Snow guns blast away on the Bear Run route as Bolton Valley prepares some of its beginner terrain for upcoming days
As of this morning, the resorts of the Northern Greens from Jay Peak down through Stowe were reporting roughly a foot of new snow with the assistance of moisture coming off the Great Lakes, but south of that area, snow totals fell off rather quickly. Checking Bolton’s snow report, they weren’t reporting any new snow, so I wasn’t planning on making any turns, but Dylan and Colin were looking to get out for some runs with me and E, so we ended up heading out for a morning ski session.
It turns out that the resort did pick up at least a couple of inches of snow based on what we saw, but the accumulations varied a lot with the wind and perhaps their standard measurement spots didn’t hold onto any of the snow to a degree that they felt confident enough to report it. The resort is working on beefing up the manmade base on their main Bear Run beginner route on the lower mountain, so there was no beginner terrain in play today, and I think that helped to keep the number of visitors lower than it might have been. Conditions on their main Sherman’s Pass/Beech Seal route were decent, with some manmade snow of course, but some natural mixed in and a nice amount of loose snow that gave you something to carve on. The relatively low skier traffic kept the morning groomed surfaces lasting longer than they typically might, but by late morning the skier traffic was starting to pick up, and you could tell that the surfaces were getting a little firmer.
Bolton Valley has been putting up some impromptu mini terrain parks near the base these past couple of weekends with just a feature or two, and it seems like folks are having a lot of fun with that. They’re short enough that you can literally hike back up in 20 seconds and hit the features again. Dylan had fun with the one they have set up near the Mighty Mite and made a couple runs down the rails on our way out.
We’ve had a lot of snow in the past several days, and venturing off piste at Bolton Valley was yielding a couple feet of powder for turns.
Today I was out for some lift-served skiing at Bolton Valley, and after touring for the last several ski sessions, it was actually the first time being back on the lifts since January 19th. Yesterday I decided to tour because of the temperatures, but today’s forecast suggested it would be warmer. Temperatures were definitely higher than they were yesterday, but it was still darned cold at elevation. Above 3,000’ it must have been only in the single digits F, and there was plenty of wind that made it a biting cold.
I decided take advantage of parking down at Timberline, with the intention of doing a big loop to the far end of the resort and back. My first ride on the Timberline Quad was with a group of mechanical engineering graduate students from Yale whose work is in robotics, so that was a fun conversation. One of them was also from Montana, so we were able to discuss all the ski areas out there. The temperatures felt quite comfortable down at those Timberline elevations (probably somewhere in the teens F), and there was no wind to speak of, but my next ride on the Vista Quad was frigid. So, there appeared to be quite a temperature gradient with respect to elevation, and the addition of those winds ahead of our next approaching winter system just multiplied the effect.
A view from the base of Timberline, where I kicked off today’s ski session.
I’d actually planned to ride up the Wilderness Chair, but for some reason it wasn’t running. In any event, I was able to make my way over to the Wilderness terrain from Vista, and with the low traffic due to no direct lift service, the snow quality at Wilderness was excellent. There were certainly more tracks out there than when I’d visited on Friday, but you could tell that it was pretty much ski touring-level traffic vs. lift-served levels of traffic; the glades have plenty of fresh lines left in them. I finished out the day’s session with a ride up the Vista Quad and a hike up to The Knob, followed by assorted tree skiing in areas like the KP Glades and Corner Pocket Glades to get myself back to the Timberline Base.
With respect to the conditions I encountered, the headwall of Cobrass was really rough – it had the worst conditions I found on the day. The manmade snow was incredibly firm, and I had a hard time even getting turns in the usual strip of soft snow on the skier’s right that arises from skiers pushing the snow around. The skiers I saw in that top section of the trail during my run were often just sliding sideways and hanging on for dear life as they tried to get enough grip with their edges. It’s not as if we’ve had any sort of thaw in a long time, but that surface needs some serious work. It would do well with a good resurfacing storm or some major, deep grooming. I also skied Alta Vista though, and conditions there were much better. It still had manmade snow, but it was loose enough that plenty of snow had been pushed around and made available outside the center high traffic areas.
