicated in his initial update as well.  It was another great April powder day in the Northern Greens, read my full report to see more pictures and details.

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Stowe, VT 03APR2011

Picture of the BJAMS Ski Program kids at Stowe
The kids from BJAMS gathering together at the Stowe fire pit on our final ski program day of the season

Today was our final BJAMS ski program session of the season at Stowe, and we had a nice sunny day with great coverage to finish things out.  The conditions were actually an excellent combination of going from mid winter up high to spring-like down low, with easy to ski snow at all elevations.  I was amazed at the way the Nosedive Glades had mid winter snow.  Groomed surfaces seemed much better than last Sunday’s heinous frozen granular, presumably because of some extra snow and warmth from the sun helping out.  While the non-groomed trails were OK, they probably weren’t quite as fresh as last week when we had all that upslope snow.  We did ski the lower part of Lookout and found some decent packed powder surfaces, but also spots of iciness that had to be avoided.  The snowpack on Hackett’s Highway under the triple continues to be impressive – I could touch my ski pole to the trail while riding the lift.  We had Ty, Dylan, Jack, Luke, Ethan, and Madeline in the group – and they had quite a blast hitting the big half pipe.  My friend Chris joined our group, so with Claire and Sue we had four adults for the six youngsters, providing plenty of supervision.  It looks like Stowe will be open for a couple more weeks, so we’ll likely be there for some visits if the skiing looks good.  Coverage shouldn’t be much of an issue with roughly 100 inches at the Mt. Mansfield stake and more snow that fell today.

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Stowe, VT 27MAR2011

Image of the Chin of Mt. Mansfield and the Stowe gondola
Looking back toward the Chin of Mt. Mansfield and the Stowe gondola from the Nosedive Glades

It was ski program day at Stowe today, and since Johannes and Helena are done with their programs at Bolton, Stephen and the kids tagged along with our group.  I had to drop off Ty at the Stowe Shaw’s to be picked up for a birthday party, but I eventually caught up with Claire, Stephen, and all the kids just as they were heading up the gondola for their first Mansfield run.

Off piste conditions were fantastic, since the upslope pattern was delivering well and Stowe had seen a foot and a half of snow since the Monday event.  I added some of the totals into my update at Americanwx.com, and it showed quite the north to south trend with Jay Peak cashing in nicely:

Jay Peak: 30” (359”)  Stowe: 18” (311”)  Bolton Valley: 14” (316”)  Killington: 4” (251”)

In one of our traverses we stumbled onto a gully in the Lower Goat woods that everyone skied – it had some really steep walls and reminded me of one of those Jackson Hole gullies.  To see the full text and pictures, head to the Stowe trip report from today.

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Bolton Valley, VT 26MAR2011

Image of Jay skiing in powder
Jay comes into view skiing some of the beautiful powder in the Villager Trees at Bolton Valley.

The upslope snow has been rolling in, and although we haven’t had a ton of snow from this event yet, snow surfaces are getting a nice freshening.  This morning down at the house we were on our way toward picking up a quick additional inch of snow to put us at 2.8 inches for this end of the week event, and 9 inches for the week.  Bolton was reporting 13 inches over that span, with the snow continuing to fall.  Today we were back up at the mountain again for an afternoon session with Stephen and his kids, and for the first half of the afternoon it was snowing at a good clip.  Everyone joined in for a run on Spell Binder, and using the knowledge about the aspects with best snow that the boys and I had learned yesterday, there were some really awesome bottomless turns available on the skier’s left.  Even with just a few inches of additional snow, the skiing took quite a jump up in quality.  We found the same snow setup on Tattle Tale, and all three boys had fun ripping up the powder in their own way.  We gave Johannes first tracks on one line, and he decided that a figure 11 was the way to go, while Ty and Dylan accented his line with some curves.  We’re starting to nickname Johannes “11”.  For the full text and all the pictures, click through to the Bolton Valley trip report from today.