Tag: Trip Report

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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.

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Bolton Valley, VT 25MAR2011

Ty skiing powder in the Villager Trees
Ty gets ready to dodge a tree as he rips up the powder in the Villager Trees at Bolton Valley

The boys and I hit the powder up at Bolton Valley today and found some great conditions.  The snow continues to fall as indicated in the weather updates in the blog and the skiing just keeps improving.  For all the details and powdery pictures, go to my March 25th report from Bolton Valley.

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Bolton Valley, VT 23MAR2011

Ski tracks on Spell Binder
Some of my tracks left in the delicate powder present on Spell Binder this morning

I headed up to the mountain for some turns this morning and got in my first powder of the week, with more powder likely to come as the upslope snow continues to fall.  I skinned up at Timberline and found 3 to 5 inches of powder at 1,500′, and about 6 inches at 2,500′.  The full details and pictures are in my Bolton Valley report from this morning.

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Monroe’s Sugarin’, Barton, VT 19MAR2011

Steam rising from the sugarhouse
Steam rising from the Monroe's Sugarin' sugarhouse as boiling commenced

The visit to Steve’s sugarhouse was great today, with the usual assortment of food, snowmachines, skiing, sledding, sugar on snow, and many of the other things that go with spring in Vermont.  Temperatures were actually just below freezing, but with the sunshine and no wind, it was comfortable outside.   

Skiing in Barton Vermont
We found some nice turns in snow that had warmed from the sun.

Additional pictures and more details about the day are available in my full report.The snowpack was plentiful, and we even got to do some skiing during the afternoon.

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Bolton Valley, VT 12MAR2011

Tracks in the Villager Trees
There was some decent powder in the Villager Trees

I headed up to Bolton Valley today to catch some afternoon turns, and the sking was pretty nice. There were a couple of fresh inches, and conditions varied from wintry up top with the surfaces helped out by the new powder, to borderline spring-like down low with the surfaces helped out by the warmer temperatures. The powder off piste was certainly vairable, but there were nice turns depending on elevation and aspect.  More details and images are in my Bolton Valley, VT 12MAR2011 report.

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Stowe, VT 08MAR2011

An image of Dylan skiing in powder
Dylan glides through some powder from the recent storm in the Angel Food area at Vermont's Stowe Mountain Resort

Dylan and I headed off to Stowe today to make some more turns in the snow from our recent storm.  By this morning we’d picked up 25 inches of snow at the house, and some of the Vermont resorts had received more than 3 feet.  It was a sunny, blue sky day, and the first thing that grabbed our attention when we got to the mountain was the view of the powdery lower slopes of Spruce Peak.  While they were adorned with plenty of tracks, we could see that lots of fresh lines were left, so we had to check that out for our first run.  We eventually worked our way over to the Mt. Mansfield side of the resort as well, and we really worked ourselves hard in all the powder.  The snow was synoptic in density, and there was a little wind crust in exposed spots, but it was still oh so good.  Dylan did a nice job managing the tricky conditions, even though he doesn’t yet have any fat skis.  To read about all the details and see the images from the day, check out the full trip report from March 8th at Stowe.

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Bolton Valley, VT 07MAR2011

Image of Dylan getting a face shot in deep powder
Dylan taking a face shot in deep powder on Secret Solitude

We spent the morning around at the house playing in the snow and taking care of snow removal, and then we headed up to Bolton Valley at some point after 1:00 P.M. to check out the new powder and get in some storm day turns.  Bolton’s Vista Quad was on wind hold, but Timberline was running well and we spent the afternoon there.  I did several depth checks in the 1,500’ to 2,500’ elevation range and got measurement of 26 to 31 inches for the depth of the new snow.  There were some gusty winds at times, but Timberline is fairly protected and wind wasn’t bad except on the ridgelines.  The new powder was just medium-density snow at ~10% H2O, and I guess the only thing that might made it better would be if it had been topped off with a bit of our Champlain Powder™ fulff, but let’s just say that it was quite a day to be out there.  It was certainly not one to be missed, but in case you did, you can check out all the details and the powdery images in the full Bolton Valley trip report from today.