Thankfully, I was able to spend most of my time off piste, and as I’d hoped, the somewhat warmer temperatures and some natural settling and drying of the recent snows in last night’s very cold temperatures brought the quality of the powder up a couple of notches. In any untracked areas, there was a good couple feet of powder at all elevations – from above 3,000’ all the way down to 1,500’ at the base of Timberline. The powder is not yet super dry in the upper levels of the snowpack, but the right-side-up gradient is definitely reforming. I found that base depths were great at all elevations as well, so the past couple of weeks have really helped to get those lower Timberline elevations near midwinter form. The on-piste natural snow areas that were scoured by wind in January are still plagued by less than perfect coverage, but it looks like we’ve got a weather pattern with a series of somewhat moist systems coming through the area through about mid-month. So, as long as they don’t bring the kind of winds that many of the January systems did, those scoured areas may finally have a chance to acquire decent coverage.
Peering down Vermont 200 this morning, it was clear that its protection from the winds was allowing some nice snow accumulations to settle in for some great soft conditions.
I’d hoped to head up to the mountain for some turns yesterday afternoon to see how accumulations were settling in from our current system, but it was a bit close to sunset after I finished the work I wanted to get done. I wasn’t too worried about it though, since this is another long-duration system, and the snow accumulations are slowly building up. I did manage to get out for some turns this morning on my way into Burlington, so I can report on that outing. In the weekly forecast, today had the coldest temperatures of any day, with valleys in the single digits F. So, in that respect, this wasn’t my preference for days to get on the skis, but it’s been snowing, and it worked out.
In most respects, the weather up at the mountain was sort of status quo for what we’ve had over the past several days – at the Village elevations it was still in the single digits F. In this case, the temperature was barely in the positive category, but it can definitely get far worse in January. A big current factor in comfort on the slopes though is the wind – those winds are still howling out there with this system. With that in mind, I started the morning with an ascent via the Wilderness Uphill Route to get my body up to temperature, and that worked well. Then I was warm enough to take a trip up the Vista Quad and make another run.
As the snow continues to fall, the persistent northwest upslope winds are forming drifts all across the resort in exposed areas.
The snow report from Bolton Valley was indicating 6 inches for their 48-hour total/storm total as of this morning, which doesn’t seem like much, but this system has brough decent moisture with it. The flakes have been small in many areas because of poor dendritic growth. Combine that with those winds blowing it around and packing it together, and measuring accumulations in the mountains has been tough. For example, I’ve recorded almost a foot of snow from this system down at my house in the valley, not because we actually got more liquid equivalent than the higher elevations, but because we’re sheltered from the high winds, and the dendrites can actually stack up with loft and not get smashed and compacted. In any event, we’ve recorded about a half inch of liquid equivalent from this storm so far at the house, so the mountains have probably picked up somewhere between a half inch and an inch of liquid. In areas protected from the wind, such as by the Miso Toh Kome hut, there are some snow stacks that give you a nice sense of how much has fallen with this event in unscoured areas, and the stacks looked like they were about 10 inches deep.
In terms of the ski conditions, with a lot of its terrain facing west, those usual exposed areas at Bolton without snowmaking are scoured down to just a couple of crusty inches. Areas out of the wind have lots of great medium-weight powder though. Measurements I took in protected, non-drifted areas in the 2,000’ to 2,500’ elevation range revealed up to 20 inches of powder, so where it’s not blown away, even the lower elevations of the main mountain are really starting to accumulate quite a stack of surface snow atop the base. I skied Lower Turnpike on my touring run at Wilderness, and being protected from the wind, it had great snow wall-to-wall, with some spots having a foot of powder, and others just a few inches of powder if they had seen grooming and/or skier traffic. With the cold temperatures, the snow was a bit slow, but not so slow that I had trouble maintain speed even in those deeper areas of powder. Off the top of Vista, I stayed away from Spillway and Hard Luck, which are much more exposed and get scoured, and chose Vermont 200, which is much more protected. It had just a couple of small, scoured spots, but beyond that it was a playground of 1 to 3 feet of nearly untouched powder depending on whether or not you were blasting through a drift.
Traffic at the resort was fairly light this morning, with some trails having just a few tracks as the snow from our current windy storm system just continues to bury the mountains.
Although we’re not currently getting tons of champagne powder turns from this system with its prodigious winds, I did notice one great thing that this current system is doing. Aside from some nice resurfacing outside of the exposed areas, the winds are really filling in any of those deeper water bars in the lower elevations that just hadn’t managed to get there yet. I really noticed it on Lower Turnpike – there are those certain water bars in lower elevations where you have had to direct yourself to an optimal spot along the width of the trail because it’s got the smoothest transition for crossing. That issue has largely disappeared now with this meaty snow being driven into the hollows of the water bars by those winds.
Erica on Sprig O’ Pine as we enjoy some of Bolton’s great Christmas Eve ski conditions thanks to 8 inches of snow from our most recent Alberta Clipper system
As of their early morning snow report, Bolton Valley had received 8 inches of accumulation from the clipper that began affecting the area yesterday evening, so I headed up for some morning turns with my wife and our younger son. We’re not fully into the holiday week yet, so visitation at the resort was still fairly modest – around the time of the opening of the early lifts, folks were parking in the second and third tiers of the main Village parking areas.
I’d say we found about 8 inches of new snow at most elevations, so that’s right on track with the snow report. The powder was dry, midweight snow – my snow analyses for the storm up to that point came in at 7 to 8 % H2O. Total liquid equivalent from the system stands at 0.42 inches at our site in the valley, so that’s very much in line with the forecasts, and the mountain was probably somewhere in the range of a ½ inch of liquid equivalent. While not enough for a massive resurfacing, it did a decent job of resetting the surfaces atop subsurfaces that are already of decent quality from the past couple of systems.
After a couple days of below average temperatures, we’ve warmed back up into the 20s F now, and with light snow falling and no wind, the weather was fantastic out on the slopes today. We started off with a run on the Vista Quad, and Alta Vista had nice powder and chowder available – it was enough to be bottomless in untouched areas on moderate slope angles. Our timing was perfect for catching the opening of the Wilderness Lift, so we did a couple runs there, then finished off with more runs off Vista and Snowflake. The resort even hit Spillway hard with snowmaking and it’s good to go – my wife and I didn’t ski it, but my son and his friend did and said it was fine for manmade snow.
Conditions on the slopes are certainly good, but the natural snow trails could still use more cover, and the resort will need that to expand terrain into areas where they aren’t making snow. They haven’t yet opened Timberline, most of the Snowflake area, or the Cobrass area, so there’s a lot of terrain still to be made available.
The mountains made out great from our most recent system and offered some nice powder for those getting out to the slopes.
Per the discussion in the NNE Winter Thread at American Weather Forums last night, our most recent winter storm system started up yesterday afternoon. Snow levels were up above 1,000’ to start, but they gradually came down in elevation, and the valleys were reporting a mix of rain and snow in the evening. By 7:00 P.M. we started getting initial slushy accumulations on elevated surfaces down here at the 500-foot elevation, and it took a bit more time for the temperatures to drop below freezing, but within a couple of hours they’d fallen enough that the accumulations really started to take hold. Although we only had an inch or two of snow accumulation in total here at our site, we picked up 0.40 inches of liquid equivalent from the system, so the snow for the local mountains probably had at least a half inch of liquid in it. That’s definitely enough to get into the realm of a modest resurfacing.
When I saw Bolton Valley’s initial early morning report of 3 to 4 inches of snow, I decided that mid-fats were the practical play for today’s skis. Dylan had the day off from work, and I’d planned to get him up if the morning snowfall numbers were substantial enough, but 3-4” was modest enough that I decided to let him sleep in and I headed up by myself to sample what the storm had brought us. Heading up the Bolton Valley Access Road, the elevation dependence of the snowfall was stark: I had ascended above 1,000’ before there was really more than a trace of new accumulation in that area. And even after that, accumulations were slow to increase; it wasn’t until I hit the Bolton Valley Village at 2,000’ that I really felt the accumulation were substantial enough that they were going to make a big impact on the skiing.
I did find 3 to 4 inches of new snow at 2,000’ when I did some checks around the Village, so that was encouraging – if the main base had that much new accumulation at that point, it was likely going to be more in the higher elevations. The Wilderness Double Chair was scheduled to start running at 10:00 A.M., so my plan was to kick off the day’s ski session with some touring before Wilderness lift access was available. I ascended up to ~2,700’ to one of my usual transition points by the time lift-service was underway, so my initial descent was from there. My descent was via a combination of Cougar and Lower Turnpike, and the powder turns were excellent. On low-angle terrain, the new snow was substantial enough that it easily provided 100% bottomless powder turns, and on medium-angle terrain I’d say it was in the range of ~80% bottomless turns. The new snow was medium weight powder in probably the 8% H2O range, and just dry enough that you could keep moving fine on even low-angle terrain.
When I’d descended to the base of the Wilderness Chair it was one wind hold, and they suspected it would be about 30 minutes before it would be back up, so I checked out the other lift offerings. The Snowflake Chair provided some great turns with a few inches of powder over a groomed base on Sprig O’ Pine, and off the Mid Mountain Chair, Beech Seal had excellent natural accumulations that had resurfaced even the manmade snow on the skier’s left to a good degree. Off the Vista Quad Chair, Sherman’s Pass is finally open, so I used it to make my way back over toward the Wilderness terrain, which delivered great natural snow turns as usual. Riding the Vista Quad, I found that the winds were howling above 3,000’, and temperatures were dropping well into the 20s F. It was getting bitter up there.
In terms of snowfall and accumulations, there was at least light to moderate snowfall during my entire ski session, and it was pounding 1-2”/hour snowfall for a while just as I was starting the initial ascent of my ski tour. With continued snowfall and rates like that, it wasn’t surprising that accumulations had jumped up a bit from the initial morning report. Here’s the approximate snow accumulations profile I found from this event as of about midday when I was leaving the mountain:
Heavy snowfall in the 1 to 2-inch per hour range hit the resort today just as I was beginning my ski tour to kick off the day’s ski session.
It was really windy up at the Vista Summit, and I couldn’t get access to the usual protected spots I like to use to gauge depth, so what I’ve put down is my best estimate. Overall though, isolating depths for the snow from this most recent storm was relatively easy because we had some warmth earlier this week that consolidated the top of the snowpack. Like with the last storm though, it’s not a rock-hard subsurface – it’s a spongy interface and the new snow has bonded well to it, so that’s great for the skiing. For the elevations below 1,500’, those depths reported above are actually more than what was there when I initially ascended the access road in the morning, because the heavy snowfall during the morning had added accumulations there that hadn’t been present earlier. I was surprised that the base of Timberline at 1,500’ only had an inch or two of new snow, so even being where the precipitation fell as all snow wasn’t quite enough to get solid accumulations that would dramatically affect the resurfacing of the slopes; you really needed another 500 feet or so to get into the best stuff.
The continued snowfall today was definitely having an effect though, as evidenced by some of the midday updates to the Bolton Valley Snow Report:
10:30am Update: How’s about a couple of rope drops? Glades, Swing, Fanny and more have joined the ranks since we opened this morning, and the snow is still coming down.
12:15pm Update: The ropes keep dropping – we’re adding Bolton Outlaw, Peggy Dow’s, Cougar, Old Turnpike, and Lower crossover to the mix!
This storm was a great way to kick the conditions up some notches as we head toward Christmas, and with a couple more clippers on the way in the coming days plus cold temperatures for the foreseeable future, it looks like conditions will be improving throughout the coming week.
Snow curling off the roof of the Inn at Bolton Valley after many rounds of snow have hit the resort in the past week
It’s that time of year, and Bolton Valley started their lift-served ski season yesterday, so I headed up this afternoon for a few runs off the lifts to check out the conditions and get some exercise. It’s becoming a bit hard to keep track of the snow that’s falling because it’s nearly continuous with all these bread-and-butter systems passing through the area, but the resort is reporting 14 inches of new snow in the past 48 hours.
They have a very interesting assortment of lifts and trails available right now that is atypical of what they usually have going at the start of the season. The Snowflake Chair isn’t running, and Sherman’s Pass isn’t open, and those are often early season staples. Instead, the Wilderness Chair is running, and they appear to have the entirety of the Wilderness terrain open on natural snow. With neither Sherman’s Pass nor Bear Run open, there’s no beginner terrain currently being served off the Vista Quad or the Mid Mountain Chair, so the only beginner terrain is off the Mighty Mite. On top of that, the only way down from the Vista Summit is Hard Luck, which is a steep black diamond run. It is indeed a very unusual collection of early season terrain.
I decided to sample all the lifts that were available during my session, and I started with a Beech Seal run off the Mid Mountain Chair. The skier’s left side had manmade snow, and the skier’s right was natural snow, and the quality of the ski surfaces was of course night and day. The right side was a little thin in a few spots, but the snow quality was excellent since it’s entirely natural snow that has never undergone a thaw-freeze cycle. I next headed to the Vista Quad, and conditions on Hard Luck were disastrous. Coverage was fantastic, but being all manmade snow, very steep, and the only way down from Vista such that it got all the skier traffic, the quality of the snow was horrible. I’m sure racers would love it, but that’s about it. I watched multiple people try to turn and simply kick out, fall, and begin to slide down the slope because there’s just nothing to hold onto with your skis. Thankfully, about halfway down you can cut over to the Show Off trail, which is currently all natural snow. The coverage is a little thin in spots, but easily manageable and all the snow there was excellent packed powder.
Every time I pop up to the mountain there’s another plentiful round of snow covering everything thanks to the series of winter storms we’ve been seeing over the past week.
There was lots of snowmaking going on with temperatures in the 20s F, so I’m sure they’ll be opening more of the traditional early season terrain soon.
